Well, i got the design from a customer whos ac broke. The way its supposed to work is; its filled halfway with organic matter-hay, chicken poop, veggie scraps, some soil, i also added some blood and bone meal, mykos, and fish/seaweed emulsion. There are hose attachments on the sides at different heights for water and aireation. Supposed to just turn it daily and add water if needed, the guy said it would compost quicker than just a pile, we'll see.
Well its only been a few days but im already seeing the decomposition in the tumbler. One flaw i will be correcting is i need more airholes in it. Theres an offputting smell to it, so im thinking it needs to breath more, and let heat out cause that stuffs STEAMY! I also noticed you have to be careful how full it is, half way may be the mak to fill it. Kinda heavy on the legs, which also need some stiffening done to them. Once i fix those issues i think this will be an excellent composter, and it cost me under 30 bucks, since i already had the barrel and 2x4's.
I liked it to, but i made mine just to short to dump well into one. And filling it is a lil tricky since it will turn the top up as soon as you start to fill it. But, with a few fixable minor issues im happy with how it turned out. Oh, i forgot to put sone spacers inbetween the barrel and the tops to the legs, and the barrel likes to slide to one side. A couple screws or soething on either side will fix that though. Thanks for checkin it out
A "hot" pile isn't to bad. You can put weeds and seeds in it, and if it is hot enough, they'll just become useless and compost also. Many moons ago (20?) I bought a compost tumbler and so far it's been f compost out of it in less than 2 months.
Cool man! Im happy to hear about the quickness it will compost. Does yours have a lot of air holes? I feel mine needs more. If you could post a pic of yours id like to see what a storr bought one looks like. Thanks for checkin it out
Here is what my storebought compost tumbler looks like. The thing will put out some compost for sure.
:coolbounce:Thanks midnight, thats the kind im used to seeing. It looks like theres just a few air vents in yours i coukd use some more, but i wont get as crazy about it as i was going to. Its only been like a week, but its mostly all broken down already. When i get home ill take sone pics of the pile i got material from, and what it looks like now.
I have an older, taller version of Midnights. My vents are on the bottom/sides and do not have the caps that his do on the cover. For the last few years I haven't been able to turn it every day, more like once every couple weeks, and it still pumps it out. If you can get to it every day, you'll have garden gold.
This thing is composting quicker than i could've imagined. Ive left the lid propped open some and the slighty foul smell is gone, smells like dirt and wet grass now so i do need more ventilation, im thinkin some 1/2 " holes drilled around should do it. Heres some before and so far pics of the fill.
I hope that's not dog poop in there. Dog poop is not good at all for composting. You can get sick using it.
Absolutely not. I have looked into whats good and bad for compost and thats a main point in everything ive read stated. If you mean the dark, turd lookin things in the top pic, that is the native soil. Its 95%clay, black, sticky, rockhard, no drainin crap. The rest of the pile is hay from the chicken coop lay boxes and ground, all the manure from the coop, lil wood ash, kitchen veggie scraps, coffee grounds, no meat at all. Whatever left over clay from diggin a hole, etc. I started this pile around 4 years ago, used to be much smaller. It doesnt look like it but just under the top layer is some good stuff. Thats what i put into the tumbler so i might have cheated on the compost time. Seeing as it was semi composted when i added it. Anyways, long winded version of no its not dogpoop.
