Compost Tumblers

Compost tumblers are basically barrel shaped drums that are mounted on wheels. They are said to produce better quality compost and faster then the open pit or up right bin type compost producers. The reason for this could be that when they are rotated the air tends to mix more freely with the compost ingredients. Free air flow is one of the important ingredients for producing compost.

A compost tumbler can be mounted sideways on a frame with a handle to rotate the drum or it could also have blades mounted inside the drum to mix the material in it. As this drum is quite high from the ground it is fairly easy to pour out the compost directly into a wheel barrow placed under the drum.

The second type of compost tumbler is mounted vertically on a frame and the drum is rotated by spinning the drum around on its vertical axis. Unloading the compost is also easy from this as one just has to open the door on the drum and pour the ready compost out.

One can easily construct a compost tumbler kit using any thing that is tubular in shape. It could be an iron pipe, a barrel or even a concrete pipe. After selecting the container make sure that one end is well sealed. For an old oil or whiskey barrel one would not have to worry about this as the bottom end would be sealed. Now cut out the upper end and make a wooden lid and hinge it to the barrel or use bungee fasteners to hold the lid tightly shut. Drill some ventilation holes where one thinks they should be. Once the compost tumbler is full one could roll it in the drive or the garden so that the material inside keeps getting mixed. However pouring out the compost from this type of compost tumbler could be a hassle. So if one is ingenious enough one could design a horizontal or vertical frame on which to mount the barrel. Welding shafts on the two opposite sides of the oil barrel and mounting them on a frame fitted with ball bearings should make life easier in rolling the barrel and unloading it.

One can easily get plans to build a compost tumbler and building one should not take too long. If one wants to construct a compost tumbler that has blades and a shaft running through the drum that would require a visit to a welding shop.

Should one require a continuous supply of compost then one would need to invest in a continuous compost tumbler. Essentially what this tumbler has is a twin tub combination. A smaller porous drum is fitted inside the larger drum and as the compost which when ready is heavier then the material it pours into the inner drum from where it can be taken out through a side door. This insures that one keeps putting material in the outer drum and getting a continuous supply of compost from the inner drum.

There is another version to the continuous compost tumbler and that is the twin compost tumbler. In this version two barrels are mounted side by side and where as material is continuously feed into one of the drums the other through a sieve gets the ready composite in it. This can actually be a barrel which has been split in half not physically but with a sieve fitted in the middle dividing it into two sections. The first section is like a normal compost tumbler and the second section acts as the recipient of the ready compost.

The compost tumbler is easier to operate and maintain then the bin type of compost maker. It is really a matter of preference depending on the space and size of the garden or vegetable patch that is to be fed and the regularity of the compost supply required.