Sunday, February 14, 2010

a homemade Rotating Composter

I made a well working Rotating Composter out of left over rough cut hemlock and a recycled black plastic 55 gallon tank I got thru craigslist for $15!

Please look at the pics for the design, when I have time I'll try to draw it out and post it. It's a pretty straight forward design, with the tank on chest level to have enough space below to dump compost in a tub. I used four small caster wheels to be able to rotate. At some point I will attach a couple of small handles on the side of the tank to help rotating (the thing gets pretty heavy at the end of summer). Do not use a metal tank, they DO rust through!

Gun Black on Main Street in Interlaken sells black plastic 55 gallon tanks on a regular base. Do rinse them out well, since they did contain dye chemicals. Agway Ithaca also sells plastic 55 gallon tanks, but they rarely have black. Most of their tanks contained food products.





I like to dump my worm bin in the composter during summer and only have them live in the basement when the weather is too cold. Since we have chickens and worms, we do not have that much leftover organic matter to compost. I feed the composter extra's (clumps of grass from the mower, fallen leaves in spring, rotten eggs) so we do get about one load of great compost each spring I love to use for new plantings (always need more fruit trees...).