Compost Tumblers - The Benefits of Having a Compost Tumbler

Compost Tumblers

If you are an organic gardener, you know that composting is no easy task. There is a great deal of hard work, persistence, and dedication that is necessary in order to get the compost that you need. This is true unless you own your very own compost tumbler. Here are a few reasons why you should have a compost tumbler for your garden.

Centuries ago, farmers would create piles that would create the compost for their garden. They would have to manually turn the piles to keep the process going. Although the sun and nature would do its share of the work, the farmer would still have to do a great deal of manual labor to keep aerating the pile.

Today, compost tumblers have replaced the necessity of hard work. There are many advantages to having one and they can easily be made or purchased at a local store near you. The purpose of the tumbler is to automatically keep everything aerated. Air is very necessary in this process and without it you will have little or no fertilizer for your garden.

Compost Tumblers - A Look At The Types Of Compost Tumblers

Compost Tumblers

If you are looking for a good way to make compost quickly, one of the best solutions is a compost tumbler. A tumbler has many advantages, but the one that most folks are aware of is the ability to make compost quickly and easily. Any compost pile will work faster when you turn it regularly, but a tumbler makes the process of turning the pile about as easy as it can get. When you start looking at either building or buying a compost tumbler, its good to have an understanding of the different types of tumblers available today.

Types of Tumblers

Center-axle Mounted Drums.

As the name suggests, this is a style that has the drum sitting above ground, with single pole or axle that runs through the middle of the drum. The drum rotates freely about this axle, with the barrel standing vertically when the tumbler is at rest, and to turn the pile you simply rotate the drum. This is usually not too much effort, but as the compost finishes you may get it sliding to one end as you rotate, with a resulting thump. Look a the height to make sure it will work for loading and unloading for you. Some units have doors on both ends, making it easier to load and unload the unit. The Urban Compost Tumbler is an example of this style.

Easy Composting - The Benefits Of The Compost Tumbler

Compost Tumblers

Composting is no easy task. It requires hard work, dedication, and persistence-unless, of course, you own a compost tumbler. In that case, composting requires little work, some dedication, and not much persistence at all, all while mixing compost the same way you would with a giant compost heap in the backyard. How easy is that?

Although open composting has its advantages, using a compost tumbler saves time and keeps your compost pile aerated with little effort. Instead of manually turning over your compost pile, a compost tumbler does the work for you in its internal chamber. There's no need to turn over your compost with a pitchfork; you simply turn it-no fuss, no muss. By keeping it aerated with just a few turns every few days, you can rest assured that the microbes are actively eating and decomposing the matter. All you really need to do is carry your kitchen scraps out to your compost tumbler, throw them in, and turn.

Why Use a Compost Tumbler?

Compost Tumblers

About Compost Tumblers and Why They Work So Well

With all of the talk about going green, reducing your carbon footprint and helping to reduce climate change these days, more and more people are looking at the possibility of using compost tumblers in their back yard. I am going to show you some of the benefits of composting here and then look at some of the best methods of creating compost from your kitchen scraps, yard waste, and many other sources.

The benefits creating compost

One of the most prominent reasons to compost is that you are creating a natural fertilizer for your yard and garden. The nutrients from the food waste and yard waste is naturally turned back into the same plant nutrients that you get when you purchase commercial fertilizer from the hardware store, except that the compost form of these nutrients is completely natural and much less harmful to the environment. Why is it less harmful to the environment? Because commercial fertilizers are made from ingredients that require a vast expenditure of energy to produce them. The main nutrients in plant fertilizer are nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Most nitrogen production uses natural gas as its base ingredient, and then nitrogen is forced to react with the gas at high temperatures and pressure, requiring lots of energy. Phosphorus and potassium are mined from big open pit mines using heavy machinery requiring massive amounts of diesel fuel for transporting and processing. The traditional end result, sadly, is that food waste and yard waste end up going to the landfill.

How it can save the planet

Imagine for a moment if every household in the United States returned every shred of organic household and yard waste into compost on the spot. Actually this is a little unrealistic because logistics, such as lack of area in around apartment buildings, for example, make it an unlikely prospect. But just imagine if three quarters of all households did this. The benefits would be three fold:

1. Tremendous savings in fuel by not having garbage trucks transport tons of organic matter to the landfill.
2. Tremendous savings in energy by greatly reducing the amount of industrial fertilizers used.
3. Reductions in fuel used for mining, processing and transporting industrial fertilizers.

By composting, you are putting an end to the wasteful one-way stream of energy use and putting nutrients directly back into the soil, for your yard and garden to naturally thrive on. By doing so, you are also saving money on expensive store bought fertilizer. You are moving one more step toward self sufficiency by not needing to go to the store and buy something that can be produced in your back yard. And you are indirectly reducing carbon emissions. The traditional and most common method of composting is to simply pile the material up, say, in a corner of your yard. This will work, but there are many disadvantages, such as odors, a messy looking yard, and unwanted vermin feeding or nesting in the pile. There is a much better, quicker, and cleaner way to create compost. That is with a device known as a compost tumbler. The compost tumbler makes it super easy to create the conditions needed to create compost in quick order. Organic matter such as food waste, fruit peels and grass clippings need air and a modest amount of moisture to decompose properly. The composting process also creates heat, and this heat needs to be distributed evenly for the best results. By turning every few days, the heat is dispersed evenly, and air is introduced into the compost, and the process proceeds much more rapidly. In addition, the compost tumbler saves the back-breaking work of shoveling and turning the compost pile.