Friday, October 8

Gross oversight

We bought a composter. It took about 45 minutes to assemble the pieces into a nice unit that has a big wide mouth to toss things in, and it sits on a base with rollers making it easy to spin around to mix the contents.

There’s one problem though, as shown in the lower picture. It shows you which way to turn the lid to open, but says nothing about how to close it. Even the otherwise thorough instruction manual has not even a mention of closing. Do I have to contact the maker and ask them to clear up this gross oversight? How many people with fewer abilities to figure things out for themselves than I have will be totally flummoxed by this? I shudder to even think of it!

7 comments:

Daffy said...

...wellll..... how in the %&**# DO you close it ? Is this a "pandora's box" scenario???

Tom Hurley said...

I’m working on it, Daffy. Wish me luck.

Pete S. said...

I can't even see how you would open the thing: there are two arrows labeled "OPEN" but they point in opposite directions!

Take-ME-Along said...

I *had* one. Closing it was challenging...even with directions.
And don't fill it too full, it will be too heavy to roll around as the weight of the compost material will cause the plastic to settle on the roller wheels making it difficult to roll.

I now use 6 inch plastic pipe, 12 to 18 inches long, drilled half inch holes all around, buried them in my garden to within a couple of inches of the surface. Drop in my material, cap it with an empty coffee can. The worms come in, eat their fill, then go on their way.

Tom Hurley said...

Pete S.: You’re right! One arrow is pointing UP, the other DOWN! This is getting worse than I thought! Help!

Tom Hurley said...

Take-ME-Along: When I rolled the model in the store around, I thought, “Wow, this is EASY!” But after throwing some of the hail-produced leaves in with a dollop of horse manure, it got HARD! If I only used coffee grounds and cantaloupe rinds and a few egg shells, it would go back to being easy, but wouldn’t produce much compost.

Pat said...

Down here in urban Calif. where there is only an occasional racoon, possum, squirrel or cat to contend with, we have a three foot diameter chicken wire "barrel" that I fill with leaves, etc. from the yard. Plus all the kitchen stuff gets buried in the leaves and what with a little water and some pitchfork turning, compost! It's good exercise, too.