Do you have access to more green matter than your scraps? I have a Jr. Tumbler and it takes a lot of stuff to get it going. Or maybe I haven't read enough on using it right. It's more interesting to me to read and learn about the little worm guys! I do both, but I don't think you'd regret the worms. Their outcome is better IMO than the tumbler, tho I do love it too. The worms just make me feel good about what I'm doing to the planet. Both is a great combination if you have the $$ and the green stuff. Good luck!

It is commonly accepted knowledge that worms do not thrive in tumbling composters. Yet we have had a couple posters say they do ok in them. I had a guy from Connecticut tell me a few years ago worms lived in his compost tumbler that lived in the sun on his deck. I thought it was impossible, yet people seem to be doing it.

I think you might be happy with a compost tumbler kept moist, in the shade, with some worms from a compost pile in it to multiply. There will be fruit flys once in a while even in rooms without a worm bin especially while learning how to regulate it. Every fruit fly could be looked at as from a not adequately maintained the bin. Maybe the test would be if the household lets spiders be inside or if their is a need to kill even the mild, harmless ones inside.

My personal thought is that junk mail goes in the recycling bin. Most of it is highly inked with who knows what type of ink. Free Weekly newspapers delivered to the house are useful for wrapping kitchen waste to bring to the bin or compost heap. Egg carton cardboard and coffee tray cardboard is the type you want. Or at least the type I want. Probably the right amount of that comes into the house to perfectly balance and be bedding to the amount of kitchen waste produced. It could be argued that a better use for the egg cartons and cardboard coffee trays would be to reuse them by somebody who has chickens or the next round of coffee cups.

The aspects that would be tough for a petite woman to handle might be the compost tumblers if they have not been turned in a while are hard to turn with hundreds of pounds of material. Maybe start worms small and see how it goes as a trial run. If it does not work it was research, not something that failed.

Also, just in general, not to you, I think everybody may picture something different with the word cardboard. I think corrigated. Some think white dividers in the boxes. Others I think mean cereal boxes. I do not put cereal type boxes in my bin because I have enough bedding with what seems to be tastier non printed egg carton cardboard. I am surprised people do not mention brown grocery bags for bedding very often at all. Maybe nobody has them anymore.

Hmm...we have other green matter like grass clippings and leaves, but it's a small lot so we don't just have tons and tons :)

Used coffee grounds are a nice source of food if you don't generate a lot of veggie scraps. Just pop in to the local coffee place (starbucks) and ask for the used grounds.

Oh, I do think we'll have enough food scraps for worms :) I think we won't have enough that we'd risk overfeeding them, which is good.

You could grow worms in a tumbler, but how would you harvest? All castings, food, bedding, and worms wold be mixed together.

equinox, we just moved to a place with no recycling whatsoever. I'm trying to think of a way to use the excess of paper and cardboard we end up with that won't mess up the planet. Do you think adding it to an outdoor worm bin would be harmful? I'd be more interested in handling the cardboard than in the resulting compost. (for this situation only!)

My cardboard includes all of the types of cardboard you mentioned. I saw the video of the guy who is saving all his trash, and how he's cut back tremendously on bringing packaging in and how to avoid it. I wish I could figure out how. I have to shop through Amazon now that I can't get out any more, and the packaging is huge and awful. I feel guilty, but can't think of any other way to get the things I need. If anyone has missed that video, I'll dig up the link. It's well worth watching. I am certainly more aware of the waste I create from purchases.

Yeah, if I go the tumbler route, I'd forgo worms...

Lintu have you looked at the Worm Inn? Maybe you could hang it in your basement year round. I have read they are easy to harvest and NO fruit flies.

I hadn't seen the worm inn before. Looks interesting!

The Worm Inn does look interesting. My main caution about any indoor worm binning is that it's real hard to keep flies out and almost impossible to get rid of them once they get established. Little fly eggs go in with fruit peels. The Worm Inn might work, at least to keep any flies inside.

Like a lot of bin makers, they understate the problems of separating worms from castings -- yes, *most* worms will move up, but there will always be some obstinate worms at the very bottom. I also wonder about volume and throughput. Maybe there are some users on this forum who can report experience.

I like stacked tray systems because it's easier to take the system apart and see what's going on in the middle and fix problems. But I don't think those should be in your living space.

More generally, if you have doubts I would just get the tumbler and no worms. Keeps life simple.

