For me, turning the compost pile is always the last chore on my gardening “to do” list. And frankly, it never gets done. That’s why we at mediaOrganic are always on the lookout for innovative, simple and, most importantly, inexpensive composter designs for the home gardener.
Garden compost tumblers are great for making small batches of black gold. Unfortunately, commercial garden compost tumblers tend to be pricey. Ads for commercial compost tumblers lead you to believe that they make compost faster. They don’t, at least compared to the theoretical well-managed compost pile. In practice, however, most of us don’t manage our compost heap at all, rather we just pile it high and hope nature will work its magic. This is where garden compost tumblers shine because they make managing the process of composting easier.
Whether you have a traditional compost bin or open pile, two critical elements to rapid composting are water and air. A garden compost tumbler helps in two ways. First, the tumbling action makes it easy to “turn the pile” to introduce air and redistribute the composting material. Second, the enclosed environment of the garden compost tumbler retains moisture and heat. The gardener just needs to add organic matter and give the tumbler a spin every so often.
A good compost tumbler should be easy to fill, and more importantly, easy to empty. Finally, it should be critter proof. There’s nothing worse that finding that a colony of wasps has made a nest inside your compost tumbler. Below are some designs that we feel should live up to our exacting standards without crippling your wallet.
This well-designed garden compost tumbler features a compact vertical orientation that makes it ideal for tight spaces.
Pros
- wide top opening for easy filling
- provides ample aeration
- well protected from animal and insect infestation
Cons
- vertical orientation concentrates the weight in one end which might make it more difficult to turn when filled compared to horizontal designs
- opening is too low to fit wheelbarrow underneath
Finally, this design works best with a barrel with a large removable sealing top (such as the one featured in this video). Other than that, we feel this is a good design using readily available materials that any reasonably handy person can execute.
*****
Here is a nicely constructed horizonatal compost tumbler featuring a simple labor saving hand crank.
Pros
- simple, innovative crank mechanism
- stable frame construction
- wheelbarrow fits underneath opening
- nice attention to details like the lip around the door
Cons
- opening should be larger
- three internal pipes might get in the way of a shovel
One thing I really like about this construction is the design of the custom side flanges which are flattened on two sides and set into the ends of the barrel. Without the flanges, the entire weight of the barrel would be borne by the relatively thin sidewall plastic which would eventually wear out-of-round over time making it increasingly difficult to rotate. The flattened flanges help to distribute the weight load along the strongest dimension of the sidewall and make it possible for the crank and pulley to rotate the axle.
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