UPDATE: We have a winner (chosen randomly) and it’s Shelley Bates, who entered on behalf of the Hillside Victory Community Garden in Hillside, NJ. Congrats to all the community gardeners who’ll be using their new Spin Bin!
The nice folks at Clean Air Gardening have offered a brand new $170 Spin Bin Composter to one lucky reader-commenter, and honestly, I wish I could enter. It’s a new product that was designed to solve some known composter problems, especially for city dwellers. Of course that includes rodents, the number one question urbanites have about composting, and this bin keeps them out. It also has 20 ventilation slots for adequate aeration, and four thermometer ports for checking the temp without having to open up the bin. It also seems easy to move.
To Win
- Just leave a comment telling us why you want it, how you’ll use it – anything about your experiences with composting, past or future – and the winner will be chosen randomly from all commenters.
- The contest closes Friday, June 4 at 6 p.m. EDT.
- U.S., lower 48 only, please, due to shipping cost.
- I’ll be asking the winner to please send me an email about how the composter is performing. Readers want to know!
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Hi, I live in Denver, CO and I am just starting to learn about gardening in the west and also new to composting. My husband and I want to build 3 raised garden beds so we can enjoying gardening with our little girl, who is almost 2. It seems like we have so much waste and I think composting is a great way to start making the most of that waste.
I totally need this! My homemade compost bin is not big enough and is just rotting the food…starting to stink
I grew up with parents who composted, and as soon as I bought my house, I started a compost pile!
My husband and I are very interested in learning to compost, but it seems so overwhelming. We have been thinking about getting something like this to get started.
This looks very helpful. I live in suburbia and compost everything but meat. Rats are definitely a problem, especially since all my neighbors have dogs and cats but I don’t. I’ve been carefully burying the food, trying to mix the compost with yard waste, turning it, etc. etc. and I can see the breakdown happening — but since I have to monitor and re-bury and re-mix so much, I can never collect any finished compost from the pile.
I’d love to have the compost bin. Mine is an enclosed pile, and it hurts my back to turn it all over with a shovel. Plus every now and then my cat catches a rat outside- which I’m sure was attracted to the compost (even though I bury the veg scraps deep). This would be a great help for my gardening!
Hi,
I have been composting for about 5 years now. A year ago, I committed to composting all the “compostables” from my office. We recently increased staff (by 6 people!) and I am finding it harder to keep up with the composting The composter would fill a void and will most definitely be used.
Thanks!
My old compost bin has decayed at the bottom/sides after 20 years, and I would love to have a replacement that I can put into service immediately. And I’m very interested in having something that is rat-proof.
This would be great for my burgeoning gardening hobby. This is my first year owning a home and would be awesome to start a compost to help my little veggies along!
We’ve been wanting to compost ever since we bought our first home 5 years ago. We have a rowhouse in the Philly suburbs, without much of a yard, this size container would be perfect. I grew up in the country in Northern IN, and my parent’s compost pile was under a sheet of wood. I remember having the task of taking the food bucket out, dumping it and rinsing it out…now I realize how much their sustainable way of life has rubbed off on me. We try to do all we can…eat locally grown, in-season produce, local grass-fed beef…etc, but with 2 little girls, we find ourselves throwing away food. I find myself saying “I want to reuse this.” A composter would really allow us to do that. My flowers would love it!
These are interesting units, but do they reach temperatures high enough to kill weed seeds? I would like to try some tests in this regard. In addition, I’m interested in measuring methane and nitrous oxide gas emissions from these small units–perhaps you can qualify for carbon credits!
I just moved into town and have not place to start a compost pile…serious we literally have no yard to compost in….this would work out beautifully for the small living space the 4 of us ladies have here…I love to plant flowers and landscape..I have done it for many years…but now I have 4 outdoors flower pots
I am sadden for the lack of room to grow plants at this point
Pick me! Pick me! I’ll use the composter to keep the good stuff in and the bad stuff out … pick me! Pick me!
Hmmm. Rat proof is one thing, but how about squirrel proof? I’ve found those little buggers tear/chew through everything enclosed. We have an amazing army of them in the area, small homes with smaller yards. And the exposed bins are regularly raided by the possums and the occasional wandering (and seemingly vindictive) armadillo. Who knew there could be so much wildlife (with anger management issues) in the middle of suburbia? Let me know how this one works.
Why buy topsoil when you can make it. and a great way to use your veggie scraps fun to watch it disappear and turn to soil,
Would love to give this composter a spin, ha ha! I’ve outgrown my Scotts Miracle Gro stacking compost bin and turning the compost by hand is a chore. This looks like a goody.
My compost is a pile. I’ve always wanted to try one of the tumbling models. I think they would do a better job of getting rid of weed seeds and volunteer seeds that pop up from my compost.
I’m new to gardening, and haven’t quite figured out what to do with all the weeds and debris that accumulates in my yard. Not to mention giving those kitchen scraps a second life. I’d love to see how this compost bin works!
