# Compost tumbler or compost heap?



## Georgey_A (Nov 26, 2016)

Hello everyone,

Great o be on this forum!!! a lot of sub forums to choose from. I have now just taken half of my working hours and placed them into my personal time and i want to start a natural garden. I have plenty of dead leafs and mowed grass hanging around to get me started on a composting but i'm not sure the best method/size for me to use. My garden is 32m long by 15m at the widest point and at the moment pretty much just grass and trees. I am going to section the garden out into different areas, paths, flower bedding, vegetable garden, grass area etc. Being as it is going to take me a while to section out the garden its a good time to compost now. I am stuck between a compost tumbler which are an awesome idea easy to use and easy to move around. Or the old school standard homemade large wooden box and a good old pole to mix it up? and speaking of mixing what do you guys use and how often do you mix????

Any information/advice would be a greatly appreciated guys
















Thanks guys


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## sideKahr (Oct 15, 2014)

I've used both methods and they both work. The tumbler will keep the tree roots out of the pile. It's a matter of choice, I guess.


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## Georgey_A (Nov 26, 2016)

So you are happy with both approaches. Maybe i need both approaches thinking about it, the amount i will need in the beginning the homemade box will be good for and for keeping up with the garden once finish the tumbler. i was kinda hoping people would go for the tumbler straight up being how popular they are online example below of a great site with great prices. I will wait on a couple more reply's...

http://www.easyprices.com/home-garden

Thanks for the reply


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## Sonya (Oct 20, 2016)

I think it also depends on how much waste you will be composting. I would lean towards the old school box composter myself, but if your don't have a lot of kitchen/garden waste maybe the tumbler would be big enough.

If you really want the tumbler then get it. The mobile tumbler would be convenient.


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## Slippy (Nov 14, 2013)

Compost is compost is compost. Get both and see what works best for you.


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## Redneck (Oct 6, 2016)

I would think the tumbler would be much quicker... but much more expensive. So just depends on your needs. I don't have time to work my compost pile, so I just use the cold method, where I leave the pile alone & let the material turn to compost in its own sweet time. If I wanted to speed mine up, I could keep it moist & turn it often. Since you ask, if I were to mix mine I'd use forks on the end of the tractor bucket.


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## Targetshooter (Dec 4, 2015)

I use a tumbler , it's easier for me to use . I just spin it every other day , and when I add stuff to it .


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## LunaticFringeInc (Nov 20, 2012)

In my opinion...and I have a lot smaller garden than you do!

The Tumblers are nice for sure. My issue with them as most are not built that durable given the cost and they are small, even the big ones! As previously mentioned, unless you have a minimal amount of refuse from the Kitchen and the Yard, you'll probably find them a bit lacking capacity wise. I have found that they do make the process a little quicker but composting still takes some time. I always had material backing up waiting for its turn in the tumbler while I waited for whats in the tumbler to break down suffciently enough to be rotated out.

The bin method...thats what I am using now. I have a bin that holds about a 1/2 yard of material and to be honest its a little lacking capacity wise but usually keeps up well enough. Yes its a little more work turning it than it is to tumble the tumbler type and yes its sometimes a bit slower to break material down. Im on a much smaller lot than you and I have no problem with having enough material to go in the compost bin, I definitely could use something bigger or I need another container so I can rotate my piles. I usually manage about a 1/2 a yard every 3 months or there abouts.

Now while its a bit more work to compost....all my gardens are raised beds and all of my soil in my beds came from the compost piles. This has made my gardens cheap to build and maintain. The results despite the small amount of space I have to work with is amazing to say the least. The production I get is mind blowing, my neighbors think I am a Gardening God. They swear I am using some sort of steroid or magic potion, lol. My plants are rapidly growing thick and lush, production is very heavy when the plants are old enough to produce and flavor unsurpassed! For example....My Tomato plants, 4 of them, got to be about 7ft tall and I was wacking about 3 ft off the tops every week to keep them managable. I was getting about a 13 gallon trash can of Tangerine sized Tomatoes weekly! My Bell Peppers were about the size of a 44 ounce cup of soda at Sonic, huge! I water so much less than what my neighbors here do in Texas and weed a lot less too! I have never used chemical fertilizers, chemicals to control weeds or pest and spend much less time working my garden and get much better results. Using Heirloom seeds and natures way of doing things has seriously up my game when it comes to gardening success. I wished I would have jumped on this bandwagon decades ago!!!


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## Moonshinedave (Mar 28, 2013)

I've used compost piles, although only leaves and such, no kitchen throw outs. I would imagine a tumbler would be better and faster, if nothing else, it would keep the rodents out. Why not use both methods?


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## Georgey_A (Nov 26, 2016)

Looks like i am going down the path of getting both. In the beginning i am going to have a lot of waste material for the compost heap but not so much from the kitchen. I will get family and friends to save their kitchen waste for me to add to my compost. I am going to clear and are in my garden and build a wooden compost heap and also order a tumbler. Have any of you got any suggestions on a compost tumbler or are they all pretty much the same???

Thanks for the reply's guys.


