Inspired by a recent email exchange with one of my favorite neighbors (Bob) I decided to look into a compost tumbler. I favor easy (aka lazy) composting, and heretofore haven't spent too much money on my bins. Two of my bins are simple black plastic bins, and the other three are just wood stakes and hardware cloth. I have a compost/soil thermometer, so I know my lazy-method is just cold composting, so investing in a tumbler could certainly speed up my process.
I ordered an Envirocycle tumbler that had great reviews. But it was back-ordered, then back-ordered again, then finally my order was cancelled. Turns out, in the interim, Envirocycle raised the price. Well, that's as it should be: economic theory tells us that excess demand (as evidenced by the back-order) should cause the price to go up. So I found the tumbler on Amazon for $199. It arrives fully-assembled, and I think it's going to work really well. It even collects compost tea in the base!
My compost is mostly "browns" so that also contributes to slow decomposition. Compost accelerators don't work very well, and the most effective options for speeding it up would be blood meal or manure. I am a vegan-leaning vegetarian, so I really want to limit the animal products I use. Blood meal is out. And if I use manure, I won't know what the animals ate before they produced that manure. Another option is alfalfa hay, but where the heck do I get that? I know I could grow my own similar cover crop, but I don't have space for that. The search continues! Hoping I can find another option, but in the mean time, cold composting is still working well for me.
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