I was born and spent my first sixteen years in a small town. We had a cow, couple pigs and army of chicken. We never put any kitchen scraps into garbage. Everything went to feed animal or plants.
My next thirty years were spent in a big city where I could not find place to utilize kitchen scraps. It was difficult for me to put these “goodies” into garbage. Finally, ten years ago we bought our house and I got my garden. Compost pile was the first thing that I started. It was so good. I composted all garden and kitchen scraps and fed my compost to my clay soil. I love this process. Finally I was able to not throw away leftover of rice dinner into garbage and enjoy my own veggies. Good, but … very soon I discovered that I got guests with long tails digging in my pile. I tried to dig scraps deap enough but it did not help. I hated to go near my compost pile.
I had to buy garbage can to use for composting of kitchen scraps. Well, it was made from thin plastic. My long tailed guests managed to made a hole in it. I had to buy metal can, better, but not big enough.
Having a big bin composter is my dream. Would be great if it will come true!
I made a composter out of a 55 gallon drum with holes drilled into it. I roll it over the yard but it would really be great to have a nice turning one. When I purchased my home the back yard was filled with gravel so I have been reclaiming the land and building flower beds and so need as much compost as I can get to amend the soil. Also, I have raised bed vegetable gardens so I can use as much compost as I can get….
How cool are you! I think composting should be a requirement for everyone. I like the look of this one, it looks like a cannon.
ahh! I would love to win this, I really want to start composting and its the perfect footprint for my small yard!
I was just looking at an indoor electric model but this one would be great!
I just moved to a new house in an urban area and I’m getting ready to start my first yard compost pile. In the past, I’ve lived in apartments and only been able to do small small bins (really buckets). I used two so that I could dump them back and forth to turn and since I had another concrete balcony above, I watered the compost piles when I watered my plants to keep them adequately moist. I’m so happy to be moving to an easier system now but I think I will need to do a closed container if I’m going to compost food because I live in an urban area.
I need a composter for my new garden! I have always loved fresh veggies and I have planted my first piece of dirt.
I spent 15 years making 3 boys grow, and for the last 4 years, I spend 9 months a year making 12 years old grow into good writers as a public school teacher. I want to make this garden grow for me with my compost.
One of the first things we did when we moved into our current home in Silver Spring Maryland three years ago (before the boxes were even unpacked), was to ID a spot for our compost pile. My 5 year old is an experienced composter and knows exactly what is compostable and what isn’t. Because we have so many shrubs, we generate a lot of yard compostables , but we would LOVE a tumble composter for our kitchen wastes! The woody stuff takes so long to break down, but kitchen wastes, mixed with a little of the yard stuff, a few tumbles…I can practically smell the black gold now!
I have always wanted a spinning composter. I have an Earth Machine that I started using when I turned my weed-filled backyard into a garden in Spring of ’08. It didn’t produce anything useable until this spring, and still only enough to spread about 1/4 inch on 2 out of 5 raised beds. I’m vegan and have tons of veggie scraps too, so it generally fills up too quickly and I have to throw out my scraps. It would be great to have a second that would hopefully make compost faster.
I would love to have this composter for our elementary school garden to give the kids a chance to compare this method with the 3-bin composting system we just started using. I’ve done loose piles, 3-bin and sheet composting with mixed results. Sheet composting has been the least maintenance but not always easy to find enough materials at the same time to get the good layers going. Thanks for making this offer available to your readers!
How great is this! I would love to have one because I have an auto-immune problem that keeps me from enjoying my garden duties in the summer months due to the heat here in Tennessee and to have one of these would be easy peazy lemon squeezy on making organic compost to use in my organic veggie garden that I eat that helps me with my health problem… was that shameless or what…
I would LOVE this composter. Currently our pile is in the woods where not enough sun hits it to move it along. Also not exactly convenient to the kitchen! We are trying to do an organic flower farm and this would be a huge savings! I’d love to not have to BUY compost!
I wanted more garden space so I planted over the area where I had composted. This could be placed elsewhere.
Oh my, this composter would be perfect. Our garden soil needs lots of amending, and this would be a great way to do it, and reduce waste too!
I would love to have a composter. I’m working very much on getting my city indoor loving fiance to understand the merits of compost and the outside.
I was composting five years ago and stopped specifically because it attracted rats. Glad to know there’s a solution.
I would love this composter. I am in my second year of owning a home and I am excited to be getting my gardens going. The hard, clay like dirt I have here in middle TN needs a lot of help (I miss the mid-west Indiana soil I grew up with!) I have many friends that are starting gardening for the first time and are interested in some of the things that I want to do organically, like compost. If I had this composter, it would be a great chance to demonstrate to many people about how great composting can be.
