If money were no issue, I think I'd like to get one of those tumbler types with the big bin that you sort of flip around. I might buy myself one as an early birthday present (like 8 months early). Seems like they'd work well. Forget the pitchfork and turning. It would also be nice if I had a larger yard with a shady section and a sunny section. In order for my bin to have sun, it would have to be smack in the middle of my already small yard.

Oh, and another thing that would help is getting an attractive small bin to put scraps in by the sink. Currently, I'm using a mixing bowl, which I'm not good aobut dumping often and it gets pretty nasty.

What would your dream bin or compost set-up be like?

I think mine would be similar to yours, greenish. I'd love to have a tumbler--I used to make compost in trash bags, and had pretty good luck with that. But they are unsightly, so now I just pile stuff up and forget to ever turn it, and it doesn't do much.

I'd also like to have an attractive pot by the sink. One with an easy-open lid that nevertheless forms a more-or-less airtight seal. We get terrible gnats and fruitflies, and ants, if the compostables are left more than a day. I've been looking for just such a container at yard sales, and found a few that were beautiful but too small, and one that was just the right size but not my style. And I don't want to pay more than $2! LOL

As for the tumblers--maybe I'll get around to it someday. But in the meantime, I've been so happy with our municipal compost (I know, I know, homemade is far superior--but this stuff is so good anyway!) which is $25 for a truckload, that I have a hard time justifying spending that kind of money on the tumblers.

Great question!

We have a tumbler composter that we gave up on last year after testing it against an open pile. We started a batch of exactly the same mix of wood chips, goat manure, grass clippings, and kitchen and garden scraps in both the open bin and the tumbler.

Since we started them in mid-October, they went over the winter and into spring. Come spring, the batch in the open bin was perfect and ready to use while the tumbler bin had stalled and never finished composting.

So, after clearing out the open bin, we took the unfinished mix from the bin and used it as the seed to start a new batch for both locations. Again mixing the ingredients in one big batch and them dividing it between the open bin and the tumbler.

Again, the open bin beat the tumbler with very high-quality compost.

In both tests, I forked the open bin twice a week and tumbled the tumbler about every other day. Both of them are in wide open sun (next to each other) and the bin is at the foot of a small hill to allow good drainage.

The bin is 3 1/2-feet cubed, built from open slats of 1x6 green hemlock. The tumbler is reddish color and about 50 gallon capacity.

So, we have a tumbler for sale - cheap!

Dream? A well built & intelligent young man who trucks in the occasional load of organic manure would turn my several large and hot compost piles in the cool of the evening, and then sit on the veranda with me and sip iced tea while we discuss books, music, art, and the state of the world. Then he would go home and shower I suppose. I would also settle for a not so well built but intelligent man.

I know I am being flip here, but just to have someone else do the work would be great. My back has been a mess since I was 30. And I like that PVC-pipe-drilled-with-holes vent idea I have seen here and there.

OK, I hope you get some better answers than this one.

Ria

If only you were closer! LOL I think the reason a tumbler would work for me is that I simply don't turn my compost when it's in a bin. I don't know why, but hauling out the pitchfork and shoving that stuff around... I just can't get myself to do it more than once a month or two, and that seems pointless so then I don't do it at all.

On the other hand, when I had compost in trash bags with holes poked in them, I simply shook each bag a couple times each time I walked in the garden, and they turned out beautiful compost after about a month. I suspect I would have a similar experience with a tumbler, which could be re-used and look a great deal less like random garbage to the neighbors.

So, I have no doubt that a properly turned open bin will cook faster and better than a tumbler. But I also have no doubt that a bin turned every other day would cook faster and better than a spread-out pile that never gets turned.

Anyway, I'd buy yours if shipping wouldn't outstrip the cost of simply buying a new one!

Heather

Oh, wait--since we're dreaming here, I'm obviously not setting my sights high enough.

So, this is better: An experienced, friendly local organic farmer happens to drive by my place once a month and offers to drop off a pick-up load of organic compost on his way to town. While he's here working the compost onto my raised beds and storing some in large bins for mixing into potting soil, he gives me pointers and suggestions for improving my overall gardening experience.

On his way back from town, he stops by again for dinner with my family, plays with my kids, compliments me on my morning glories scrambling over a homemade trellis, drops off the bags of figs, muscadines, and persimmons he forgot to leave on his way into town, and then heads home for a good night's sleep. Oh, and I'd be buying organic eggs and raw milk from this guy too.



