Hi Karen,

I had one of the barrel tumblers way back in the early 70'sÂand never got anything useable out of it! Here's one of my comments on the old Reflections on Compost thread:

"One more thing I want to add on the topic of compost! When I lived down in Parker I had one of those compost tumblersÂthe biggest sizeÂand I never got anything useable out of it. Possibly it was just that I wasnÂt tending it well enoughÂor that I didnÂt have enough stuff to put in itÂor that I didnÂt cut up the stuff I put in it well enough, but nothing ever seemed to happen to the stuff I did put in it. I wet it over and over, and it always still seemed dry. I speculated that maybe itÂs just too dry a climate for them to work well, but I donÂt now that for sure. For what it cost me, I considered it to be a big waste of money. IÂd be curious to hear if anybody else has ever had better luck with one of those."

And here was a reply by one other poster about the tumblers. I thought there was another comment about them on that thread, but I couldn't find it without reading the wholeÂlooooongÂthing!

"I had no luck with tumbling, though I had a homemade tumbler made of a barrel. 5 years later, there is still a little pile of stuff in there, perhaps finished by now. :-)"

I had the biggest size one that (now extinct) GardenWay made, and it was up on a stand so you could put a cart or wheelbarrow under it to empty it whenÂI mean IFÂyou ever got compost! It was a couple hundred dollarsÂway back then, and when I sold the house I left it there!

HereÂs a pic of a to the one I had.

And hereÂs a pic of the one I actually had , but itÂs a pdf so itÂll take a minute to load. The pic is on page 10, Figure 8b.

I really think a lot of the problem was our dry climate, and I suspect they may actually work somewhere that has higher humidity. But if you have room for something like that, IÂd recommend you just spend the money on concrete blocks or some other sort of a box/frame to throw everything in to let it rot! I just attached sheets of galvanized steel to the inside of my privacy fence, and throw everything in the corner up against it. It works greatÂWAY better than the tumbler ever didÂand I can make a LOT more compost now than I ever could have in the tumblerÂeven if it had worked!

And if you want to read a LOT of RMG info about compost, go to the link below! (Pics of the way I do it are at the top of the linked thread)

Happy rotting,
Skybird

Here is a link that might be useful: Reflections on Compost!

Hmmmmm....I've got two stand up compost bins which I've had for a few years and actively use but I'm only 5 ft tall and find it more and more difficult to turn the compost since I don't have much leverage. I can only seem to turn the top half. I'm hoping to find something a little easier to manage since I don't seem to be getting any younger : )

A friend of mine showed me the three tumblers he's made for the school he works at and the compost does fine for him (I'm actually considering asking him to make me one just like the ones he's made but he's super busy). My son and I also saw an active tumbler at CC which also seems to work well for them but it's industrial sized and we don't need one that big. A friend of mine has had one in her yard which works well for her but she's had hers for years and the model she has is no longer available.
I guess I'm just more confused...

If youÂve found somebody who has one they think is working and you can get the same or very similar, I guess go for it! Maybe if what you have is more all kitchen scrap type thingsÂwith more moistureÂit would work better. I was doing yard type stuff in mine, and a lot of it was dry already when I put it in, and I was just never able to successfully re-wet it. With all the water I put in the barrel, I never figured out why, but it just didnÂt work. What kind of stuff is your friend putting in his?

IÂm 5'3"ÂwellÂactually IÂm going back down now and have been told IÂm 5'2½", and I only weigh 110, and the way I do it I can easily dig it out of where it isÂnot that itÂs not work, but I think it would be really hard to be digging "down into" a closed bin. Every time I see pictures of those square closed bin things, I looks hard to work with to me. Since mine is "completely open" on the front, you can just dig straight into it. I donÂt actually "turn" mine! I do it the lazy wayÂthrow it all on the pile and wait for it to rot, but when I clear the whole corner out in fall so I can put all the leaves thereÂwithout burying the done or nearly done compost, itÂs no harder to get to the bottom of the pile than it is to get to the top of the pile.

Hopefully more people will post here with an opinion to help you decide what to do.

Skybird

I'm famously cheap frugal in many things and purchasing that particular consumer product won't be done in this house. We took a 32gal trash can, drilled holes in it, sunk it in the ground, put the dirt back in, and put the kitchen scraps in there. When you turn, you take some worms out and put them in the veggie bed.

Dan

I would LOVE to be able to do something like that but unfortunately our property is mostly rock bed with a couple of inches of top soil. So burying a 32 gal. garbage bucket would be near impossible. Great idea to put out there for other people though.

Karen,
I don't mind sharing my failures with you! I jumped on the bandwagon last year and bought a big double spinning tumbler. I got it at Sears. I have no idea what I'm doing with it! What I was hoping to accomplish was to compost horse manure with old hay and kitchen scraps. I don't need anymore mice and voles around here, so I thought a tumbler above ground would be the way to go.
Problems: Since it's so dry here it's hard to keep a good moisture level.
I added hay without chopping it up first. It may break down in 10 years or so.
I repeat, I have no idea what I'm doing with it. The tumbler may make a nice storage bin for the compost I'm still buying, LOL!
Actually, I haven't given up on it completely. I need to dump it out and start over with the right mix of greens to browns. I do like it being off the ground and being able to crank the handle to turn it. It's high enough off the ground that I can slide a wagon or wheelbarrow under it to dump out the compost I may someday have.
Skybird and Dan know what they are talking about, so take their advice.
Barb

You may want to post the question on the Soil, Compost and Mulch forum.

There are a fair number of people with negative experiences, but there are also some who have had good experiences with tumblers.

Some of the biggest negative comments there are often from people who think that nobody should ever spend any money on composting. If you're ready and willing to pay, you can just ignore those comments.

Thanks so much bpgreen for the soil, mulch and compost link! Some very useful comments there. I've convinced my son's school to start composting their kitchen scraps and they also want to buy a tumbler so we're going to learn together. I've finally gotten the hang of upright bins and have made some awesome compost but I had no idea there was such a different formula for successful tumbler composting. I would particularly hate to discourage the Principal at my son's school after working so hard to convince them to compost. Thanks again for the link...

I'll keep researching..I'm thinking, however that as a good example to everyone, I would maybe prefer to build something instead of spending lots of money on a commercial one. Thanks everyone for your valuable comments (as usual) and I think I will look at websites for a good tumbler design that suits my needs. I really like the idea of reusing but sometimes it's just too easy to open up the wallet instead... : )
Karen

Something else I just thought of. Check on Craigslist and Freecycle. Sometimes people buy a composter, use it for a month and get bored so they want to get rid of it. You might be able to get one for low cost or even free.