I am a pretty lazy gardener.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to spend time in the garden but I hate to spend it doing something that could be done easier.

What does that have to do with making compost? Everything!

I let the worms look after it for me, but they don’t seem to be the fastest employees. It takes a year for me to get a bunch of compost. But, I have always thought a tumbler would be the way to go. I could crank it everyday, so long as I don’t forget, and compost would come out every fortnight.

It became to me in less than a week in the heavy Xmas mailing season. Steel support and the barrel is well designed. Just pull a wheel barrel under it and turn the crank. Did I tell you I was lazy? Maybe I don’t grind things up enough or perhaps my recipe isn’t perfect, I’m not sure.

What I know is it speeds up the entire process with tiny effort on my part. In two days the mix is really warm.

By the end of two or 3 weeks the mix is cool again, moist, and about half finished. Good for putting in my old bins for a month or 2 of seasoning. You can notice I haven’t debated the $500. I just know that I am going to get good compost, much quicker, and with a lot less work than previously. Did I’m saying I am having difficulty feeding it?

I bought this for my parents last year. It took me about an hour or so to put together by myself. The cylindrical body is constructed by flat sheet metal rectangles that you wrap around the circular disk that make up the ends and middle divider. I am sure if I had help, construction would have been quicker and easier.

The doors are my biggest compliant. They are made of sheet metal material and make for a flimsy door. Also, the door hinges are not of rugged quality. They are merely bent tabs on the door that slide into slots of the cylinder housing. The paint quickly chips off the hinged area. Additionally, the springiness of the sheet metal door compounded with the hinge design makes the door clumsy to open and close. On top of this, if you want easy unloading of the composter, you will need to remove the doors. This is no big deal, but reattaching the doors is cumbersome.

What I do like about this composter is that it is raised off the ground just high enough for my dad to roll his “luv cart” electric wheel barrow underneath and the compost dumps into it. This makes for easy unloading into the cart. This is imports for the following reason: Unloading the composters requires the most physical effort of composting. Loading the composter requires the least effort because you usually only load a little bit each day. This composter was designed to make unloading easy. Most other composters are on the ground which requires lifting of the heavy load into a wheel barrow or lots of shoveling into the wheel barrow. This is the main reason I bought this product for my parents.

This composter is not bad, but for $500 I would expect a more user friendly design for assembly and usage.

I’ve had a compost-twin for 5 1/2 years, and I love it.

I’m a lazy-gardener type with a large garden. I throw anything I want into one side of the composter, and it’s amazing how quickly the volume goes down. Eventually (and it is eventually) one side fills up, and then I close it up and forget about it while I fill the other side. I turn the composter when I feel like it — 30 turns, but rarely more than once a week or so. By the time the second bin is full, the first is ready to empty.

The compost-twin is *easy* to empty.

The doors are a the weak point. They feel flimsy, and a hinge recently broke off one of my doors. But that was after 5 1/2 years of steady, constant use and no protection from the New England weather. A new door costs $50 including postage. This doesn’t seem so bad to me.

It took me a little while to get the knack of taking the doors on and off easily, when I went to unload the composter, but now I find it very easy indeed — I’d forgotten that I ever had any difficulty.

So yes — this is a composter for people who are willing to do some advance investment (both the money and an hour to set up the thing) in order to have years of easy and high-quality compost.

One more note: Don’t worry about using compost starters, and don’t clean out your composter between uses, as the directions instruct. Instead, leave a little bit of finished or semi-finished compost in the bin as a “starter” for the next load. In the spring (if you’re in a winter-freeze area like I am), find some good soil in your garden and throw it in the composter to start the process going. Cheap and easy!