Has anyone had any luck with these? It's the kind that has the base to collect compost tea and a doored barrel that rotates around on little wheels set in the base. I got one and I think the problem is it's not getting enough air. The only inlet for air is the door and the little slices that let the compost tea out (but they're at the bottom, against the base). What I really think should have turned into good compost is more a bunch of lumps of grass, like dog you-know-whats, and I'm getting competing info on what I can do to remedy it. It's not hot, so I should add greens -- but all that grass in there IS green! I'll probably start a "real" compost heap with this and start over. Dadgummit. Any suggestions?
barrel type composter
brigid, I tried one of these, but gave up on it. I couldn't ever get it to do anything but sit there. I finally resorted to buying 4 big plastic garbage cans. We fill up three and leave one empty. Every weekend we rotate them all by dumping one into the empty one a little at a time and stiring each addition with the pitch fork as we go. I've thrown in a few handfuls of fertilizer, a little water, a few shovels full of dirt and a beer for good measure. The beer is supposed to make the microbes break it down faster. My DH says it's a waste of a perfectly good beer. We keep the lids on to help the heat build up and the bugs and rodents out. Anytime it gets too stinky we know it's too wet and take the lids off through the day for a couple of days. It's worked pretty well so far. I've learned never to put dry leaves in again. Grass is fine, but dried leaves from raking the yard take forever to break down. You can install a spigot at the bottom to drain off the "tea" into a container as it accumulates. We just cut a small hole added a spigot and caulked around it, but I think a wine bottle cork would probably do just as well. I'd really like to know how any of y'all with open compost piles keep the fire ants and rats out.
Unhappily, crow, I suspect you're right. I'm thinking I'll dig a big fairly shallow hole and dump the contents of this barrel in, cover it up, and hope it composts before spring. I'll give the barrel another try or two to see if I can make it work, but I'm beginning to suspect there's no way to do it right. It simply doesn't get enough air no matter how much you spin it. I guess I could punch some holes in it, but I hate to punch holes in something I paid that kind of money for!!!
If I do containers, I may put them up on cinder blocks and put oil drain pans (clean ones, of course!) underneath them to catch the tea. This was an expensive lesson. Compost should be entirely free!
I guess Wall Street has me right where they want me after all. :(
I found on the spinning, nothing really got mixed up, it all just stayed in a lump and rolled around the sides of the thing to wind up exactly as it started. I hate spending that kind of money on something that so totally doesn't work!
I have this one and am pleased with the preformance of it, but it is not big enough. I guess I will start saving things in a large container while one is making. That way it will take less time for the next.
I started out with it about 3/4 th full and only ended up with 1/3 capacity of compost.
http://www.composters.com/docs/bins_p4.html#uct
Sheila, that's one of the problems. While this one is "cooking" (or not), what to do with the daily compost you'd like to be putting into it! I'm still going to keep trying with this one, but bite the bullet and put in a real bin as well. Then the mistakes that come out of this one can get composted!