Composting

It is getting to be that time of year when our dog can begin to frolic in our thawed open-bin composters, with unpleasant results for those who sleep with him. We have three 3'x3'x3' cheap wire compost bins and one heavy plastic barrel, for about 30 cubic feet of composting. That would be an excessive amount of composting space for our meager household and yard if we weren't also composting sod as we slowly ungrass our yard.

Unfortunately, the wire bins aren't holding up that well, and are also difficult for the wife to turn over. (What? I have to think of my manicure!) And a squirrel ate a hole in our plastic composter.

This got me to thinking about some sexier tumbling composting options. Unfortunately it looks like those composters work out to between $15 to $40 per cubic foot of composting space. Additionally, while some of the tumbling composters claim usable compost in just 2 weeks, general Usenet consensus appears to be that they don't actually measurably accelerate the composting process.

Assuming I could get 3 full loads out of a Tumbleweed Tumbler each year, that's $8 per cubic foot of compost over the device's warranty lifetime. (Again, Usenet seems to demonstrate that there is a reason this particular product only has a one year warranty.) It would take an 8 year lifetime to bring the cost down to competitive levels with purchased compost.

So it looks like my wife is going to have to keep turning over her own compost. To address the compost accessibility issue we may be reduced to constructing our own composting fixture.