# Apartment Composter for plants



## Sameer (Sep 30, 2007)

Not sure where I souldve posted this, but this seems relevant. I have a 45 gallon aquarium high tech setup and my plants grow like weed. I try to sell off everything thats overgrowing, but my growth exceeds demand. So, unfortunately, I throw away alot of my plants. I just feel so bad about it. Recently it came to my mind that people who post in the plant sale board say something like, "x and x for sale till Sunday, then it hits the composter." So I was thinking how that would go by.

I live in an apartment, I have a small space in the balcony for it. I dont know much about it. I think I get a container, throw in some potting soil and worms, throw in my plants and voila. I read a bit online on how to do it, so its more than just that. I just want to hear from actual people who do this for advice. Currently I have a ton of L. Aromatica that I need to throw away.


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## characinfan (Dec 24, 2008)

Hi Sameer,

I had a vermicomposter on my balcony when I lived in an apartment. It is virtually odourless (I keep it in the basement of my house during the winter, now that I have a house). Any composter will stink, though, if it is overloaded, i.e. if you add too much plant material at once. If you go on plant trimming binges, it's would not be great to keep a composter indoors. But you could run one during the warm months on your balcony and restart it each spring. (As long as it is above zero, the worms are fine, but they die in winter. At low temperatures, they do break down material, but they're slow at it. They're most active when temperatures are in the teens to 20s).

Some fish also find composting worms to be delicious.

Alternatively, you could trade me your excess plants for worms. . .  I'm not that far from you. . .

(Trust me, the plants won't last a week with my voracious headstanders!)

PS -- I have a worm chalet from Cathy's Crawly Composters. It is a relatively expensive model but it's great because the stackable layers are not too heavy and can be rotated easily as they fill up.

PPS -- If you do buy a composter, buy the worms from me or on Craigslist -- way cheaper than through Cathy's.


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## Sameer (Sep 30, 2007)

Ok, thank you for the reply. Seems like a bit of work. Ill look into it further.


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## AquaNekoMobile (Feb 26, 2010)

Another idea is to use an automatic composter for indoor use. Nature Mill makes such an item that auto mixes the organic material you put into the composter and because of it's insulated unit the warmth is kept in to break down stuff faster. Reports of 2 weeks are not uncommon.

Any gardener knows compost is 'black gold' and a little compost goes a long way in any plant/veggie bed. Find out who else in your apt. does balconey gardening either by visually seeing thier balconey garden or put up some lobby flyers with your email. You might be able to exchange some veggies in exchange for the compost and also network for your zombie survival knowing who can grow in your complex. 

http://www.naturemill.com/

I scored one off Craigslist or Kijiji a couple weeks ago for free. Power supply is shot but the unit is lightweight. It is like heavy duty styrafoam housing IIRC which keeps the heat in. If the PSU dies you can Ebay or local electronics store a new one (take note of polarity) for IDK less then $10. The unit is like a full tower desktop computer but a little wider about a 1' wide and when I carried mine it was like 10-15lbs light and bike mountable if you lash it down. I little pricey but no need to worry about worms and tray rotating and manual sorting. 4 -season use. Not putting down the worm composter. The worms as mentioned can be used as food or put into gardens or plant pots if you have extra or as worm food.

Home Depot sells it online or locally I can't remember. It comes with a charcoal filter tho over time you may want to source your own at a LFS and mod your own to make it cheaper. We all wished we had your plant problem.


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## Sameer (Sep 30, 2007)

Thank you for your response Aqua. I still havent had the time to do some more research. atm I just want to make a cheap, diy setup. Ill try to post a pic of the plant jungle I have in my balcony.

Im not worried about fast turnovers, I can wait. This is just a casual thing, Ill be only using it for my plants. As I learn more and get better, maybe I can upgrade. atm Im just trying to get the basics. Worms wont do because the composter will be in the balcony. During winter the temperature ranges from +10 in my balcony to -10 in the evening, the changes are that dramatic. 

As always, Ill do some research and report back here. Its always good to get advice from fellow GTAAers, unlike random opinions over the internet.


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## AquaNekoMobile (Feb 26, 2010)

Well you may want to look at the naturemill setup and diy one like it. Be it a full manual unit or my thinking is to get a small workout to help the body at the same time by hooking it up to a bike or something. You could pull a small motor out of something and use that but remember that compost does get a bit heavy. I would aim for somethijg that can say mix cookie dough would be a good starting point as then it should be able to rotatenthe mix as itngets heavier later. Or heck.....hand crank it. Take a smaller approach to the 55gal drum composters. 1-2 5gal diy composters sprayed black with a crank arm is what I am thinking about.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&c...0.2j3j1j6-1.7.0...0.0...1ac.1.Wsm66zInqAs#p=0

Have one for when you fill it up and the ither for starting a new compost whe the other is breaking down. Or get a large er barrel and do it all in one. A larger pile gets hotter then small ones.


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