Just curious if anyone has any direct experience with those Lomi gizmos.
Is this what your talking about? Lomi Thing on Amazon Wouldn’t it be more efficient to just set fire to five hundred dollars?
I would like to have one of these DR Mower so if you have 500 dollars that you really don’t want, instead of setting it on fire you could send it to me. 
I haven’t seen anything on them from an individual. There is many simple ways to compost that I don’t see how it would be worth it… aside from like apartments maybe… and even then a vermicompost is still an option.
It’s interesting to me to evaluate as I’m interested in fast ways to compost that are hands-off, don’t attract vermin, and don’t depend on animals. It would be great if I could find a solution that ticks all four boxes, which it seems this could. I’m not opposed to spinning off a composting thread
I know I saw on a YouTube channel (I think it may have been Self Sufficient Me?) that one gardener had a gizmo like that he used to turn kitchen scraps into chicken feed that his chickens adored.
Mind you, they probably would have enjoyed the food scraps without any gizmo doing anything to them, too.
2 Likes
Yeah I’m also naturally suspicious of the utility and need for this device. But I’m also intrigued by the apparent ease with which you can divert harder-to-manage waste from the landfill, and the way that you could do so without taking responsibility for the health and well-being of a colony of sentient beings (whether red wrigglers or black soldier flies or whatever else will do the work).
I am definitely not a fan of the “throw tech at it” school of problem solving since it seems to me there’s usually a better, older, simpler solution. I’m also suspicious of the supposedly necessary proprietary probiotics and the way they’re clearly trying to hook consumers on a subscription model. But I wanted to ask about this one, especially if anyone is using it rogue (i.e. “grow mode” with no probiotics, or a homemade cocktail).
I think if I started a spinoff more general composting thread it might be called “Composting for the lazy” 
1 Like
Interesting video and talks to the CEO.
They sell “lomi pods” which you’re supposed to add with each use. I’m taking that to mean it is seeding the beneficial bacteria.
The finished product is not compost. It is basically churned and dehydrated. It would still need fed to worms or composted. At least it would be added to the garden at the end of the season. It’s not been actually composted so I’d imagine it is a “hot” product… as in it can actually be too much for plants to handle at once so you couldn’t just put all of it into a couple potted houseplants.
1 Like
Research bokashi. I did bokashi for a while, using powdered milk instead of their complicated bacteria formula. It’s all lactose fermentation. When done, bury it in the garden. I had as many as 5 1 gallon buckets under the kitchen sink at a time.
I love throwing tech at problems, I just don’t have a food-waste problem.
I throw my kitchen and yard waste into heaps that never get turned. When one gets big, I start another. Two years later I have compost. It’s hard to imagine it being any easier. Obviously this doesn’t work for apartment dwellers, but that’s what I did even when I lived in a city.
I intend to start a flock this year once I get my coop finished, so all that waste will go into the coop’s deep litter, but it works fine in piles.
1 Like
I do that too with garden stuff, just throw it in a pile and let it rot. Sometimes I scrape it up later and use it for mulch or something. Sometimes I leave it there and dig little holes down to soil level and plant something.
Kitchen scraps are different because they are often wet and yucky. It works to just bury them in one of those piles or in the ground but I’m to lazy to do that all the time. So, I built a small, elevated composter. The bottom is a piece of cattle panel about two-by-two feet and two feet off the ground. Sticks go in the bottom to reduce the openings in the cattle panel and scraps are tossed in along with occasional weeds, leaves, soil or whatever and periodically a new layer of sticks. As the bottom layer sticks rot and break and stuff falls through it is real easy to scrape it up and use it or throw it back on top. Or I can set a pan under it and pour water on top and catch the “tea” for fertilizer.
It works very well in keeping the scraps from packing down and staying wet and if they don’t do that then they don’t stink. The extra healthy grass around the perimeter that feeds on what leaches out gets dug up and tossed back on top about once a year and takes it longer to go get the shovel that to do it. Sometimes too, I pile dry leaves or weeds under it to soak up the juices and then use them for mulch or throw them back on top.
2 Likes
In summer, I dig a deep hole out in the garden and dump kitchen scraps in it. One hole holds four layers of kitchen scraps. I cover each batch of scraps completely with an inch of soil, so there’s still plenty of hole left for several more batches. I add new kitchen scraps every two to four days (whenever my little container of kitchen scraps starts overflowing the lid). I wind up digging a new hole about once a week or every two weeks.
In winter, I do the same thing, except it’s much harder to dig because the ground is often frozen. So I dig a new hole about once a month, sometimes further apart, whenever the snow is all thawed and the ground isn’t frozen. I go out every few days and dump kitchen scraps into it without covering them with dirt, so I can fit something like twelve to eighteen batches of kitchen scraps in it.
Covering them completely is important in summer because flies start eating the scraps and laying eggs on them immediately if I don’t. It isn’t important at all in winter because there are no flies around, and they don’t smell because they freeze solid. I only cover them with dirt when the hole is full to about six inches from the top. Then, on a day when it’s possible to dig, I finally cover all the scraps with soil, and dig a new hole.
Overall, winter is less work because I dig fewer holes, but digging holes in summer is more pleasant, so it balances out.