Kitchen Garden Forum

Anyone had any experience of using compost aerators ? I was looking at the Darlac version but also wondered about the spiral (wheelbrace) type , at my age anything that makes life easier is what I am looking for. any comments would be most welcome.

Gave up aerating, didn't make a lot of difference to the quality of the compost or how quickly it rotted down, well not enough to seemingly justify the effort.

BUT, it will depend on what your compost bin is made of. My 4 are made from pallets so they get wind flow to slats all round.

BTW. Welcome to the forum

we've never aerated our compost heaps in 27 years! They are made up of reclaimed corrugated metal and old doors. Always comes out fantastic.

Pa Snip wrote:Gave up aerating, didn't make a lot of difference to the quality of the compost or how quickly it rotted down, well not enough to seemingly justify the effort.

BUT, it will depend on what your compost bin is made of. My 4 are made from pallets so they get wind flow to slats all round.

BTW. Welcome to the forum

My bins are also pallets, but I have lined mine between the slates with polystyrene , but with a four inch gap at the bottom to allow air to circulate, get great compost. [I also do not turn the contents over.]

Hello, Grassman, contrary to the previous answers, I regularly aerate our compost and am quite sure it makes a difference, certainly to the time it takes to break down into nice crumbly compost. We have four ex-dustbins with small holes drilled into the sides, bottom and lid (large enough to admit air but too small for mice etc). One is always the 'live' bin which we 'feed' with vegetable kitchen scraps, non-seeding annual weeds, torn cup cardboard, egg boxes, shredded shrub cuttings etc. Meanwhile, the other three are 'stewing' and are regularly stirred from top to bottom with a spiral aerator, a sort of large auger, bought from Wigglywigglers many years ago. When one bin gets a bit too damp or smelly, it is mixed in with the contents of another dry one and occasionally I combine two of them. To do this, the aerator is very useful because it picks up large clumps of compost to carry from bin to bin (they are very close together). I do add Garotta and occasionally a bit of lime.

Sorry about this long explanation, but I really do pride myself of making really good compost (I have just spread lots of it in the garden), so much that neighbours have knocked on our door at occasions and asked where I have bought this 'lovely black soil' from!

We just have a mighty heap and give it a good poke with a fork every so often. Then put the "good stuff" just to the side of the heap for spreading.

And "Hello and Welcome" from me too.

Welcome
I just fork my stuff around a bit. I also mix bins together, lifting stuff off the top and chucking it into another, so I can get at the stuff ready to be spread out.
I am using plastic daleks at the moment and have been for years. but may swap to timber if I can get enough pallets.

Many thanks to all who replied. I am not fit enough to fork things around too much so I have gone for the spiral aerator from Dolmen. thanks again. Happy gardening.

Let us know how you get on, if you find it easy and effective.
In writing that, I wonder if I should build one timber box and see how the debris in that develops compared to the daleks