BACK DOWN TO ONE...

Hello from SUNNY San Diego… The temp is 86 degrees today and it was decision day for the Composter from Costco.

We are back to being a one composter family at this time. The ECOmposter didn’t work as well as I expected it to and it had a few little quirks… There were 3 main reasons that I returned the product and they are as follows.

(1) I felt that the wheels on the base for rolling it might have been a little undersized.

(2) The material that it is made of has a tendency to sag/give when it was in the sun and because of the dimples formed at each wheel site made it extremely difficult to rotate.

(3) I also thought that the internal air tubes tended to keep the raw ingredients of the compost balled up into a ball at the center of the unit.

If I had a grassy back yard to roll the unit around on I might have opted for the regular base but my gardening area is basically concrete and gravel with a couple of raised beds. I did find it easier to rolled around than rotate on the stand but the concrete was putting excessive wear on the outside of the composter and I felt that it would significantly reduce its working life.

Now that I have pointed of the faults I found with the ECOmposter I must say a few good things about it.

(1) It gave me a very rewarding feeling when I was able to complete the jigsaw puzzle of pieces to get it put together (might just be a guy thing.)

(2) Adding yard and kitchen waste was very easy.

(3) It has to be the easiest composter I have ever tried for emptying. You roll it to a spot, remove one end cover, rolled it over and remove the other end cover and lift up the composter.

I am not a master composter and these are only my opinion about the ECOmposter. I have a very limited supply of browns to go into my composter and have to rely on shredded paper, and peat moss to balance out my kitchen waste and lawn clippings. I have been opting for paper at the grocery store when asked “Paper or Plastic?” because the brown bags seem to really work well in my mix. For those that want me to say “NEITHER”, I am not at that point yet.

I do want to give a shout out to COSTCO. They are very easy to deal with for online or in store purchases and they have to have one of the easiest return systems in the world. I brought in my paperwork, the ECOmposter and they asked a couple of question. Within 10 minutes I was in and out and they even reimbursed me for the shipping when I ordered my composter online. Yeah COSTCO!

What is growing in my garden this year to get the benefits of my composting successes? Tomatoes, potatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, a couple of sunflowers and one pole bean that decided to reseed itself from last year. Since I didn’t notice the beans until they were well on the way to coming up with another batch of seeds for the next generation.

I have recently planted a variety of gourds. I was able to get into a seed exchange on Garden.web a couple of years ago and got a small box with about 10 to 15 different hard shelled gourd seeds. The leftover seeds are now in the 3 to 4 year old range and not sure if anything will germinate and grow but they are at least getting a chance.

This was also a year for removing and moving things around in the landscape. A warm weather variety of lilac was removed and given to my boss. A tree fern now has a new home outside in the patio area at work. A potted Italian lemon tree is now growing happily in the ground. My naked lady lilies, various agapanthus, spider plants and papyrus plants have all found new homes due to either craigslist or sdfreecycle.com.

As I get older I am now loosing my thought that a plant is forever and now realize that it is OK to give one away, compost it or just putting it in with the green waste for curb side pick-up.

I have put up a new wind mill (decorative only) made from an old bike wheel. I haven’t lost the wind turbine dream. I am still working on things but life just seems to get extremely busy and full at times.

Have a great summer, enjoy the weather and Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

We are now a TWO COMPOSTER family...

I am sorry for the delay in updating but work has been all consuming for a while. I also tend to shut down a little bit when the weather turns cold and the sun doesn’t shine as much as I would like.

I have been using my Envirocycler Composter for a few months. I have decided that to get the most out of my composting experiences I needed to get a second composter. Since it takes about 3 to weeks after putting food scraps in I either was running into storage issues. I was also over-filling the composter and making it hard to tumble. The hoarder in me is having a hard time letting the smallest scrap of vegetable scraps going into the garbage.

I was at COSTCO recently and saw a composter tumbler that just seemed to have everything going for it. It was on sale and reasonably price thru Costco on line. The cost was 199.99 plus tax for a final total of $217.49.

The Envirocycler and the ECOmposter do have different compost volumes, 52 gallons for the Envirocycler and 71 gallons for the ECOmposter. The BIGGEST difference was that the Envirocycler is basically ready to go out of the box and the ECOmposter with base has 586 pieces that need to be assembled. It took me three nights to put it together but on a scale of 1 (EASY) to 10 (DIFFICULT) this would be a 3. The directions are very easy to follow, the tools needed are minimal, and a lot of the steps are repetitive. The hardest step for me was putting the two halves together due to the 32 tabs that need to line up. I must say that it did give me a very good sense of accomplishment to get it completed without having to ask for help.

I have been using the Envirocycler a little over 6 months now and I have found a few issues with it. (1) The door/hatch will let some compost leak out when I am rotating it. I don’t know if it is due to the way it connects to the drum or the fact that it is a single point attachment and a single point hook. I would like to see a better hinge design. (2) If I do over fill it the compost becomes hard to keep centered when tumbling, likes to drift to one side or the other and then the rollers get a little clogged with the compost that leaks out from the door. (3) The final issue I have is with the compost tea part of the build. The cap for the tank is very poorly fitted. The cap is very loose and the thread that are supposed to hold the cap are not very precise. This in conjunction with the way the tank is formed makes it a little hard to empty the tank without having a lot of the compost tea sloshing around when I try to pour it out.

With all of these faults that I have pointed out ( and I have to admit that these are just issues that I have encountered) I would still say that the Envirocycler is a very good product. Would I purchase it again… I think that I will see how the ECOmposter works and then I would make a final decision.

I did buy another tumble composter in the past. It was made out of a recycled 55-gallon plastic drum and tumbled on a horizontal axel. It was just one step up from homemade and I feel that technology has come a long way. I look forward to being able to give an informed review on my new composter soon.

This looks like it is going to be a good year for my avocado tree this year. Lots of small fruit and the fruit seem to be staying on the tree this year. Also have fruit setting on my orange and lemon trees.

In the garden plot itself are zucchini, garlic and tomatoes. This year I am mainly growing tomatoes grown from seeds collected from COSTCO tomatoes. May have a little bit of fusarium/verticillium wilt. I guess that next year I will getting plants labeled VF at the nursery to overcome this issue. I did grow a type of tomato last year called Juliette (a grape tomato) but was unable to find it this year in the nursery.

I have been going on line and saw directions for an upside-down hanging planter. I know have another tomato plant growing in the back yard and we will see how it does. I kept seeing the ads on late-night television for a very similar product and I kept debating about buying the product but just couldn’t bring myself to order it and pay SHIPPING & HANDLING. That phrase always bothers me, S&H.

Ron is getting ready to get out of school for Summer Break and his band is getting a few gigs so he is having fun. BubbaJam is the band and I go along and help hump some of the equipment… just call me a roady. Nobody in the group really drinks but they usually get a meal as part of the deal and I have a habit of going anywhere for free food.

We have been doing our part to bring clutter under control at the homestead… freecycler and Craigslist are getting a lot of use. Ron still get a thrill every time he puts a listing on Craigslist… it is almost like he clicks the stopwatch and sees how long it takes to get a reply. The one thing we have found out is that if something doesn’t sell on line the first time you list it you need to have patience and repost it again, and again as needed. Some stuff has lasted 15 minutes before a buyer was found and other things have take a couple of weeks to a month but eventually stuff sells.

We don’t have travel plans for this year… staying close to home, garden and band gigs. Our household is very happy with Obama and even with everything that is going on with the economy we still feel better and happier than we were at this time last year… what a difference a day can make and a President… so much for my political rant.

REDUCE, REUSE and RECYCLE

Comments are always welcome.