Spinning Compost Bin-need some ideas

I have one of those huge black spinning compost bins. I bought it close to 12 or 13 years ago. At different times I have thrown things from the garden in there. The bottom half is dry with chunks of debris. I have filled it with clippings from the garden now. And want to add what is needed to actually make a batch of compost. I understand composting isn't necessarily hard. I get the main idea. But I've started and then neglected this process so many times and now the thing is full and I have no compost to show for it and no idea how to get it cooking. Is the trick to rotate it consistently? To add water? I have a bag of coffee grounds from Starbucks. Should I add that? Any help would be appreciated.

Sorry for the vague description. All I have ever put in the bin was clippings from my garden. Plants that have been pulled, potatoes, onions that were bad, tops to veggies I took inside. Over the years those have dried out. I've never added leaves from fall or anything like that. Then each year I promise myself I'm going to try again and I add more discard from the garden and then forget again. I have I think a 5 lb bag of grounds but I can easily get several more. I'm wondering do I need to add water? 
I added a ton of tomato plants and bean plants today and basically filed it the rest of the way up. So, I'm happy to add the grounds and turn it daily for a week or so and see what happens. I hesitate to add grass clipping because my yard isn't "grass" it's prairie weeds mixed with prairie grass, crab grass, clover and other assorted weeds. I'm not sure I wanna put all those weed seeds in there. 

Thanks for the help and talking through this with me. Sorry I didn't provide enough info.

We have a school garden. We had three old wooden bins . Lot of browns .+ greens. Approximately how long will we start seeing progress.

Hi middlemama!  

This is just my take on tumblers for composting.  They do best when intentionally filled up with browns and greens, moistened well and rotated frequently, especially the first days.  Hopefully it will reach 140*F within a couple of days.  Don't add any more ingredients just because the level dropped.

A wire cage or bin that is open to the ground or a pad for excess drainage and is added to now and then, is a cold, passive composting method and may work best for you if you can't turn it now and then.  Composting will happen, especially in the lower level.  It just takes months.

For hot composting, critical mass is needed and it must stay lightly moist throughout.

Photos of my former tumbler and hot compost bin.

Filling with browns and greens with lid all the way open.


Compost bin after 2 hot turnings.

Sigh. Welp! Nothing about this tumbler being filled was intentional. Ha! I don't think long term with this is the way to go. The tumbler is a good idea but not practical. I need a three bin system. But I'd like to get something out of this mess. So I think I will add the coffee grounds tomorrow night. Wet it down and start turning this thing over the next weeks. See what I can make happen. Maybe next summer I can get hubby to build me a three bin system...closer to the house. I've got dirt with worms galore. If this compost situation were on the ground I'd have way better luck.  

A friend suggested we use sawdust along with other browns. We live in a condo, so just have a small tumbler. Since we started doing this, I can hardly keep up with compost. We are fortunate to live in an area where sawdust(shavings)is readily available from lumber businesses.

I have read that clean sawdust from solid woods is fine. Sawdust from plywood is not, as there are glues, and in some cases even formaldehyde.

Second what sanderson said.  I've been composting for two years now, I use fruit and vege scraps from my local store, coffee grounds, and sawdust from a pallet manufacturer -- untreated pine.  It grew gorgeous veges last summer  

Hi,
My garden shredder chops up fresh branches and leaves like there's no tomorrow.  But my question is: are the larger chunks of tems (about 1 inch in length, maybe less) OK to throw in the tumbler?  Or should I throw those into a longer term bin so that they can take their time to break down?  Or should I re-shred them to make them smaller?

I have four rather tall trees to remove from the back of the property.  And out front, I have 10 trees which started out as a little hedge, and 15 years later are 5 metres tall.  I have an arborist coming next week to cut them all down and chip what can be chipped.  So the above question is moot for these chips also...

rtfm wrote:Hi,
My garden shredder chops up fresh branches and leaves like there's no tomorrow.  But my question is: are the larger chunks of tems (about 1 inch in length, maybe less) OK to throw in the tumbler?  Or should I throw those into a longer term bin so that they can take their time to break down?  Or should I re-shred them to make them smaller?

I have four rather tall trees to remove from the back of the property.  And out front, I have 10 trees which started out as a little hedge, and 15 years later are 5 metres tall.  I have an arborist coming next week to cut them all down and chip what can be chipped.  So the above question is moot for these chips also...

Hi rtfm   Other far more experienced members will be able to comment in more depth, but IMO it all depends on how much of a hurry you're in.  I used a food processor in my first growing season because I only had 3 months to produce all the compost I was going to use in the following spring.

There's also the issue of how much room you have in your tumbler(s).  Bigger items will mean lots of air pockets (a good thing) but of course they will also take more space!  You also need to allow space in there for your other ingredients.  Being a "brown", your chipped material will need to be combined with a "green" in order for your tumblers to cook properly (which speeds up the process).  Also, it's always better to be making our compost from a number of ingredients -- the ingredient counting doesn't stop once we've made the MM to fill our beds!  (I was rather bummed by this when I first realised it, but it does make sense.)

With the volume of chipped material you're talking, I wonder if the best thing might not be to make a nice big windrow of it and take from it as you need for the tumblers?  If you want it all finished at the same time you'll need to turn it (like the arborist companies do, with a tractor or something) but even if you don't the interior will heat up nicely simply because you have such volume.

I highly recommend the Rodale Book of Composting, which is available from Auckland Libraries:

This is a great tip.  I'll order it now.  Great bedtime reading...

Hi.  If I read you correctly, my chipping the tress at the bottom of the section with a view to turning this into compost isn't a great idea.  If I piled it all in a great big heap (probably 2 or 3 cubic metres) and just left it there for a year or two - would that be a better option?  I have a power auger I could use to mix the heap and to make sure it all gets aerated.

My hesitance is that there is an awful lot of leaves attached to the branches.

A lot of leaves makes me think of leaf mould, which I've had great success with.  Are the trees deciduous?  Can you maybe wait until autumn, shred their leaves and put them in chicken-wire cages or similar, and chip just the wood into your big heap?  So long as the leaves don't dry out (I water my cages over summer/autumn, but they look after themselves all winter) you'll have glorious leaf mould after just 12 months.

I realise you may have good reasons for wanting to do this work now!

I have a loquat tree on my section.  With about a zillion loquats - far too many to eat, even with the birds getting fat on them.  Lovely green leaves and soft stems.  Can I compost the seeds also?  I was going to shred the small fruit-bearing branches together with the fruit they carry.

Duncan