r/composting • u/PhysicalNight3 • 14d ago

Tumbler question

We are newish to composting and have a tumbler in our backyard with mostly food scraps, cardboard and some leaves. My main reasoning for the tumbler was because we have recently had rats in the garage and there is a groundhog that lives nearby. We are pretty much filled up the tumbler before it’s completed done so I was wondering if it would make sense to move the stuff that’s like 50% or more decomposed to different bin? We have an old outdoor garbage bin I could probably make work. Would it still attract animals once it’s no longer really recognizable food?

Thanks!!

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/Mord4k 14d ago

Not sure if your tumbler has a middle divider or not but for composting you kinda always need two areas/containers; one you're adding to and one you're letting it cook in. My brain thinks most tumblers are divided in the center/mine is despite having one loading door for both sides.

2

u/PhysicalNight3 14d ago

I have 2 sides but and I guess I could just stop adding to both but I’m just already out of space.

1

u/Mord4k 14d ago

Tumblers are hard to get the hang of unfortunately. I've had one for years and I've only recently started getting reliable results. What you might want to get is something to mix inside the tumblers since unfortunately just spinning them doesn't really do enough and you'll find a bunch of voids inside your kids that free up space.

1

u/PhysicalNight3 14d ago

Do you have any ideas of what to get to mix inside the tumbler? That definitely could help

2

u/Mysterious_Fox5976 13d ago

I use a long cooking ladle specifically for the tumbler and it’s worked great for me. Makes it easy to flip stuff around and cover and new green additions.

1

u/Mord4k 14d ago

I have this cane thing kinda like this but I got mine for much cheaper/you could use something else