I have a large yard and go through a lot of compost for my grass, shrubs, flowers, and fruit/ veggie garden. Next year I want to save on the trips to our local spot for compost and have some at home (I already collect it anyway) and do a tumbler. I’ve read so much and still don’t feel confident. I have no idea what I need other than something that will produce a lot and relatively quickly (but I don’t want to spend a lot, I get compost “for free” from my city, but have to pick it up).

I used to vermicompost when I lived in a different climate. I have 0 intention of trying that here. I don’t want to do anything that will invite potential mosquitoes or require me to be outside cleaning it being bitten by mosquitoes, etc. I’ll burn my yard to the ground before I have worms here for composting.

Anyway, any recommendations on unicorn tumblers? Basically hoping for budget friendly, fairly large capacity, and relatively fast. I’m flexible of course, and in a pinch I can get compost elsewhere, but recs are always helpful!

My compost was doing pretty well. I rotate it every two to three days and I keep it in a home depot bucket with sealing lid. (It does also have air holes in it). It was warm for 2 months and even just a week ago it was warm ( I started like 2.5 months ago) and now it isn't warm it all. What could have happend? stuff at the bottom was definitely getting close to being compost.

I'm very new to composting and just recently got a tumbler. I'm wondering since tumblers don't get as hot as big compost piles, will they kill off seeds that are in them? I don't want to be spreading a bunch of random seeds in my garden beds. If tumblers don't kill seeds, is there a way to finish the compost to kill the seeds? Thanks in advance!

There is a pretty detailed area and section about the active compost going on right now

I now have lots of fine wood chippings, I have lot of slimy grass clippings from the summer. Mixing them is not easy.

Have anyone tried using a plaster mixing attachments on a drill to turn the glass clippings into a "soup" that can than be put in a cement mixer with the wood chips?

What about adding some fresh FYM to the soup mix?

(Resuilt of shedder breaking and delays in finding a replacement on ebay.)

Hi everyone, I'm a Product Design BA student researching garden care and allotment maintenance for a university project. I'm looking for gardeners and allotment holders to complete a short 5-7 minute questionnaire about gardening habits, tools, and challenges. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I have a crap ton of homemade hay from our huge lawn, or the parts I let run wild this summer. Cut it down at the start of august with a scythe and let it dry out for a week in the sun (no rain) and have been storing it in the carport in jute sacks since then.

It's mainly regular lawn grass grown to about knee length with a few herbs and flowers like flax, marjoram, bird's-foot trefoil and fennel which grows wild in that area.

It was going to go to a friend who kept rabbits, but a fox got to them and - yeah. He doesn't really have a use for it now.

A good therapist for his kids, though...

So.. would there be a use for this in my cold compost, as winter mulch or, dunno... Mix it into the leaf mold pile?

Hello all, first post here. I am building a composting trommel and could use some advice. The drawing is a rough sketch of where it’s going. I’m considering the motor for this now. I’m uncertain of the rotation speed and amount of torque it will need to run a belt and pulley.

I haven’t settled on a finished length. I have some 700cc rims on the way (listed as RIM WEI 700C 622x16.7 AS23X 36 SL/NMSW SV). I’m waiting until those get here to measure the inside diameter for 1/2 hardware cloth and the width for the fender washers to hold rivets and mesh. Haven’t selected rollers yet either. Base will probably be board, screws, and brackets with wheels on one end to move it around.

I have a circa 2015 dewalt 20vXR weedeater motor and controller/battery assembly I was gonna use but the lowest rpm is around 4000 lol. The control assembly is useful and the motor would be too if I knew enough to put a gear reducer on it. I’m fairly handy so if there’s a good technical solution I love a challenge and tinkering.

Hi! I’ve been wanting to join the real compost world for a long time and I’ve finally arrived! The framing of the project was done by my grandfather and he will add the wire sides tomorrow. Any absolute do’s and don’ts you wish you had known or done when starting out?

This is the perfect opportunity to start it out correctly, so I don’t want to live in compost regret later.

I live in NE Texas on 40 mostly wooded acres, have cattle (aka manure aplenty!) and 6 people living here, regularly eating and cooking (aka lots of food scraps!)

There are of course lots of small wild animals like armadillos, raccoons, possums, barn cats, etc that I hope don’t make a mess of things. I’m in the never ending battle at my big garden next door against ALL the kinds of ants Texas can host, so I hope they don’t take over.

We have a lot of old newspapers we didn’t know what to do with that I was thinking of lining the bottom with.

I know how we all feel about piss, but what about a vegan's poop?

My current pile is turning into sludge and is in desperate need of browns. I'll compost these either way but will these work as browns or will I just need to rake a ton of leaves?

i've been gathering fallen leaves for my compost and raised beds, and the difference in how they break down is pretty noticeable. some get soft and crumbly fairly quickly, while others seem to survive in the pile forever.

i usually collect whatever is available nearby, so everything ends up mixed together. lately i've been thinking about whether certain leaves are better left out or handled separately. i also collect some from along neighborhood streets, which raises the question of whether road residue or treatments used on street trees could be a problem in vegetable beds

i don't want to overcomplicate a pile of leaves, but i'd rather not spend months making compost that isn't ideal for the garden either

if you've experimented with different kinds of leaves, which ones broke down well for you? and do you do anything differently with leaves collected near roads, or just leave those out altogether?

Straw, manure, sredded weeds and leaves.

The rest is coffee and pee.

Where I currently live doesn't allow that to happen, can't even use a charcoal grill in this neighborhood (I'm relocating soon, don't worry).

Just wondering if anyone else is fascinated by this stuff even though unable to do it.

ETA: I have looked after a compost pile in the past, just not right now.

Just started this year with a small tumbler and quickly realized I wanted more space to age the compost longer. So I was very excited to see this on the curb this morning.

A heaping cubic yard of composted sheep manure/bedding. My day job is making yogurt from the milk of the sheep that made this mess.

I'm used to seeing some drowned bugs in the places that collect water. I'm also used to seeing some wedged in the cracks. I've never seen them in pieces on top of the container. It looks like they went to war (and lost) to the rat army, or something.

I threw in some cardboard from a thrift haul and the pile turned dry within a few days. The pieces are thicker than the pizza boxes I usually use, so they're barely breaking down. I shredded some by hand and added veggie scraps, but the moisture still seems off. Should I soak the cardboard before adding it, or just keep turning and adding more greens? Also wondering about the tape and labels on some of the boxes, will those cause problems later? Not sure if I should pull them out now or just let it ride.

everywhere I see stuff about composting this stuff, I always see the term hot pile. Does this create an artificial hot pile?

I'm probably gonna get one because this is probably the only way my parents will let me compost in their home but im curious if this is something I could expect to do, or if higher tier ones have this ability.

Thanks!

Hello! I'm a design student and I’m redesigning an electric composter and looking for people with composting experience to share their habits, challenges, and ideas for improvement. If it's possible, I would greatly appreciate if a few people answered the survey!

Thank you for your time!

https://forms.gle/nqBnqPsEcvCDhi8L8

Heading down to the coast this weekend and toying with the idea of bringing back a few buckets of seaweed to add to the worms food supply.

Apart from giving it a good rinse to remove the salt, are there any other things I should watch out for?

Keen to hear if anyone else is using seaweed in their setup and how they’ve found it.

Here’s my compost in my rotating composter. The other day I was about to finally use her on a little grass growing project and found this chunky mess. I have not contributed anything but water and some rotations for months, and I can still see whole scraps of cardboard and intact twigs (we can ignore the egg shell, I should fish that out). What does she need?

Beside more pee