Yeah, that's right.

Heather

Heather, I understand your sentiments. Sometimes it's hard to convince myself to go turn the pile. But it has helped to keep the fork outside the back door rather than in the tool shed, and to make a ritual of dashing out before my morning shower to mix things.

I actually figured out a very efficient method of dividing the bin into nine square sections when forking to make the mixing go faster.

We're also spoiled when it comes to space. Not everyone here has the luxury of spreading out over 3 1/2 acres. The neighbors aren't a bother here - we can only see one in the distance down the hill from our house.

Ha! Heather, what a wild dream!

I used to have similar - guy version - dreams. Then I met my lovely DW while she was working at a nearby vegetable farm. She brought lots of inspiration and hard work with her.

Composting on the ground seems to work for me. Of course it's a lot easier now that DH has taken over the job! Otherwise I would have to hire a local teen to do it. And when he can no longer handle it, maybe that's what we'll do.

If we were all rich we could hire "real" gardeners, not mow-blow-and go guys. But what would be the fun in that? Except when we're too old and frail to do any of the work ourselves.

Oh, jenniferch, I don't want anyone doing all the gardening for me--just the composting. It's hard for me to make enough compost for my needs, without a great deal of work. And I just don't enjoy it!

As for the "guy version" of the dream, I just wanted to clarify--I have no romantic interest in this imaginary organic farmer, lol. I'm quite happy with the romantic interest in my own home, even if he's *not* a gardener and listens to my gardening tales with only slightly masked feelings of boredom, lol. I just wanted someone--male or female, really--with lots of experience in my area to help & teach.

Gotta run--it's the work day now, and the computer is slated for far more important work than my compost dreams lol

Heather

I share Ria's compost dream.

In reality, I'd just settle for enough rain to keep the pile moist enough to actually compost instead of sitting there dehydrating!

I'd also like one of those decorative containers to put beside the sink for kitchen scraps. I've had my eye on a pretty copper one in a catalog. The small stainless steel mixing bowl I've got setting there is an eye-sore, it's always overflowing and I don't have any kids around to cart it out for me.

So, as long as we're dreaming, I'll dream I got custody of my two younger kids (others are grown and no I don't want them back home!) and they're around to run the scraps out and turn the compost pile. And I'll dream that my son-in-law actually remembers to load the pickup with cow manure and haul it over here.

I tried my ideal compost situation, but ran into predators.

Ideally I would like about 3-4 fenced in areas to keep my rabbits and ducks or chickens in. They could muck around in the beds, stirring things up. I would continue to apply bedding and straw for them. Let them stay in this place say for 4-6 months, then rotate them to a new area and start the process all over.

What I got out of doing this last year (Before I gave up on keeping poultry at all, and keeping rabbits outside) has been really wonderful. It was easy to plant because I didn't have to haul anything but the plants and some straw into the gardens! Oh yea, one of the gardens is right off the back porch so I would just through my scraps in there for the ducks to eat, or take vegetable scraps to the rabbits for recycling.

Now I'm just trying to make Lasagna gardening work. (it does)

Hey Top,
I wish I had a magic wand for your two youngest children...wish your dreams could come true...
Lots of manure from your son in law, eh?
Sounds kind of funny

My dream would be: to have everybit of whatever material I wanted on hand at any time (no more or No less) and the time to take care of it as I wanted, not permitted due to my work scedule.

Heatherhead - what a great idea about using bags! I feel the same way about the tumbler. Using the pitchfork sounds so good...in theory, but in reality, it's really not easy! Of course, my compost wasn't really compost - and if you remember my earlier posts on my compost pile, I am certainly going to dump it out and start from scratch. Yeah, the tumbler would actually get turned.

Johnnie Appleseed - that's a great experiement!! Though I wish I didn't hear it! Well, as long as DH doesn't know about it.

Ria and Heather - can he have Johnny Depp's face?

Topofthehill - I laughed out loud about having the little kids to take the stainless steel mixing bowl out. I pictured my 8yo DD's face as she's standing by the back door with the big mixing bowl in hand, going, "I REALLY don't want to go out there!!". She's scared of the compost situation I have going on (It's basically a pit of roots, mud, eggshells, banana peels, flies and spiders) (I messed it up - but realize what went wrong).