Fast Compost - How to Make Compost Fast - Make a Compost Tumbler
82
We all know that compost is a great way to improve your garden soil. It not only adds nutrients, but buffers the pH of the soil, and improves the tilth of the soil as well. In addition, the materials we compost won't find their way back into the overflowing land fills of our country. But left to it's own, a compost pile can take weeks or months to produce the black gold for our gardens.
Here we take a look at a few ways to speed up mother nature in making compost. It turns out that it's not that much more work. With just a few simple changes to how you compost, you can be seeing rich compost from your compost pile, bin, or tumbler in just a couple of weeks.
Start with the Right Materials
While there is a lot written about ratios of carbon to nitrogen, it's not necessary to get it exactly right. But you do need to make sure that you have an adequate supply of nitrogen for the pile, as that is the energy source for the composting action. But too much makes the pile too "hot" and leads to the offensive odors from the pile. About a 50-50 mix of high nitrogen materials like grass clippings, green plants, and (ironically) coffee grounds supply the nitrogen, while brown materials like fall leaves and wood chips supply the carbon.Also, you need to make sure you have an adequate amount of material to get the pile to heat up. The equivalent of a pile 3 feet on a side will work well.You need to figure out where the pile is going. You can just have a pile, or a simple bin that can contain the materials. Keep in mind the need to turn the materials when choosing a bin or tumbler.
Shred the Materials
This is key. The materials for the pile must be broken down so the microbes in the pile have more surface area and can access the inner parts of the material (not the tough bark or outer surface of the plants.) This is especially true for the high carbon materials.You can break it down by cutting up into small pieces with a pruner (pieces less than 1 inch on a side), which is a lot of work. Some folks love to run a bagging mower over the materials, which can pick up grass clippings at the same time. If you have a lot of brown material like leaves in the fall, a chipper shredder may be the best solution. Some of the less expensive models are electric chipper shredders. I have one that has a hopper that drops down so the leaves can be raked directly into the hopper, which works reasonable well if you don't get carried away raking too many leaves in at one time.
Compost Thermometers
![]() | Amazon Price: $65.00 List Price: $70.00 |
![]() | Amazon Price: $59.85 |
![]() | Amazon Price: $18.95 List Price: $28.45 |
![]() | Amazon Price: $18.99 |
Keep the Pile Moist
The old saying is that the materials should be as moist as a damp washcloth. Too much moisture can lead to a slimy smelly mess, and not enough moisture will lead to nothing happening. Check and add water when turning the pile.
Turn the Pile Regularly
Next to shredding the material, this is the next key step. You wlll want to be turning the pile every other day or so. There are a number of ways to turn a pile, but the goal in all of them is keep the compost heated and active by getting fresh uncomposted material into the center of the pile where the microbes are the most active. An active compost pile will have a center that is heating up to 140 degrees F or more, which will kill weed seeds and pathogens. But if it exceeds 160 degrees F it needs to be cooled off by turning as this will avoid the compost pile becoming sterile. There are a number of compost thermometers available that can help monitor pile temperatures if you think this may be needed, just make sure you get one that has a probe long enough to get to the center of the pile that you've built.
If you've chosen to just use a pile, you can often turn it by using a pitchfork. Some gardeners will use a set of bins, so that you can turn a pile from one bin to another. This can be a lot of work.
Alternatively, you can use compost turning tool or an aerator. There's a couple of types of these. The ones with wings that fold out can work well, although it's hard to control how much material you grab with these, so they can get stuck. My personal favorite I've been using for several years is the Compost Crank by Lotech. It looks like a big corkscrew, and with it you can basically "screw" the tool in to grab the right amount of material to turn, and they last forever.
If all that sounds like too much work, a compost tumbler may be the best for you. There are a host of tumblers, here's a look at the different types of different compost tumblers like the Envirocycle composter.
Be sure you get one that you can actually turn, and make sure that there are baffles or something on the interior that actually breaks up the compost as you turn the tumblers, which is the whole reason for having a tumbler. While you can spend a lot of money on a big crank operated tumbler, I think the best tradeoff of cost vs effectiveness vs ease of assemble and use is the Urban Compost Tumbler. You can see more at this Urban Compost Tumber review.
Compost Activators and Starters
Generally compost activators can help but often aren't really necessary. If you can find some starter material to throw in your pile as a source of microbes then this may not be needed. If, however you have a lot of brown materials like leaves then an activator might get things moving quickly. For that I personally like the Ringers brand, but there are number of good ones to try.
If that's not enough, here's a video that shows the inexpensive way to get fast compost. It features a few additives I didn't bother to mention.
More Articles on Composting
- Compost Tea for the Tomato Garden
Compost tea is one of the classic organic fertilizers. It's best when it's brewed from fully composted materials, but you can brew it with a composter like the Envirocycle compost tea...
- Mantis Compost-Twin Reviewed
The Mantis Compost-Twin is often thought of as the Cadillac of garden composters. Here's a look at the pros and cons of the Compost -Twin. Mantis Composter ReviewBy Brandi Yates The Mantis...