A couple small worm points: onion peels are really not a problem -- I generate lots and my worms handle them easily. And cardboard can be roughly torn into scraps as large as 3-4 inches on a side - it doesn't need fine shredding.

I guess I suggested the tumbler, on a worm board, because there are way less things to go wrong, and if they do there is not water dripping, flies flying, or worms crawling indoors to where they do not belong. A round or square plastic worm bin, or cloth flow through, or other flow through, or tumbler with ileagle worms would all work. The tumbler would have the least chance of bad things happening indoors. Thus, I think your specific needs would be best served by the tumbler because there is no way something bad in the house could happen. A lone, wayward, lost mouse that found a tiny opening into your celar and enjoyed your bin, will not jump upon your leg and make you scream, as happened to me. This is way less tramatic outdoors. Plus, apparently, worms clandestinely live in them all the time.

"no recycling whatsoever." reminds me of my recent visit to Montreal, Canada. I was at an international event and they took all the trash from the garbage, vegetation waste, glass and plastic and dumped the cans into the single dumpster. Other places it feels like a sin to put items that should be recycled into the garbage. Maybe skip the worms and run for public office to get recycling in your area.

IN the future we will all only shop at Amazon.

"a way to use the excess of paper and cardboard we end up with that won't mess up the planet. Do you think adding it to an outdoor worm bin would be harmful? I'd be more interested in handling the cardboard than in the resulting compost."

The best way I know of is to use it below a garden in either a sheet mulch or hugelculture method. No need to even shred in either method.

Ordering by Amazon might actually save more natural resources than somebody getting in a car to shop at the mall. The deliver truck goes right by your house anyways, thus minimal energy used.

I would not only add cardboard to an outdoor compost system I would also ummmm pee on it. Because that is what it needs to balance into breakdown is nitrogen. But even skipping that step in a few years it should of broken down into beautiful material all on its own. Well actually zillions of friendly wee beasties helped it along.

Also phone books and similar can be used to grow mushrooms.

Thanx, eqinox, on making the amazon ordering seem OK!

Lordy, original poster, my apologies. I completely missed your point that the tumbler would be inside. Sheesh.

And yep. Cardboard is a lotta carbon. Human urine is a great balancer to it. That is, if I'm even using the term "carbon" correctly! ;)

Lintu:

I recommend trying things out with a small worm bin. I did that, and it is a great way to learn. We rented, and I could not have an outdoor compost pile, so I still had to toss lots of scraps (especially citrus peel - makes conditions too acidic for delicate worm skin if the bin is small). Once we got into our home and I could have a pile outdoors, well, that's where all the excess went.

My 3 bins (they grow!) did not have a fungus gnat problem until dh lovingly brought home a marked down poinsettia one Christmas. I have a lot of indoor plants, so that was some job to get a handle on! Now my rubbermaids are all wrapped in old bed sheets to trap the buggers, and when I go to feed, I quickly remove the sheet and roll it back up, squish the crawlers I see on the outer lid, wrap in a new sheet and stick the buggy sheet into the freezer for a day, then shake out and reuse.

In the summer I also get gnats and fruit flies in the outdoor bins which are a good 40 feet from my kitchen window (and they fly in through the screen!) but I've also read the gnats and fruit flies are a good source of protein for the hummingbirds that migrate through in the fall, so I've accepted I will always have the battle with these tiny flies.

I like the resulting compost the red worms give me. At the start I used shredded b&w newsprint, but now I'm a seasoned wormer who's privy to some nice stashes of leaves each fall (easy to keep a garbage bag full on hand), and live with two boys that I have no idea how they can go through so much toily paper, but that gives me plenty of unbleached cardboard that goes through our 5-sheet paper shredder with ease, and this cardboard helps to keep the bin fluffy.

I have no experience with a compost tumbler, but find turning the materials in my earth machines rather labourious. I may quit that down the road if my house (and dh) can handle more worm bins!

Compost is escentially a rotting process. It is hard to keep everything looking perfect during it. On the other hand new growth and birth can not happen without it.

It is hard to not share the daily worm bin news with those around us. It is surprising how attached we get to our worms. Some composters even use BSFL and get attached to them as evidenced by how well they make sure they care for them well even if eventually they will feed them to chickens. I do not know if it is actually the worms or the intrest like having a fish tank of creating a nice little micro world without the worldly cares and issues and getting to peek in at it.