HOW TO BUILD A TUMBLING COMPOSTER – Good quality compost is a must have for any serious gardener. Making your own compost is not only practical and green, you get to know exactly what goes into it. There are a couple of ways to make compost and one excellent way is in a tumbling composter. In this guide we provide you with step by step instructions showing you how to make your very own tumbling compost maker.
Step 1
Take 4 pieces of 4″ x 2″ x 3′ timber. You can buy the timber you need from any good DIY Store or Timber Merchant. If you do go to a Timber Merchant you can ask them to cut the timber to the sizes that you require. This will save you at least a little time and effort on having to cut them yourself.
Step 2
Drill holes 8″ in from the top of each of the four lengths of timber you have.
Step 3
Take two lengths of timber and join these together using a nut and bolt. Now repeat this for the other two lengths.
Step 4
With the timbers joined together make a CROSS pattern to each.
Step 5
Buy a plastic drum – about 30 or 40 gallons in size are fine.
Step 6
At either end of the drum, and in the center, drill a hole that is 1″ in diameter.
Step 7
Take a length of PVC 1″ pipe and cut this so that the pipe protrudes from either end of the drum by 6″.
Step 8
Threat the pipe through the drum.
Step 9
Take two lengths of 1″ x 4″ timber that is approximately 1″ shorter than the PVC pipe.
Step 10
With your CROSS timbers fit the lengths of timbers across the bottom so that the two cross timbers are joined.
Step 11
Now cut two lengths of timber 1″ x 4″ that will fit across the ‘Cross Sections’. This will provide the brace that will stop the two cross timbers from the fold and collapsing.
Step 12
Stand the frame in a suitable location and place the barrel on the shorter ends of the cross.
Step 13
Cut a rectangle hole in the drum and with the piece cut out fix this back in place with hinges so that you create a door.
Step 14
You now have your own tumbling composter and all you have to do now is add some straw, kitchen waste, but only vegetable or food wastes, a little wet newspaper and then rotate the drum a couple of times a day to create your own compost.
