Gardeners often have a need for enhancing the soil they grow in. Environmental concerns about waste are high on most peoples' list of issues. Buying fertilizer and other soil enhancements can be expensive. Combining the environmental concern for waste and the need to improve soil quality creates a great opportunity to attack both by using a tumbler such as the Envirocycle compost tumbler. There are many different brands available and you can even make your own. Doing so will help save money and dispose of a large quantity of your household waste.

The device must be stored in a place that is dry. Having added moisture affect the mix is bad and could ruin the mix. It would essentially turn it into a soup rather than a soil additive. Using a garage or shed is best, but a covered porch or secured tarp will do the job as long as you can keep adding water out of the mix.

Everything should be put in at the same time. If you're going to close the tumbler and start the process, you need to be sure that you're done adding to it. Once the material begins to break down you need to keep the lid closed and locked. Some people will keep a second one or use a large plastic bin to store the organic food in until the working tumbler can be emptied.

Two forms of material can be added to the tumbler. The most important piece of information is to avoid adding any plastics to the mix. Other items such as coffee grounds, tea bags, grass clippings, and other food or organic material are referred to as green waste. Wood chips, paper towels, newspapers and the like are considered brown waste.

Maintaining a balanced ratio is necessary for the mix to work best. There should be one green waste part to every three brown waste parts. Other mixtures can result in soupy material that is not suitable for the garden. You can tell when the mix is unbalanced by strong odors being emitted from the tumbler.

There should be a hand crank on the device. If there is it will be easier to turn. In either case, you need to turn the handle one full turn every single day until it is ready. You don't need to crank it more than this, but the complete rotation is important to get all the material involved in the process. This usually ends up moving the device less than a full rotation, which is how it is designed. Without this, you'll open the hatch to a mix that is partly composted and part not. This will also cause it to take much longer to do its work.

A strong odor means something is going bad. The ammonia smell will be related to having more organic material than brown waste. This means it is producing too much nitrogen. There may be a rotten egg smell which means there is too much moisture in the mix. In both cases, add more brown waste to help balance and absorb the moisture.

For most mixes, it takes about two to ten weeks to complete the process. Remember to keep a second can or place to store food scraps if you only have one device. Once the first mix is complete, dump most of it out, keeping part as a starter for the next batch. Add in all the scraps at once and begin the process again. Though it may seem like a lot of work, you really have to pay attention to it once a day and it is much easier than turning a yard compost with a pitchfork.