- Grass Clippings as Mulch – Using Grass Clippings for Garden Mulch
Grass clippings are one of the most common forms of yard waste, and in the spirit of composting and recycling the question often comes up about using grass clippings as mulch for the garden. ...
- Composting Kitchen Scraps – What Can You Compost?
Kitchen scraps are a great source of composting materials for your compost pile. But you do need to take a little care in choosing the materials that you save from the kitchen for the compost bin. ...
- Worm Castings – Using Worm Castings in Your Garden
One great way to improve the soil in your garden is to use earthworm castings. There are a couple of ways to start worm composting (or vermicomposting as it's often known), one is to add...
- Garden Gourmet Compost Bin – Gourmet Compost for Your Garden?
When any gardener starts composting, it usually begins with just a pile over in the corner of the yard. But at some point you'd like to have a compost bin that is a little more attractive, but...
- Aerobic vs Anaerobic Composting – What's the Difference?
When we take a look at composters, often we are doing so because we want to get fast compost, as opposed to the slow "natural" way of composting. the technical terms for these two types of...
- Fertilizing Tomatoes – Is Manure a Good Tomato Fertilizer?
One of the most common natural fertilizers is rotted manure. Almost any organic gardening book will recommend it. But how well does it work on tomatoes, and if you have a choice, which type of...
More Hubs on Gardening
- Growing Blueberries - Tips on How to Grow Blueberries In Your Garden
Growing blueberries is something that can be done in most of the US. Here are a few tips on how to grow blueberries. - 4 years ago
- Upside Down Tomato Planters - Does Growing Upside Down Tomatoes Work?
Over the last few years it has become more and more common to try growing your tomatoes upside down. Here we take a look at advantages of growing tomatoes upside down, and a few of the more common... - 4 years ago
- Funny Garden Gnomes - Where to Find Funny Gnomes
Garden gnomes are extremely popular right now as a way to add character to your yard decor. But where did these little guys originate from? A brief history and some current ideas to place garden... - 2 years ago
- Toy Lawn Mowers - A List of the Best Toy Lawn Mowers for Kids
Many of us have fond memories someone in the family pushing around a small mower either in the yard following Dad around the yard while he took care of the lawn, or simply indoors with a small toy... - 3 years ago
- Wind Spinners Come in Metal, Copper, 3D Shapes and More
Wind spinners are a clever way to add a decorative touch to the yard or even indoors. Here is a look at some history of wind spinners, and where to buy many of the types of wind spinners, like... - 2 years ago
- Fancy Bird Houses - Unique Style Birdhouses for Your Backyard
Most gardeners enjoy having a birdhouse in the back yard. Nothing beats the melodious tones of the local bird population, and they also provide a visual treat with their industrious activities in the... - 4 years ago
- Fast Compost - How to Make Compost Fast - Make a Compost Tumbler
Compost is a key element in having good soil in your garden. Compost can takes years to form or with a few tricks listed here, you can have compost in just weeks. - 3 years ago
- Tomato Cages, Stakes or Trellises - Which Do You Prefer?
When planting tomatoes you should think ahead on how you will support the plant as it grows. It will have to support a good bunch of succulent fruits so you will need a support system. - 3 years ago
Compost Tumblers
Amazon Price: $238.99 | |
![]() | Amazon Price: $289.98 |
![]() | Amazon Price: $109.98 List Price: $159.99 |
![]() | Amazon Price: $259.95 |
![]() | Amazon Price: $199.99 |
![]() | Amazon Price: $289.98 List Price: $299.99 |
Your Reward
Hopefully you can take some of these tips and use them to make your own "black gold" - compost is the best thing you can add to your garden for organic growing of vegetables and flowers!
CommentsLoading...
Great hub and very useful info.
Great article, John.
While collecting research and information for composting I came across very similar content.
It's great that you covered so much ground in composting (and I can tick some of the boxes saying -YEP i was right with my own research)
Good work with the video too.
That is pretty amazing. I have looked into compost for a long time, and I knew that my pile outside was not enough. Thank you for this informative article.
Great hub, and very inspiring! My compost is usually pretty disappointing, although I did manage to produce enough to mulch all of my gardens this year. I was very proud! I need more manure. I just haven't had the time to go beg manure from my local farmer. Thanks for your advice!
Really useful hub. i will try to improve my garden soil using your tips.. Thanks
i was just turning the compost over today and wondering how to speed things up, i think there's too much brown stuff, i was wondering if i could just buy some worms from the bait place and toss them in
When we lived in Wisconsin we used a corner of the yard for our compost pile. We tossed everything vegetative into it, turned it, watered it, and every Spring after being covered with snow we had the most glorious compost to add to our garden. The year we moved back to Houston, I had put a few seeds of butternut squash into that area and it was growing like CRAZY when we left. We told the neighbors to help themselves to the harvest as our house had not yet sold. That would have been quite a crop!
Great article, John. I picked up some good tips to make my composting more efficient. Loved the video.



























shredding paper fort lauderdale 20 months ago
super interesting hub. I will forward this one to my wife