Planning a Vegetable Garden

Posts Tagged ‘Composting’

A compost tumbler is an excellent idea if you don’t have the yard space for a compost bin (or just don’t want a compost bin).  Tumblers can give you plenty of sweet-smelling compost for your vegetable garden, with vitually none of the toil of a traditional bin.

How a Compost Tumbler Works

So, how do these tumblers work, and how long does it take to turn organic matter into rich compost?  What makes it easier than a standard compost bin?

A tumbler can either be flipped end-over-end (vertically) or horizontally in a rotating drum, depending on how it’s designed.  Here’s how it works.

Load organic matter (lawn clippings, leaves, sawdust, wood shavings, kitchen scraps, etc.) into the tumbler, usually until it’s 3/4 full.  Some tumblers recommend that you also add a small amount of compost bacteria (usually in a powder form) to get it all started.  Dampen the matter in the bin, but don’t get it soaking wet.

Then, it’s just a matter of  rotating the tumbler a few times each day.  Depending on the temperature, you can have finished compost in 4 to 8 weeks.  (Warmer weather lets the compost “cook” faster.)

Once you take all the compost out of the tumbler (there is a handy door for this), you can load it again and work on your next batch.

Advantages

For best results, compost piles should be turned a few times every couple days.  With a bin, this means using a shovel or pitchfork to move the compost around.  A compost tumbler lets you do it far more easily; just rotate the tumbler a few times.

Disadvantages

The majority of compost tumblers are meant to be loaded all at once, not a little bit here and a little bit there.  That means you need to have all your “ingredients” ready to load.  This may mean that you have to save up the kitchen scraps, which can get somewhat aromatic if you don’t have the storage container tightly sealed.  Of course, you don’t need to put in kitchen scraps, but it is part of the whole recycling idea.

Cost

Compost tumblers range from around $150 to $500, much of which depends on the capacity of the tumbler (the larger the tumbler, the higher the price).  However, you can make compost year around, a batch at a time.  In the winter, you’ll want to protect your tumbler, though, so that the ingredients don’t freeze up.

With minimal care, a compost tumber should last you years, and can pay for itself quickly with wonderfully rich compost for your vegetable garden.

Where to Get Tumblers

Here’s a list of some compost tumblers for you to check out (they are one of my favorite suppliers).

You hear the word all the time, but what is compost?  Let’s take a couple of minutes to talk about it and why it’s so very beneficial to your vegetable garden.

What is Compost?

Compost is decomposed organic matter.  It can be made up of leaves, wood chips/shavings, lawn clippings, weeds (as long as they aren’t blooming), kitchen scraps, eggshells, used coffee grounds, manure — anything organic except most fats and proteins.

As all these things sit, beneficial bacteria go to work to transform what could be a smelly pile to a rich, sweet-smelling mixture that vegetable plants adore.  Compost lightens clay soils and “plumps up” sandy soils.

Making compost is a form of recycling.  Instead of  throwing organic matter into the garbage, you can recyle it into the best kind of gift you can give your veggies (not to mention just about every other plant in your yard).

What Compost Isn’t

All by itself, compost is not a fertilizer.  Although compost does contain nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (along with trace elements), you usually still need some fertilizer to give your plants their best harvest.  (If you’ve been reading on this site, you probably know that I favor organic gardening techniques over chemical.)  However, compost does help hold the fertilizer you do give, closer to the roots (where plants need it most).

Kinds of Compost

There are all kinds of ways to make compost; a few of the most common ways include:

• Compost Bin
• Compost Tumbler
• Worm Composting

There is also a cool kitchen gadget that takes your scraps and creates compost from them within 2 weeks.  Seeing as most ways take a month or more, it’s kind of neat (although a bit on the expensive side).  Still, if you don’t have room for a bin or a tumbler, and don’t have a cool enough spot for worms, you may want to consider a kitchen scrap composter.