• Ease of turning;
• Ability to add food scraps readily - which I appreciate so much;
  
• Depending on configuration, they are relatively rodent-proof.

• Insufficient volume of materials to support heating;
• If the tumbler is elevated, air circulates all around the compost, cooling it;
• The compost is not accessible to various soil insects and worms, that do considerable work breaking waste down. They also contribute their poop, which, let's face it, enriches the plant nutrient value of the compost. :)
  

• When empty, I fill it 2/3 full of leaves or straw
• I add food until it's pretty garbage-y
• I empty the food waste and leaves and transfer to a standard on-the-ground plastic composter;
• I take it though a number of turnings until it has heated several times, the food waste is no longer identifiable, and it is a bit more stable.

1. If you cannot or do not wish to adopt my 2-stage method (either is perfectly rational), yes, you must stop adding new material until this compost is stabilized.
2. Grass clippings are quite juicy at this time of year (~85% water). The soluble nitrogen addition will support heating. Mix them in well.
   
3. I do not ever shred leaves. They take a long time to break down, depending on type, and likely will be spread on the garden still identifiable. But the insects living in the garden soil will be thrilled! and will pull them under the ground, where they will undergo shredding by insect mouth parts, and add to soil organic matter.
   
4. You can tell whether compost is heating up by laying your hand on the top of the pile, or by using a thermometer. A jelly thermometer is far cheaper than a compost thermometer. You can still buy the old-time thermometer in a tube with a clip around the tube for under $5. I tie a piece of bailing twine around the clip so I can retrieve the thermometer from the compost. But that is not necessary - it's only if you want to amaze yourself. :) The hand test is good enough.
5. Compost is stable when bacteria and fungi have broken the easily broken carbon-carbon bonds and the compost itself releases far less carbon dioxide and methane than it had when it was actively composting. What that means for you: compost that has sufficient moisture and fails to heat up appreciatively after turning is stable.
6. You may well have very wet food waste and leaves in the tumbler. If that is the case, add shredded paper to absorb the moisture. This will shift the bacterial community in the tumbler to oxygen-breathers, who work more efficiently. Shredded paper is not only absorbent, but readily breaks down - faster than leaves.

Janis and I have decided to adopt your two stage composting system. We have a number of questions about the general concepts of composting and the two stage system as well as detail questions on how to transition from where we are at the moment to your system.

I would like first give you an overview of the size of our gardens and how we have been fertilizing them. When we bought our house two years ago it came with beautiful organic gardens. We have had little gardening experience and been doing our best to maintain what was passed on to us.

·        Garden

·        825 Sq. Ft grass lawn (Back Yard)

·        800 Sq. Ft garden beds (Front Yard)

·        136 Sq. Ft raised beds

·        120 Ft bushes along fence lines

·        50 Ft hedges around front yard

·        Fertilizing (We have not done any fertilizing this Spring)

·        Gardner & Bloome Organics Harvest Supreme ( Mulch on all beds in Fall)

·        Home-brew organic fertilizer (Holiday Schedule-we missed Easter):

·        4 Parts Fishmeal

·        1 Part Dolomite

·        1 Part Rock Phosphate

·        ½ Part Kelpmeal

·        Lawn

·            Gardner & Bloome Organics Lawn Fertilizer

·            Ferti-Lome Natural Guard Soil Activator

We are not clear what the big picture is of the dance of a tumbler, composting bins, compost materials, compost, and garden soil: timing, movements, rhythms, etc. :-). So here are our questions. As you can see, we have lots, and some may overlap. We are very new to this. If this is over the top, perhaps you can direct us to some appropriate resources to study.

How do we integrate the compost that we will be making into our current fertilization? We understand that compost enhances the soil to create a beneficial environment for plants, fertilizer feeds plants.

·        When during the year is compost added to our gardens and lawn?

·        Have we missed the Spring window?

·        Is compost mixed into the soil or placed on top?

·        Should our grass lawn have compost?

·        Should we continue using the fertilization materials we been using or modify them in the future with the addition of compost?

We understand that composting is the biological decomposition of organic waste such as food or plant material by bacteria, fungi, worms and other organisms under controlled aerobic (occurring in the presence of oxygen) conditions. The end result of composting is an accumulation of partially decayed organic matter called humus.

·        How long does it take to create humus/compost using the Two Stage system?

·        How long do you leave a batch in the tumbler before moving it to the composting bin?

·        How do you decide when to move a batch from the tumbler to the bin?

·        “When it is “pretty garbage-y.” Not sure if that means around a week of scraps from two people or a month?

·        You said you “take it though a number of turnings.” Daily turnings for a week or a month?

·        Do you keep adding materials from the tumbler to the bin or must the bin be emptied before putting more in from the tumbler?

·        How long does the compost stay in the bin before going into the gardens?

·        How do you decide when to move a batch from the bin to the gardens?

·        Do you create compost all year long or is there a year-long rotation pattern?

·        You mentioned having 7 tumbler loads of compost working all winter. So make compost in the winter and then stop during the summer?

