Tools for Composting

What tools do you use to help you with your compost creation?

There are a few that I frequently use.

Sifter

Compost Sifter

I use a sifter when I am harvesting finished compost to remove any large chunks. Anything that doesn't pass through the screen ends up back into a working compost pile to continue to break down. This assists with handling of the finished compost and gives me an amendment that is rather consistent.

Pitchfork



My go-to tool for handling compost is the pitchfork. It is great for transferring materials and poking around in the piles. I keep one near my active piles so I can expose the core, add more materials, and recover it quickly. Out of all of my compost related tools this is the one that gets the most use.

What tools do you use?

I'm thinking of purchasing a scraper/chopper tool with the intent of being able to process down some woodier material by hand and to work the compost pile itself.

Anyone have any experience with one?

First, my hands. I mostly pull weeds and carry them to the heap. Then, a year or two later, a fork to scrape the stuff away from the top of the heap. And last, a spade to load up buckets of humus that I take back to a garden bed. I've thought about building a screen for the purpose you outlined, but so far, I just use my hand to toss large chunks -- bone or avocado seeds or the base of a cornstalk or whatever else hasn't broken down completely, back onto the heap.

But honestly, I'm doing less and less composting and more just mulching chop'n'drop nearby. Our kitchen scraps still go to one of the heaps until I get chickens online and at that point I probably won't really compost at all anymore.

Timothy Norton wrote:I'm thinking of purchasing a scraper/chopper tool with the intent of being able to process down some woodier material by hand and to work the compost pile itself.

Anyone have any experience with one?

Yes, I do this a lot. Mostly I use a long handled shovel with a sharp blade that has basically no offset from the line of the handle -- great chopper for compost, weeds, or ice.

Another very useful tool is a stout lawn edger. You know, the half moon shape. I sharpen these on one side and sometimes use a battery angle grinder to add little serrations as well. These have a wider contact area with the material being chopped (compared to the shovel), so you can put your weight on it and rock it back and forth.

Naturally I scrounge all of these tools for cheap/free.

I like that 6 tine pitchfork, would be hard to find one round here, mostly 4 and 5 tines. I have worn out all of our forks using them like a broadfork. So many times with a fork I have gently loosened the soil in the garden and good things happen. The pitchfork is my go to tool. My composting is rather quaint in that I pile the overwinter mulch on the garden edge and just let the soil critters have at it. Might add some gypsum, chicken pellets and new green weeds and turn it a few times, it is soon dark and earthy. Use it around the garden plants for fertility and to hold moisture.

I use a screen very similar to the one pictured above that my dad had built probably over 60 or 70 years ago. I place it on top of my very large orange double-wheeled wheelbarrow and then shovel on the compost from the bottom of the bin.  What doesn't get sifted through, goes back into the compost at the top. I use my hand and rub across the screen until nothing else will slip through. When I reach a level where I'm pulling out very recognizable items, avacado pits or banana peels, for example, I stop--work smarter, not harder!

Just a side note: if you buy produce, make sure to pull of those horrible little stickers.  They are plastic and will not decompose, nor do you want them to!

One day I'll build a proper sifting station, something I've been saying for probably twenty years. Until then I'll keep using a commercial bread tray, much like this one, to sift compost. They're fairly sturdy, and the handles are convenient, though you do have to lean forward a bit to shake them, and that can be a strain on the back. Not bad enough to make me quit using it - yet.

I've never purchased one, but there always seems to be one around. For some reason they turn up on roadsides and in ditches. I'm always glad to give them a new home. (Leave the ones that live behind the grocery store alone. Those are tame, and their humans would miss them.)

Bread trays are genius, never thought of that. I use a bit of old chicken wire stapled to a wooden frame, does the job but the holes are probably too big for fine stuff. The tool I reach for most is just a cheap garden fork with the tines bent slightly outward from years of abuse. Better for turning than a proper pitchfork because it grabs more.

Timothy Norton wrote:I'm thinking of purchasing a scraper/chopper tool with the intent of being able to process down some woodier material by hand and to work the compost pile itself.

Anyone have any experience with one?

I purchased an inexpensive chipper from Harbor Freight a couple years ago.  Main idea was to chip the corn stalks for mulch and compost.  (I only have a few dozen corn stalks each year).
It works great for that.   I saved a pile for mulch and found it had already started to compost down by the time I wanted to use it for mulch.

I always am on the lookout for a workable used and very cheap in price blender for the kitchen scraps for the garden.   Our chickens get the majority of them, but some go to the garden.   The stuff I work into the garden I chop up fine so the worms don't have to work to hard.  lol.

About 10 years ago I did a small experiment with composting.   I chopped up some of the kitchen waste fine and put it in one corner of my compost pile, the rest went into the rest of the pile.  Just cold composting, but the chopped turned into great soil over the summer, while the other took until the next summer.   I was pleased with the results but the work of chopping all the time was the down side.  Hence the eye out for a decent blender.

Chickens are my favorite composting tool!
Seriously, they shred and turn many bags of leaves and hundreds of pounds of food scraps every year.

To turn their pile, and retrieve the finished compost I use a garden fork.
I only bought first garden fork not that long ago, now I have many
I think I now have more garden forks than I do shovels!

Most of the compost goes into buckets for transportation, which makes the humble bucket my third most used tool for composting.

Coming on a distant 4th place is the composting auger.
I have one for my dog poop bucket, and another at my sisters house.
Her compost is contained in a large commercially made residential compost and is almost entirely food scraps.
The "augur" we use there is a steel rod with two folding spurs that close when it's shoved into the pile and pop open when it's yanked out.
It's like blunt harpoon, and it does good job aerating the pile.

I also keep short handled cutting tools by my composters, and use them constantly. A stiff-spined, 10" serrated "junk" kitchen knife with a spear point. And a cheap cleaver with some serious heft to it, almost a machete.

It's easy to keep a crude edge on these tools. And as I churn my primary composters (1000L IBC totes cut in half) I can easily chop up the soaked-up material with the serrated knife. That makes the material easier to handle.

The cleaver/machete mulches up the fresh greens/weeds pulled out of the garden. And sunflower stalks as well.

A hay fork for turning the pile.

I’ve got this really handy lightweight plastic shovel that’s perfect for shifting those last few scoops of compost when turning a pile. I was pretty skeptical at first, but after using it I’m a real fan. It has a large blade and is so light and easy to use, it’s made finishing the job a lot less effort.