Two Jora 270's mounted on stands to ease emptying at Ilfracombe primary school
(two Hot boxes at rear of picture)
the section below is an extract from 'How to Make and Use COMPOST the Ultimate Guide' by Nicky Scott published by Green Books February 2010 £9.95
Small
hand-powered tumblers
How it
works
These
systems, such as the Jora 125, 270 and 400 and the Scotspin, are ideal for food
waste because they are insulated (other, non-insulated tumblers will also work
– but only efficiently when the weather is warm).
If
you tumble daily you can maintain high temperatures, especially if you keep
feeding your compost with fresh waste; sometimes it seems as though you can
never fill the chamber, and of course you must leave some space or it will not
tumble effectively. Don’t forget that you must get the mix right (see ‘Tips for
food-waste composting’ box, page 153). When you have nearly filled the tumbler,
stop adding more fresh material but keep tumbling. The temperature will start
to fall off after a while without fresh material being added.
The
Jora manufacturers claim that you can put about 20 kilos a week into the Jora
270, but that is in order to produce completely finished compost ready to go on
the garden. However, if you do not wait for the compost to mature in a tumbler,
you can put at least three times the recommended amount through the system.
Although these systems are great at the first hot and warm phases of
composting, and the manufacturers all claim that they produce finished compost,
in fact the last maturation phase of composting cannot be hurried and I think
you really need the worms to finish off the process.
So,
I recommend using your in-vessel composter to do the first warm and hot stages
of composting, then the material will be sufficiently degraded that rats are
not interested in it. I’ve found that rats are likely to expend a lot of energy
in breaking in to a compost system only if there is fresh food to be had; they
are not interested after two weeks or so of hot composting in an in-vessel
system, and so at this stage you can move the compost to a secure, but not
necessarily completely rodent-proof, unit. The Scotty’s Hot Box (see page 164)
is ideal for this as it has a large capacity and is a challenge for rodents to
break into, but you could make a secure maturation bay out of, for instance,
concrete blocks on a solid base with a secure lid, or use a New Zealand box
that is rat-proofed with weldmesh (see
‘Maturation units’, page 163).
Note
that the Jora systems arrive flat-packed and need to be assembled, whereas the
Scotspin arrives assembled and just needs putting on its stand.
Cost
Jora
125: £299.
Jora
270: £389.
Jora
400: £900.
Scotspin:
£600.
Where
to get one
Jora
in the UK are available from Smartsoil (www.smartsoil.co.uk).
Scotspins are available from Proper Job Ltd (www.proper-job.org).
Pros
of small tumblers
•
Insulated.
•
Accessible.
•
Accelerate the hot phase of the composting process.
Cons
of small tumblers
•
Hand-operated drums get very heavy to turn when getting full.
•
Hand-operated models need turning regularly.
•
If components, such as clips, fail to operate properly then the contents can
spill out.