Hurricane Ike devastated our brand new beach house located right on the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. We were forced to take a small townhouse inside a retirement community. We have a small fenced in yard out back but it has no gate. We have to lug our bags of soil and plants through the garage and through the living room to get to our flower beds. The folks who manage the place never thought “people of a certain age” would wany anything more than a piece of flat grass! I have made several lasagana beds and planted half-priced garden store rejects plus seeds from the fruit and vegetables we eat, and roses in pots. I take everyone’s dying pot plants or anything else I can get my hands on. A composter would be a dream come true. I’d live to show the other ole’ folks what you can do if you try. It’s fun and I never know what’s coming up next.
My wood frame compost has seen it’s last days. Almost all of my lawn, front and back, has been dug up and replaced with veggies and perennials and they need great soil. My family of 5 have lots of good scraps and we have been digging holes throughout our garden and filling them since the loss of our compost bin.
Pick me, pick me! I live in what is possibly the most unprogressive suburb in Minnesota, and while I have a couple of compost piles, they’re hidden in the depths of the back yard…my dirty little secret. If word gets out, I’ll probably be driven to the city limits by a pitch-fork wielding mob. A legit composter could keep me in spinach and out of the headlines.
Ah, I would love this. My current compost bin is full and I am terrible about mixing it with a fork, it’s such a pain. The spinning aspect of this one looks very promising!
I am also contemplating a worm bin. Creepy, crawly worms. But producing lovely compost stuff. Hmm.
The h___ with city dwellers, I live on an island off the coast of Maine. Raccoons, coyote, white tailed deer, red fox and red squirrels – we are all competing for my compost. Despite the multiple layers of seaweed cover, the wildlife keeps coming back to unearth Kitchen Waste De Jour. A Spin Bin would baffle the critters and cause me to Spin Grin.
Melissa wrote: “My homemade compost bin is not big enough and is just rotting the food…starting to stink ”
My compost bin is right outside my kitchen window, and not far from my neighbor’s dining room window, so I am very attuned to minimizing the odor. I don’t compost cabbage, broccoli, or onion scraps. I also add leaves each time I add food scraps.
Each fall, I fill a bin of leaves that I keep near my composter. I water the leaf pile now and then, as this helps the leaves start to decompose. Every time I dump my kitchen scraps into my main compost bin, I add a similar size pile of partially decomposed leaves.
Now, if the problem is that your bin is too small, well, that requires a different solution. However, mixing browns with the greens (and keeping it moist, but not too moist) should help speed up the time it takes to make finished compost, no matter the size of your bin.
How on Earth are you going to choose which cause is greatest?
I compost at my home (a group house in Silver Spring, MD) and have been trying to convince my parents that they want to, too. It’s tough going. Mom doesn’t want to compost outdoors because of her fear of attracting rats and mice. (Her littlest brother’s pet mouse ran up her pants leg when she was a child, and she’s been horrendously appalled by rodents ever since.) She also harbors an intense desire not to create a restaurant for foxes, deer, raccoons, squirrels, and others we already have traipsing through our yard. As for a simple indoor worm composter, well, there’s just about no way Mom is going to let me put worms in her kitchen. None. Or anywhere else in her house. Or outside her house — except for the earthworms already in the yard.
My parents go through so much food waste that I wish they would / could compost and use in the garden instead. It’s like having to throw away glass or plastic bottles in a town that doesn’t recycle. Painful.
I have always wanted to try one of these composters, and this one seems great! I currently have a compost pile, but this seems like it would be great to use with kids or elderly friends… just roll it to the spot…
thank you for offering this, and thank you too, for your daily offerings!
I would love to give this baby a spin. I’d fill it up will all my cuttings from the yard and kitchen and I’d take out wonderful compost to make my garden grow better and better every year! Thanks!
Alas, alack, a huge limb from the giant pine tree nearby fell right on top of my composter in the dead of winter. No amount of black duct tape can put this Humpety together again. So speaking up for all my scraps, prunings and grass, they would appreciate this new tumbler.
We have just moved into a new house and are eagerly looking forward to composting again. It gives me a good feeling to 1) keep our waste food out of the trash and 2) see it turn into something useful. Lynda
Turning over compost with a pitch fork is a nasty job that can disperse harmful bacteria, spores and fungi into the gardener’s lungs and result in respiratory illness. Having the compost contained while mixing makes sense. I would love one of these new composters for the health and convenience benefits.
We have tried several times to make our own composters and have had such terrible luck, it is really funny. First we bought the wrong worms for an indoor bin so nothing broke down. Then we tried to create this complicated contraption with trash cans, and all it did was collect water – gross! And so many bugs! We live in a small townhouse but have a small backyard where this composter would fit perfectly!
I’ll keep it simple to a haiku:
Many neighbors near
Help them see organic waste
Spin black gold with time
I would like one because honestly I have never done it. I just throw most of my stuff down the hill. I keep reading about how awesome they are so give me a chance to transform into a crazed composting connoisseur
. Plus all my little ones that love the garden will dig making compost. They are my weeding machines and I know compost is supposed to help with that.
I’ve been composting down here in the Tucson desert for a few years, and it always frustrates me that my pile dries out every summer. I know an enclosed composter would really help me keep going strong through the heat!
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