Best compost bin for a small garden

[Bolshybookworm]

Can anyone recommend a good composting system for a small garden? Due to the shape of the garden, we have nowhere we can easily "hide" it, so it needs to be compact and whiff-free. Have any of you tried using a bokashi?
Been thinking about a hot bin, but I baulk at paying £150 for a polystyrene box

NO WAY NO WAY NO WAY! SOMEONE ASKED A QUESTION - AN ACTUAL QUESTION - ABOUT BOKASHI!!!!!

dies happy

Hello OP. I am not mad. I am just VERY into my bokashi bin.

I have two bokashi bins (you need more than one because there is a cycle that takes a few weeks). As you probably know, you can put just about any food waste in them (including cooked food, pet food, unlike a compost bin). You shove in a layer, press it down, sprinkle over a scoop of the Magic Bran (which is your fermentation culture) and then leave it. Once it's full, you leave it for 3-4 weeks to ferment (this is why you need a second bin). It produces two products- a nitrogen-rich feed which is absolutely brilliant for leafy things (you run this off, which is why the bins have a tap at the bottom), and pickled waste, which then goes into the compost heap or gets dug straight into the ground. However, you have to dig it very deep or foxes and other beasties tend to come and root it up again - so I've found composting a better solution.

So you may also need a compost heap. I just use one of the cheapo plastic ones from the council - they cost £15-20. They are very good and don't cost much money at all. They're also quite space efficient for small gardens. Bokashi bins can be quite expensive to buy, BUT you can make your own - there are Youtube tutorials for this.

The bokashi bin is sealed so it doesn't smell, though you will get a whiff of it when you take the lid off to fill it. And the run-off liquid smells too, but I just shove it in a bottle and put a lid on to deal with that. I keep mine by the back door and never have any inconvenience from it. Compost bins don't reek to high heaven either unless there is something going very wrong. I would still put it as far from the house as you can, though, because you will get flies drawn to it and you don't want those in your kitchen.

Come and join my BOKASHI CULT!!

you have made shoves day I am not offering any advice, ( I am profligate with compost bins and heaps !)

I can't comment on the Bokashi - they do look brilliant though.
Ive got a little beehive wooden one, i got it off day for £49.99 as i was fed up of looking at my plastic one. It looks great, is small and does the job. It won't be as efficient as the Bokashi, but if you just want a little one thats not hideous to dump bits and pieces in i can't fault it.

Thanks for all the advice and so pleased to have made your day shove
The bokashi sounds very, very tempting, especially as we have no food waste collection here, it all just goes into the main waste. Would be great to be able to turn it into compost. Still need to find somewhere to put the compost bin though, the options are:
A) under the washing line
B) within sight of the patio doors
C) round the side of the house where it won't be visible but you'll have to squeeze past it to get into the garden.
My garden wraps along and around the house so it's a bit awkward.
Just one question- will the bokashi work outside when it's cold? I live quite far north.
Might like up the wooden hive bins nicole, as it's going to be really hard to hide it.

I'm itching to make compost- we're on heavy, acidic clay, so need lots and lots of organic material!

*look up

Fell asleep on the sofa and still not with it.....

well, my two compost bins are within sight of my patio doors. I have a kolkwitzia a peony and a fuschia planted in front/around them - but they are not incredibly close tbh - about 15-20' away

May i recommend a wormery. Thank you.

Also, you dont need a compost bin at all, just pile your compost onto one of your beds, or pop a dalek composter wherever you want the compost to go, fill it for a few months, then lift it and put it when you want the next batch of compost. Then fork into the bottom of the /pile dalek the uncomposted stuff from the top of the old pile, and rake the composted stuff over the soil and bobs yer uncle. Just keep doing that.

I would say definitely NOT under the washing line (they are high enough for stuff to hang down and brush against it), and not around the side of the house. I have a narrow passageway from the front to the back of the house, and it is surprising how often you need to get wheelbarrows or sacks of stuff down there. The compost bin will be deeply irritating if it's in your way!

Can you think about landscaping your garden to create a small screened off area in a corner or at the back for your leaf mould, compost, wood pile, and anything else? Or is that not possible with your layout? Sometimes the answer can be to get away from what I've heard described as 'washing machine' gardens, where borders are very peripheral with a big, yawning gap in the middle.

Alternatively, just buy a pretty one and have it in plain view. You could paint it a really nice colour!!

Although made from black plastic , this seems a good option
www.eckman.co.uk/shop/p-835-140l-dual-drum-tumbling-composter.html?utm_source=GoogleBase&utm_media=Product+Search&gclid=CNPFh_Tsp8gCFaoEwwod8eINzA

but it is not pretty and I know nothing about bokashi so that may well be better

I bought a wooden 'compost bin" which was a bit impractical because it was hard to get the compost out of the bottom and it needed a lot of worms and garotta and turning and it took 2 years really before the leaves from the oak turned into compost. I never put any food in it but the mice still liked it. As I have a small washing machine garden it also took/takes up good space: almost a flower bed worth. So I keep saying this year I might not have a compost bin but I bet I will though its more like a compost heap with a fence round it
Friends with small London gardens have daleks and put them in the flower beds and move them around, a bit as suggested upthread, as they do seem to be fox proof, and if you move them around they dont seem to be so much of a permanent syesore and spreading the compost isnt so hard either

Thanks all! doreen and funny- you're assuming I have empty space in my beds At the moment, all of my (limited) bed space is rammed with perennials (even though I have a tiny garden, I yearn for a herbaceous border), so there isn't currently space to move a compost bin around (is a dalek not a compost bin?). If, as planned, I put in two small veg beds then I'll be able to do this.

shove it's not a washing machine garden in that it's not square, more like a thin wedge that extends past one side of the house, but it is mainly lawn. This is because we have small children, otherwise I'd dig it all up and make it wall to wall plants and paths . I'm a plantswoman at heart. The bit of the garden that would be easy to screen is where the washing line is, annoyingly. Might need to do some rearranging!

Yes, maybe move the washing line and create a screened utility area!! (My own rotary airer is actually not in optimal drying position either because I wanted the bed in the sunnier part of the garden so much more!! The mad decisions you make to have more plants, eh?)

Your veg beds sound like they're going to be lovely! I'm a big fan of having wide old beds of plants and narrower paths, but I don't have children who need lawn space to play so this is an easy decision for me.