NatureMill

It's been a few weeks since my last NatureMill update. The main reason for this is that I've had little positive to report.

Since restarting the machine in February after our holidays I've not been able to get it working 'as advertised'.

There are 2 issues, the main one being the smell. While most of the time the machine does not smell, boy does it pong when you put something in. The other problem is condensation which results in wet compost and gets into the air filter, which possibly contributes to making the smell worse.

I've contacted the NatureMill guys in the USA for guidance on several occasions, but the response is much same each time "Add more sawdust and baking soda". Just to be sure I've reset the machine, started the 'cultures' from fresh with soil from the garden and left it to settle for a week with out adding food.

According to the instructions you need to add 2 tablespoons of baking soda and a couple of hand fulls of sawdust at the start of each compost batch. I'm adding sawdust and baking soda pretty much every other time we add waste. As there are just 2 of us we don't produce much, adding mostly bread, some peelings or veg that's gone over in the fridge. With light use compared to a family the extra sawdust and soda seems a little excessive, and worse seems to make no difference.

We have produced a few batches of compost, but it looks nothing like the compost in the NatureMill video. It's wet and I'd be loathed to put my hands in it. I've been adding it to my garden compost bins to kick start the grass clippings but it's too early to say if it helps.

All in all at $300 the NatureMill has been disappointing. I'll carry on using it, as the smell is not too much of a problem in our Veranda (and I can't very well ship it back to the states) but I could not recommend having one in a kitchen or small apartment. In our experience the pong will be too much !

Before the NatureMill arrived we used a low-tech solution, a mini bin from Ikea. The lid seems airtight, there were no smells, and it held our green waste until the weekend when I added it to the garden compost bin. Best of all it offers a saving of $290 over a NatureMill

Lot's of cooked food waste ? Buy Chickens ?

Well, the second batch of NatureMill compost is on my vegetable patch waiting to the dug in.

Unfortunately I had to start the NatureMill from scratch after our recent holiday. While we were away the unit was accidentally switched off which put a stop to the composting Bactria as the machine cooled down. On our return I reset the NatureMill and started from scratch, but keeping the existing batch half composted waste in the machine. The result was a second batch of compost which was quite wet.

I've got high hopes for the next batch and having re-read the instructions I've done a couple of things which should improve the performance of the machine:

* Added far more Sawdust (bought from a petshop) and Baking Soda to keep the optimum balance for the composting Bactria to offset the Bread, Lettuce, Citrus fruit & Potato combination of food we've been feeding the NatureMill.

* Leveled the machine to offset the uneven floor in our pantry and ensure the NatureMill Drains correctly.

A little history !

Russ Cohn, inventor and developer of NatureMill started the NatureMill indoor composting project back in 2003. The product has been evolving and improving ever since. Here is an interview with back in 2004 giving an overview of the early development and testing process:

www.howtocompost.org/naturemill.asp


A year later Russ did a follow-up in interview explaining how initial customer feedback led the development of the NatureMill :

www.howtocompost.org/naturemill05.asp

The photo on the page shows the old "mark 1" machine which is quite different to the current design.

UK Energy Saving - The UK Energy Saving website gives information and tips on ways to save energy and also how to save money on household bills.

Yesterdays jam seemed to prompt the machine to dump the mix in the mixing chamber into the bottom cure try, pretty much filling it up.

So this morning I found a likely looking Rose in the garden and treated it to a feed, tipping the compost around the base. We've not been able to get hold of any horse muck for the garden this year so the NatureMill compost is going to be a big help.

The experience so far has been very positive. The NatureMill does what it says on the tin and it's going to be very interesting to see how the second batch works out.

The only downside to this initial batch was it's smell (once outside on the garden) and not all items had composted as well as would have been ideal.

We've been adding an assortment of kitchen food waste over the last week and all seemed to be going OK until I noticed a couple of days ago that the mixture in the 'mixing chamber' was almost a paste. The American manufacturer mentioned that the 1st batch is often a little 'wet' so I decided to add another couple of handfuls of sawdust pellets. This seems to have done the trick. The NatureMill has mixed them into the soon to be compost and the mix has improved noticeably. Much dryer and "compost like".

This morning I noticed the machine had a red light on the front panel indicating a 'Jam'. I pressed the OK button hoping that it would free it's self up but no joy. The mixing arm whirred for a while and then stopped. I assumed that it was because the mix was to stodgy but on further investigation it was jammed up with an old potato !

The instructions recommend that larger items are cut down into manageable chunks to avoid such problems and suggest leaving the machine for 24hours as items often soften up allowing the machine to free it's self. Needless to say we didn't bother........     

 

Since the big switch on we've been feeding the NatureMill with food scraps, mostly old fruit and out of date bread. Today I happened to open the draw front and checked the terracotta coloured 'Cure Tray' and found our first batch of nice looking compost ! Impressive as it's only been a few days.

Now and again I hear the machine turning over the compost in the mixing chamber keeping the mix aerated. When adding new food you notice that the composting chamber is quite warm. This also helps speed the composting process.

The machine is made from a recycled foam/plastic material which has excellent installation properties, so once the composting chamber is up to temperature it requires very little power to keep it warm.

First things first, I walk down to our vegetable patch and get some soil with which to prime the NatureMill with. The instructions suggest 2 mug fulls. The soil provides the bacteria which will break the food waste down into compost. I add a couple of hand fulls of sawdust pellets from the bag provided (to give the compost body) and 2 table spoons of Bi Carbonate of Soda to help keep the acidity correct. I pop in a few token scraps of food and prepare for the big switch on.

With the transformer, NatureMill and travel adapter connected up, I switch it on. The NatureMill produces a low hum which is the air pump recycling air from the composting 'mixing chamber'. Recycling the air speeds up the composting action by keeping the oxygen levels up. The 'old' air is extracted via a carbon filter which keeps everything smelling sweet.

The NatureMill arrived nicely packed and undamaged after it's trip from the USA complete with instructions, a US power adapter (!), a bag of sawdust pellets and some Bi Carbonate of Soda. Before I could start composting the first job was to pop into town and pick up a travel adapter so that we could plug it in. That done I set up the composter in our pantry, just a couple of steps from the kitchen. I'm thinking the more convenient the location the more likely we are to recycle.

Back in the office after teaching skiing for a couple of weeks and I find a bill from Parcelforce asking for the VAT on our evaluation NatureMill machine which is currently stuck in a local depot. I pay the VAT and the hefty Parcelforce 'Admin' fee and ask if they will deliver tomorrow.

As a family and in my business we are trying to do more and more recycling. Living in a rural location means that we already have a traditional outdoor compost heap. The trouble is it's at the other end of the garden which is fine in the Summer but a pain in the Winter when it's wet and cold.

I was sure I'd heard of indoor composting systems and a web search eventually threw up NatureMill, a kitchen appliance, electrically powered that turns kitchen waste (cooked AND uncooked) into compost.

Perfect. No more trekking up the garden AND we can recycle cooked food waste, which can not usually be composted in a normal garden compost heap or put in your council's "green bin".

The trouble is there was no UK importer, until NOW. This blog documents my personal experience with the first NatureMill machine in the UK, and how we got on with 'indoor composting'.