Compost Help

[gerberdaisy]

Hi, seems like there are few composters on this board, so hoping you can help me a little.  I'm hoping to start a compost soon, most likely using a tumbler.  Primarily I want something easy as I bet I'll be the only one that deals with it.  We're a family of 4 and produce a regular amount of fruit and veg scraps.  Any recs on items to get? Seems like a divided one sould be good

Also, this is the bigger question, we live in Upstate NY where it gets pretty cold in the winter, what do we do in the winter?  Can we still keep it outside, knowing that it will decompose at a much slower rate/not at all. I don't know anyone up here who composts to ask, thanks for any help!

[dr.girlfriend]

I have this one. It's good -- seals tight against bugs, turns easily, etc. Just be careful not to turn it too fast after a rain because water can sit in the depressions and splash out at you. I leave it out all winter.

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[munkii]

At my home, we have a single barrel tumbler that stays out year round and a 1-gallon lidded bin inside. At my apartment, I have a 5-gallon pickle bin that will stay out year round (it gets picked up bi-weekly) and a 1-gallon bin that I store in the freezer. In the time that I've been doing the pick-up option at my apt, I've learned that keeping the bin in the freezer helps everything break down so much faster. IDK if I'll continue to freeze things in the winter since I'm not turning, but since you'll be turning, freezing shouldn't be an problem--don't be surprised if you can visually see the heat from the decomposition even in the winter.

[lavender444]

We are new to composting so I cannot offer a lot of advice but the thing I've learned so far is to grind up my egg shells before adding them to the compost.

We have space behind our house to do a open air compost. Everything breaks down quickly but the egg shells. My neighbors, who use a turnable compost bin, also said his egg shells do not break down despite lots of time and heat in the bin. So now I rinse my eggs, set them aside in a tubberware container to air dry and then run them through my food processor to turn them into dust before adding them in.

[rubytue]

A freeze thaw cycle can help break stuff down. At least that’s my theory.

We use a small tumbler. I occasionally throw in some shredded paper tp balance out all the green.