ADVENTURES IN COMPOSTING

Apr 28, 2025

You can turn table scraps and yard debris into soil conditioner. But too much enthusiasm can trip you.

I bought a compost tumbler online. It holds a bushel of material and is designed to tumble to mix the compost. In my first season, I had too much brown material like dead leaves, paper shreds, and chipped-up branches and not enough topsoil. So I had messy, stinky goo to deal with. The usual recipe calls for an equal mix of slowly processing brown material and fast stuff like grass clippings, table scraps, and freshly pulled weeds. In addition, you need lots of topsoil. I mean LOTS of topsoil. This provides organisms that decompose the compost, and it physically breaks it up so it doesn’t clot too much. In my experience, the right amount looks like there is all soil in the tumbler. It should hide most of the other contents. You can dig a hole to get soil or buy some bags of cheap topsoil at a nursery.

Tumble the heck out of the mixed stuff at least once per week. You must also keep it damp enough to process. Just squirt it with a garden hose and tumble for a while to mix. Not too wet or it can rot. It should feel like a wrung-out rag if you squeeze it in your hand.

My tumbler came on skids. That’s fine when it is mostly empty. But the compost gets heavy when it is wet. I want to move it around to avoid killing a spot on the lawn, so I made a platform with wheels and can push it around every couple of days. That works fine, but I wish I had wider wheels.

How do you know when the compost is done processing? Who cares? Stop at the end of summer, or any time before it freezes solid, because you have to make room for next season’s batch. At the end of the summer it is mostly black and looks like soil. If there are a few unprocessed carrots, you can live with it. Scavengers will probably take any chewable bits that are left. Spread the compost on low spots on your lawn or add it to the garden. You can screen lumps out of it through wide carpenter cloth if you want to use it for lawn fill.

Last note: You can add meat scraps to compost. But it might attract raccoons or bears (if you live in that kind of neighborhood). It might be better to put those items in the garbage and just process veggie stuff.

Pro tip No. 1: You will add scraps to the composter starting from the time you dumped the last batch, probably in the fall. You do not have to wet it because it will be frozen all winter anyway. If you add stuff dry, you can tumble it effectively and it will be lighter when you have to move the tumbler around.

Pro tip No. 2: Don’t bother with additives other than topsoil and compostable scraps. You don’t need worms or nutrients. Just trust Nature to know her job.