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## redhawk (May 7, 2014)

Over the years I have used tumblers, open piles and box type to compost and I prefer the box type for several reasons. The main reason is I like the compost to be in contact with the soil so the earthworms can aid in the decomposition. I recommend that you try both and then decide which works the best for you. I think that the most important matter is the mix of the "carbons" and "nitrogens" (my experience is a 60 / 40 mix works the best). I have scaled back to 2 bins now as the kids are away from home and it is just my wife and me at home now and our "compostables" have been reduced...JM2C


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## LunaticFringeInc (Nov 20, 2012)

> The main reason is I like the compost to be in contact with the soil so the earthworms can aid in the decomposition.


Good point redhawk. While mine are in a bin, I will occasionally "innoculate" my pile with a carton of worms from the bait store for good measure although there seems to always be several still left when I empty it. The added plus is....if I decide to do some perch jerking, especially when I kidnap a couple of the neighborhood kids to join me, I have plenty of bait! Im not sure who has more fun me or me watching them have a blast!


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## lauras2u (Dec 19, 2016)

I too have very limited space, putting a big tumbler out would take up too much space and be against my HOA rules. The boxes tempt me but i do not want to give up much space. I use an unusual method but it works great. I dig holes where ever there is space, fill them with whatever I need to compost. I do try to balance green and brown, generally I have too much green so i add cardboard or paper...put 6-12 inches on top of it and then forget about it and plant as soon as I like. I plant the compost deeper more like 12 inches if i have plants or seed waiting to plant right away. 


Problems I have had with this method is mostly with items which decompose slowly. I buried some black locust thorns 3 years ago and they are still lethal, now I send those and a few other items out to the city compost. Sticks too are slow composters but I am a bit of a nut for keeping my organic matter at home so i cut them short and they are not a problem. If in doubt, plant it deeper .


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## RJAMES (Dec 23, 2016)

If I had a small space to garden in , was in a hurry and had money I might get a tumbler. I have always had plenty of room and time. You do not need anything to hold the compost you can just pile it up or Use something to hold it if you want to save space. Cinder Blocks, old bricks, logs, old pallets, a piece of old fence made into a circle can all be used. I like the old pallets best- free , easy to move just use old twine or wire to attach them together. Make a box and pile everything in , move one pallet and shovel it around every couple months to speed it up but you do not have too. In the spring spread it around, move your pallets to a new spot and start building your next pile with table scraps, trimmings from the garden, any cattle/chicken/ horse manure you can get, grass clippings and leaves in the fall. i toss stuff in, any plant material i can find, all summer long . Then pull most of it out, layer of manure layer of leaves , summer material , manure leaves till I got everything in. I get rain year round so I never worry about watering or wetting anything. Let it set for at least 6 weeks , give it a stir or mix by shoveling , do that again in a month or too.


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## NotAnOxymoron (Jan 7, 2017)

I haven't used boxes, but I have a tumbler and do open piles when my tumbler can't keep up with our volume.

Personally, I love the open piles. We do have a lot of wildlife, but it's never been an issue except when I've added a bunch of green and gotten distracted before covering or turning. And then I just figure they've added some nutrients while noshing!

I like my tumbler in the winter, on my deck. Then I don't have to trudge through the snow and ice to get to a pile. Heavily loading the tumbler with brown in the fall seems to get us through okay, though some might not consider that to be the best way of doing it.

I've also been known to mix relatively fast materials right into the garden once it's finished so it's already there in the spring.


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## AquaHull (Jun 10, 2012)

I put non meat kitchen scraps in a pile by the barn. Set it and forget it.


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## Miss.Wesson (Jan 30, 2017)

Hi -

adding my 2c to the discussion. I have 3 types of compost on the go. The first is my 'heap' which is a bin-type structure that I simply add scraps, garden-cuttings, grass, dead birds, a bit of offal, spent bedding from my chicken coops etc etc. I just add continuously & the material compresses and after about 12 months it's rich, peat-like compost that I add straight to my garden. As @AquaHull says, you can set and forget!

Second is my worm-bin with a bunch of active tiger worms; they munch through small scraps from the kitchen. Every 8 weeks I empty the their wee-bin and dilute it for liquid fertilizer straight onto garden plants. The cast-bin (basically all the poo that they've excreted after eating all the scraps) I empty every 3 months straight onto the garden and leave enough worms to continue the cycle. It's an excellent system - and it's quick.

Thirdly, the Bokashi system. It's just a bin with a lid and some activator chips that you spread over the scraps every few days. I put everything else into this. Teabags, paper towels, coffee grinds, extra scraps, etc etc. When it's full I transport it from my apartment to my farm and add it to the compost bin there.

I should also add that my chickens get all leftover dinner scraps, bread scraps etc etc. I supplement them with pellets but they love leftovers too.

Very little from my household goes out into the trash. It all has a recycle, upcycle or composting element to it. You can even put hair from your hairbrush, or dust from your vacuum cleaner bags into the composting system !!


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## TGus (Sep 18, 2017)

As far as I can figure, tumblers do one thing that composting in bins can't do, -keep rats and mice out of your compost heap if you're putting stuff in that attracts them.


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## redhawk (May 7, 2014)

TGus said:


> As far as I can figure, tumblers do one thing that composting in bins can't do, -keep rats and mice out of your compost heap if you're putting stuff in that attracts them.


I have had tumblers, box bins and piles and have never had any problems with rats or mice...I never put meat, grease or bones in my compost...I guess they are not vegetarians...:vs_laugh: JM2C


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