It turns out Patience

Patience makes the heart grow fonder. And the compost thicker.

I know you logged in to hear about worms, and worms you shall hear about. However, the path didn't start with worms. And composting is all about patience. That first composter -- the cold-composting bin -- actually did create compost. It was unfinished, as I could see clumps of composed (as opposed to decomposed) material, but it was usable.

When a squirrel ate through the bin, and Pete declared the white duct tape wasn't a highlight of the backyard, I went ahead and got him to buy me the tumbler. Tumbler composting is batch composting -- holding a mix of brown and green materials in a bin, then putting batches into the tumbler and, um, tumbling it for a few weeks until it's ready and you start with a new batch.

This tumbler is supposed to be different (hence the outrageous price): it's supposed to combine cold and tumbler composting in one unit. Unfortunately, I didn't add enough brown material to this composter, and the same squirr-tastrophe happened here, too.

(Note to self: heavy duty recycled plastic may look indestructible, but Chicago squirrels can chew through anything.)

In addition, I thought the claims were a little over the top and didn't bear out under practice. This really is a batch composter, which isn't my thing. So out it went.

Three composters later,

Pete claims we haven't yet harvested usable compost, although it's 5 years, 3 composters, and pounds and pounds of organic trash stashed under our kitchen sink later.

Turns out, he's partially right. Composting can be very easy -- you can cold compost, which involves a minimum of effort. You basically dump your organic waste in a designated area (which has light and rain) and come back many months later to find composted material. There's no temperature-taking, no balancing of green and brown waste, no plunging your hands into the center of the mess to stir things up. That's how I started, and it's a slow process.

A really slow process.

And sometimes squirrels chew on the bin (especially if you dump in only green waste and forget to cover it with brown).

So I went and did the only thing a lazy composter could do -- I purchased another bin. A much more expensive bin. (I went about it in a smart way, though, showing the experience of a long-married woman: I convinced Pete to buy it for me for Mother's Day. He felt -- well, if not good about it, at least he felt in control of the purchase -- and I excitedly began reading about tumbler composting.)