·        If a batch is “stable” but it is not time to put it in the gardens what do you do with it? Do we need a storage/holding bin in addition to a production team of a tumbler and a bin?

·        We understand that creating heat is important to the decomposition process but we are not clear what that actually means?

·        Is the goal to create heat for a specific period of time and then the decomposition is done?

·        Or are there periods of alternating levels of heat and the decomposition process is also being conducted by bacteria, fungi, worms, etc.?

·        “Stable” Status. You wrote “has sufficient moisture and fails to heat up after turning.” We are not certain what this means in practical terms.

·        This seems to mean it has already heated up in the past and has been in the composter tumbler/bin already for a period of time? If so, how long?

·        What we have at the moment is moist without heat after tumbling. Stable?

Here is current composting status.

·        We have a Suncast Tumbler (Speed) Composter TCB6800 that holds 6.5 cubic feet.

·        We have no idea what a speed composter means vs a regular composter.

·        We bought the tumbler in January 2020.

·        We have been adding food scraps and dead leaves to the tumble from January until three weeks ago.

·        We added the materials at approximate ratio 25% green to 75% brown.

·        We cut up the food into small pieces but did not cut up the leaves.

·        It always seemed to be moist, perhaps because the leaves we added were damp.  

·        We did not tumble the tumbler consistently in January and then was told to not tumble it during the cold weather. We started tumbling more regularly mid-March.

·        The bin is currently 50 % full and not showing signs of heat, maybe a little warm on certain days. We doubt it is ever been close to 140 degrees F.

·        There is still food visible that has not decomposed. 

·        In attempt to reduce the moisture and increase the heat we added pieces of brown shopping bag paper.

·        Not sure we shredded it enough.

·        Not sure how much to added given the size of the batch we have.

Immediate questions:

·        We have stopped putting food scraps in our tumbler two weeks ago. We have been putting leftover food in a metal container. Since the food is deteriorating without any balancing carbon (leaves), will we be able to eventually introduce this food into the composting when we are set up and ready to go? Should we mix some leaves in with it now? Or does it have to be put in the trash?

·        I just cut the grass. If I am following your answers to our earlier questions correctly, should put grass into the tumbler now?

·        What type and size composting bin should we buy? Cannot find anyone yet locally who has them in stock so may have to buy on line. Checking with Lowe’s.

·        In November, before learning about using a tumbler, we were putting food directly into the soil in one of our planters. That soil is now very rich. Is this another form of composting? We have also been told we can let leaves and grass decompose and then use it has compost. Is that correct?

·        The former owners left a small bin of red worms that somehow are still alive in a very small plastic container. Introduce them into the compost?

The very first thing I want to say to you is that you have inherited by purchase somebody else’s Garden of Eden. You should make it your own, rather than try to hold yourselves to someone else’s standards of gardening. You admit to limited gardening experience, but the questions you ask indicate to me that you are treading water in the deep end of the pool. It’s not given to everybody to own nice property! Enjoy yourselves and enjoy the property! Don’t turn it into some external standard against which you compare yourselves.

I’ve tried to answer all of your questions and have demarked the various sections in bold.

My personal goal is domestic waste management rather than optimizing soil fertility, tho’ I think we are doing well enough in that regard. Your questions about timing can all be answered in this way: We are two adults who cook mostly fresh and get 5-9 servings of fruits/veg per day. Frozen and canned produce left most of their waste at the cannery. It’s the accumulation of food waste on the kitchen counter that drives the whole composting process.

I’m also a real believer that this is only going to work over the long-term, (I’ve been going like this for ~45 years…) if it fits into the rest of your lifestyle and you really like doing it.

Managing the tumbler:  Rather than answer the specific timing questions, let’s go from the kitchen to the landscape. Then if questions remain, ask.

• I have two, 5-liter containers with tight-fitting lids on the kitchen counter. These are filled with food scraps during the cooking and clean-up process.
• When filled, they are dumped into the tumbler, which begins with 2/3 of its volume filled with leaves, shredded paper, etc. They fill in our house probably 2-3 times per week. We turn the tumbler after fresh food additions.

• Because the tumbler started out mostly filled with brown stuff, it gets pretty garbagy about every 2 months. I’ve never head anything about not turning the tumbler during the winter.
• I empty the tumbler a wheelbarrow at a time into an Earth Machine or Soil Saver composter. Those are brand names I mention only so you can see the type of composter I refer to – those are not recommendations.
• I layer the tumbler contents with dried leaves, or straw, or shredded paper – about equal thicknesses of layers, adding in any yard or garden debris, grass trimmings, or additional food waste from the kitchen as I go.
• Especially in the winter and spring, I’m likely to add a pint of alfalfa pellets to the wet layers for an extra shot of nitrogen.
• Then I will turn this composter maybe once every two weeks until I can no longer recognize food waste.
• When the tumbler is empty – and I empty it all on the same day - I refill it with leaves and start the cycle anew.
• When the food waste is no longer identifiable, I apply the compost if it’s needed. If it’s not needed, I have two trash cans.