This is part 3 of our series on becoming green by composting. Part 1 is an overview of composting. Part 2 is on the Envirocycle composter.

Tumbleweed Composter image from growandmake.com

The TumbleWeed Worm bin composter uses worms to break down the waste into compost tea and dry compost know as worm castings (aka worm poop). The composter consists of 2 bins stacked on top of each other. The top bin has many small holes poked into it to allow liquid to run through to the bottom bin. The holes in the top bin are too small for the worms to drop down.

To get started you order worms and prepare bedding in the top bin consisting of slightly moist shredded newspapers and then add in the worms. You add your browns and greens by opening up the top bin burying it in a different section of the bin each time you add it. The worms will then eat the waste and digest it into the worm castings. If you are taking proper care of the worms they will happily multiple leaving you with a continuous source of compost without the need to add any more worms.

Pro’s:
•    Large capacity should easily handle all of the waste of our small family
•    Shouldn’t have odors as the compost is buried in the composter with the worms.
•    Produces a high quality compost
•    Cheapest solution

Con’s:
•    Requires dealing with worms
•    You have to bury the waste each time you want to add it to the bin
•    The compost process will slow down and/or stop in the winter and most likely kill the worms
•    Makes more liquid tea then solid compost
•    Harvesting the compost requires sorting through the solids to get all of the worms out as they will die in the garden
•    We can’t add proteins to the compost
•    Can take 3-6 months to start getting compost

Price: Composter $92.50 + worms $32 + shipping

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under Going Green. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.