food waste composter

[forgotten_aria]

I would like to get a composter.

I know know nothing about composters other than they seem to be very expensive, so I need to know enough to get what I want. Any advice?

Comments

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

The best way to get a composter to not smell is to regularly cover the kitchen waste with leaves/shredded paper.

I think you want a tumbling composter.

My assumptions:
(1) You don't want to turn it with a pitchfork/aerator
(2) You don't want to spend a lot of time thinking about the perfect mix of yardwaste and kitchen scraps
(3) You don't want to worry about mammals or insects getting into it

Because the tumbling composters are off the ground you don't have to worry about stuff digging into it. Because they aerate by turning they will have less issue with smell/bugs

The cheapest way is to throw something together with chicken wire/pallets. If you're mostly dealing with leaves/brush with a small amount of kitchen waste then you shouldn't have a pest problem this way. But if you're going to have more than the occasional kitchen scraps then you don't want an open system

(I really like my composter because it is square and heavy and this makes it easy for me to mix it with a pitchfork. It has an open bottom, but I have it on asphalt so that's not a problem. I find the earth machine hard to turn compost in, and the ones I interact with are always falling apart. Maybe I'm just rough on compost bins.

[mathhobbit.livejournal.com]

I have an Earth Machine, subsidized by the city. I think the city model also has an added screen on the bottom so rats can't tunnel in.

Smell hasn't been much of a problem but I do get flies. Stirring the compost regularly with a broken piece of pipe seems to fix the fly problem.

In Seattle we had a mostly-yard-waste compost bin (delivered free by the city, presumably because of the vast quantities of yard waste we'd put out) which was essentially two plastic lids with a stiff plastic mesh tube between them. This dried out too fast until we wrapped it in plastic, so is probably not exactly right for your climate.

[eub.livejournal.com]

My experience with a compost tumbler is that I have to be quite picky with the input mix to prevent it from matting up into compost pellets that tumble around and around without breaking up at all. More to the point, I don't know how to get a working input mix reliably. I'd send you my compost tumbler, except it's heavy and big.

For me the determining question about food-waste composters is whether anyone (you or neighbors) is going to be close enough to be picky about smell, raccoons and rats picking through it it, and other minor annoyances. If not, a fenced heap works fine for me. If so... a ratproofed Green Cone apparently works well, but in Seattle it's easier to let the city compost my food waste and I do the yard waste.