Lomi Home Composter

[Mike Nolan]

My wife gave me a Lomi Home Composter as kind of an Easter/Father's Day present.

We've used it once so far, it'll take a few more times before I know enough to do a review, but my first impression of it is positive, it seems to do what it claims to do and it is fairly quiet and doesn't seem to generate a lot of heat.

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[Mike Nolan]

We've now used it 3 or 4 times. It is amazing to watch it turn about two quarts of food scraps into no more than a cup of powder, tells you how much of it was air or water.

[Joan Simpson]

Mike I Googled the composter you have seems pretty neat.

[chocomouse]

I can understand how that composter results in a nutritious food for plants. But I wonder how it, a powder, changes or improves the tilth of the soil? For example, if you have heavy clay, would it really lighten that texture? And how effective is when used as a mulch? A couple of my neighbors have Lomis, and love them.

[BakerAunt]

I'm following Mike's experimentation with the Lomi food composter. My husband is not so keen on regular composting, probably because of all the animals around. He brushed aside this idea, but I am going to do some more research and watch Mike's reports here.

[Mike Nolan]

I'll have to take some before and after photos of the next batch, the bucket was pretty full but there was probably less than a cup of powder in it afterwards. The latest one had a lot of lettuce that had turned brown, so lots of air and water.

I did discover I've been mis-reading the symbols for what type of cycle I've been running. Explains why it wasn't taking as long as I had expected.

[chocomouse]

BakerAunt, I've been composting here for 37 years, and we live out in the boonies. I've rarely had a problem with animals. I do put in some "forbidden" items, like egg shells, because they do provide some valuable nutrients. Whenever I've seen evidence of animal scavenging, it's been egg shells dragged outside the bin. Adding more "brown" materials to the pile seems to get rid of critters. If the pile is smelly, I also add more "brown". Last night, our cameras showed a whole menagerie - racoon, skunk, possum, fox, and a black cat. They roamed the driveway, backyard, orchard, and garden area - but not one went near the compost piles.

[Mike Nolan]

Our soil here is heavy clay, I've been known to add gypsum to lighten it, I suspect the powder from the Lomi will lighten it as well, although there's so little of it from each batch that it might not be easy to see what impact it has.

I suspect once the gardens get cranking up we'll have more stuff to put in it, although if I continue to process tomatoes like I have the last several years there's not a lot of detritus, because the peels and the seeds that the pulp extractor separates out I've been throwing in bags and freezing for when I make beef stock. The next time I make stock I'll throw the remains of the aromatics (except the bones) in the Lomi. The latest load has a bunch of weeds (henbit) that my wife was pulling on a stroll around the yard.

Their FAQ doesn't cover everything, when their chat desk opens later today I'm going to ask about artichoke leaves and the hulls from my wife's bird feeders.

[Mike Nolan]

Here's a set of before and after photos:

This wasn't quite a full load, you can see the line it can go up to.

Here's what's left after a full 'grow mode' cycle:

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[chocomouse]

Interesting. The photo looks like it would be a good potting soil.

[RiversideLen]

Looks like it does quite a good job!

[Mike Nolan]

Yeah, so far I'm fairly impressed with how it works. The grow mode cycle takes a lot longer than the 'lomi approved' cycle I had been using, and I can hear the motor start and stop repeatedly. The grow mode cycle also doesn't get as hot, that's to preserve more microorganisms, according to the manual.

It was raining today so I haven't dumped the residue out yet, but it looks pretty dry so I'm not worried about it getting weird or smelly.

[Joan Simpson]

Nice!

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