Presto Products GKL0951-6 Geobin Composting System

I'm the one that just added the first two customer added images. Click on the images for explanations.I debated, read most of the reviews here, and decided this was worth a try. So glad I did. It's the best solution I've found for my city forest type, garden, with way too many leaves to compost. I have used chicken wire rounds, slightly larger size, but they get too dry.I have a large wood built composter, 8' by 5', but it fills up too fast each fall. I stop when I can't reach any higher, so it's a fairly big pile. But it dries out badly on three sides, so it's always in need of turning too soon, and at one year most is still solid, dry leaves, since the leaves on top keep the center and down, dry. It has dried out from the heat of the composting process.I have three Earth Machines, they're okay, but very small. They are handy to place at various points in the garden,to save walking to the back with weeds and leaves.I have one pretty good size older RubberMaid composter, and it works particularly well in the winter, as it's well insulated. Unfortunately RubberMaid has stopped making these, or I would have invested it at least one more.I also build a large pile with everything that has not fit in all of those composters. This is the easiest to use, but with the slowest results and it looks bad.This bin has been well thought out. It's holding just the right amount of moisture and volume to have an active, working pile, with results fairly quickly.The plan is to use this Geobin to finish my other bins up before fall, and have all of them ready for business when the leaves start falling. Of course since all the trees are bigger each year, there may be another Amazon order for the next Geobin if I start running out of room again.Putting it together.I discovered that sitting on a bench, with the side of the bin on my lap, was the best position to weave the poles in. I used a med, size screw driver to gently push or pull the next opening wider, so the pole would slide in nicely.When knocking the poles into the ground, I only stopped when the top of each pole was even with the top of the bin. I hope it's not to difficult to pull them up, as I remove the bin from the pile, in order to make turning simple and fast. Next time I'm not planning on pounding the poles into the ground as much, after all where is the bin going? The weight of the pile inside is going to hold it there.I did find the height of the bin 'just right' to be able to pitchfork things into it. Wish I had thought before I leaned across it to straighten the plastic bag cover I added. That one side did bulge, and it looks sort of odd. But nothing's harmed, just my sense of tidy lines looking nice. Now if you had to lean into it, it can be done, so that's something.This is particularity useful for those of us with less strength. Easy to set up and use, due to it's light weight..plus the magic of the just right moisture/ ventilation.Yes, I do get lots of finished compost. I have all gardens, no lawn, and am slowly raising my beds higher, for ease of use as I am getting older. Doing this gradually over the years with my compost is resulting in beautiful soil, happy plants.

I have read a lot of people have a hard time setting this up - and I'm pretty surprised. Unroll it in the sun, weigh the ends down and in 5 minutes on a good day it will lose the "memory" of being shipped rolled up. The rest is cake - really, really easy.Easy to use, easy to set up - the only reason it doesn't get more stars from me is that I've got a lot of critters in my neighborhood - squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, skunks, groundhogs, deer, raccoons - and a couple of the more enterprising among them have chewed some holes in the outside.Not huge ones, mind you, but enough that I quickly went to the Home Depot and got some 3'x25' 1/2" wire mesh, snipped and surrounded the still 99% intact unit. Problem solved.The fact is, I should have thought to do this first - I've seen what they did to my poor bird feeder, even to the airtight feed storage box, so part of the blame is on me. What should I have expected when I kept putting delicious raw and cooked veggie scraps, old bread and other delectable items in a bin on the far side of my property, abutting a forest? It may as well have been a written invitation.Next year, I'll just remove the plastic and leave the wire mesh, but for a beginning composter, this is an easy, affordable solution that works WAY faster than even my new rotating composter.But if you've got a set of wire snips, some fine mesh (1/2" is best) chicken wire, and a few 3.5' poles to thread through the holes, you can make one of these yourself. If you don't ,you'll spend more money than this costs to do it from scratch, but not a world more. And you'll have some chicken wire left over for parties and holiday dinners.

Autumn leaves look so pretty as they turn gold, amber and claret red. Then they start drifting down by the zillions, creating endless arguments over who is going to rake them up. Amazon can't solve that problem, but you can order a handy place to put them once they are raked up. This Geobin is just the product to start composting, something we often vow to do and don't seem to get around to because it sounds so complicated. In fact, composting is no more complicated than dumping your leaves, grass clippings, and veggie scraps into this soft-sided bin, occasionally adding a little soil, swishing it around now and then and leaving it to nature to work on. This is a nice, large size, too large it turned out the first time I put it together. A few months later I decided to relocate it. The bin is a breeze to disassemble, and this time I made it a little smaller, but the design is versatile and easy to customize to your needs. This Presto Geobin has holes so it is self-aerating, which means you don't have to toss the contents every week, and if your scraps are kept in proportion to the garden clippings and leaves, there shouldn't be any smell. Place it somewhere easy to reach from the kitchen. It feels good to have a place to take the lettuce you forgot to eat until it was mushy and the zucchini your family disdained, plus coffee grounds, banana peels, melon rinds and so forth. Composting is good for the soul, and the end product is great for your plants. This is not the fanciest composter in the world, but it works, it is portable, and it is relatively inexpensive, a good way to get into the practice of composting without a large investment.