How to Use a Compost Tumbler

One of the HUGE draws for our new house was the big backyard. The house itself might be smaller, but the yard is perfect. Large, rectangular, and flat. And brimming with potential! And one thing I did immediately after moving in was ordering a compost tumbler.

Composting can be as easy as throwing food scraps into a designated area of your yard. My parents do that. And it works for them because they have a huge yard. They can put their compost pile off in the corner, and no one is the wiser. But a compost tumbler is a good solution fo smaller spaces.

How a tumbler works

A tumbling compost is essentially a barrel up on bars (to allow you to easily rotate it). The barrels come in different sizes, and some even come with two barrels. I like the idea of tumbling compost for us because we can keep it up near the kitchen and not have it become unsightly.

To add compost material, you open a hatch on a barrel and toss it in. You then close the hatch and can rotate the barrel on the frame to “tumble” or mix up the compost. One huge perk of using a tumbling composter is that the hatch and enclosed space generate and seal heat into the barrel. You really speed up the composting process because oxygen + heat = speed!

Starting a compost tumbler

After you’ve set up your compost tumbler, the first step is to begin filling it. Remember that you should have about a 50/50 mixture of “green” and “brown” waste at any given time. And this is measured by weight, not volume or visual amount. (The volume/visual amount is more like 20/80 green to brown.)

• Green waste is typically high in nitrogen and includes fresh grass clippings, fresh leaves and foliage, and many kitchen scraps. This waste provides nutrients and moisture.
• Brown waste is typically high in carbon and includes paper, cardboard, eggshells, dried leaves, and more. This waste balances out the moisture during the decomposition process.

I am not adding any meat, fish, dairy, or excessively fatty/oily things to my tumbler. I realize there are a lot of opinions on what you can and cannot compost, so this is just what I am doing!

If you’re just starting a batch, it’s a good idea to throw in a handful of fresh soil or compost to help with beneficial bacteria and microbes. Normally a compost pile could get this from the ground, but a barrel is self-contained. You might consider adding an accelerator to the barrel to speed things up, but I don’t use them.

Turning, monitoring, & smells

If you notice that you have bad smells, check the ratio of greens to browns. If it wet and smelly, add more browns to dry things out. And make sure you’re continuing to spin that barrel at least daily. This is especially important once the barrel is full and really cookin!

Decomposing matter is definitely going to have a scent. Whether you like it or not is totally based on personal preference. However, a tumbling composter should not smell so bad that you have to plug your nose when you add materials to it or walk by it.

If you aren’t seeing much progress and the conditions are otherwise ideal, add some more organic, nutrient-rich “green” matter. You can also throw in a cup of water to add moisture if things are too dry. Once the mixture looks like a dark, fine soil, it’s ready to go! Give it back to the earth and start over.

Managing flies

I have dealt with a few bouts of gnats that fly everywhere when I open the tumbler. If you’ve read my article about fungus gnats on houseplants and how to get rid of them, you know that the gnats are attracted to the damp organic matter.

So that makes keeping them at bay kind of hard. You want a good mix of greens and browns, and that means that if you have a fungus gnat problem, you might have a mix that needs more browns (paper, cardboard, etc.) added to it.

When we have too many gnats in the barrels, here’s what I do:

• Monitor my greens to browns ratio, erring on the side of a drier compost mix even if it meant slowing down the composting process.
• Added browns—shredded cardboard and paper—to dry things out.
• Tumbled multiple times a day to get air flowing and keep things mixed up.
• Opened the panels and let them sit in direct sun for several hours to air things out.

Can you add worms?

No! Don’t do it. They will die 🙁 It will get so hot in there and totally nuke them. That might seem weird because you probably associate worms with compost. But that’s a different kind of composting—vermicomposting.

Or a type of composting in which worms slowly eat your waste materials and poop it out. That worm poop (aka “worm castings”) is gold for plants. There are special setups for vermicomposting. I talked about how I use worm castings in my houseplant soil article, but I don’t have my own worm farm. I just buy bags of them at a local shop.

Adding other stuff…

There are lots of opinions about what can and cannot be composted. But here are a few things you can add to your compost bin that you probably didn’t think you could. Let’s keep them out of the trash!

• Popcorn kernels
• Human and pet hair
• Napkins and paper towels (avoid those that have been used with fatty or oily things)
• Paper plates and cardstock/cardboard that doesn’t have that glossy/waxy finish coating
• Ash from a wood-burning fire
• Sawdust from cutting wood that hasn’t been treated with preservatives or pesticides
• Natural fabrics and strings (cotton, wool, twine, etc)
• Old soil that has been depleted of nutrients (just make sure you haven’t used harsh insecticide chemicals on the plants and that they are pest-free)

Whatever you add to your compost tumbler, make sure you dice, shred, or pulverize into smaller pieces. The smaller your pieces, the faster they will break down into compost.

Miracle-Gro Compost Tumbler review

I also wanted to provide a review of the Miracle-Gro Dual Chamber Compost Tumbler (affiliate link) that I decided on. Including why I chose this one, because I read a ton of reviews first! Here are the reasons why I chose it:

• It’s great for smaller spaces and doesn’t look ugly.
• It has two compartments. This means that while you have one side cooking, you can start a second round of compost!
• It has a built-in handle that makes it easy to turn.
• It has built-in aeration. There are bars on the inside of the barrels that help more efficiently aerate your compost when you turn it.
• The reviews are mixed on Home Depot’s website, but they are overwhelmingly positive on other websites like Amazon. Since I had my friend’s recommendation from her experience using the single-barrel version of this composter, I went for it!
• The price. It’s not a bottom-of-the-line model, meaning it isn’t the cheapest. But it also isn’t super expensive. Because it doesn’t need to be. This one does the job.

Overall, we are super happy with this choice. While I haven’t gotten usable compost yet, we have noticed a SIGNIFICANT decrease in our trash on trash day. It’s amazing how much kitchen waste we all throw away, and I’m happy that I have another use for it now.

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