Start with your available organic material; leaves, grass and table scraps. Moisten the dry parts lightly and mix whatever you have together with some old compost, composter manure, leaf mould, compost starter, or rich loam soil if the others are not available.
Add your daily kitchen scraps and garden trimming.
Sprinkle each layer with old comost and work it in.
The Earth Machine works best when pieces are small.
Weeds and trimmings should be shredded.
Do not add think layers of any one kind of waste. Grass should not be more than 2-1/2 inches deep, leaves up to 6 inches deep. (Mulch or dry and crumble them).
Mix grass with coarse material to prevent compacting.
The composter contents should be moist like a wrung-out sponge.
If the contents are too dry, it will take overly long to compost: and if too wet, the contents may rot and smell.
The lid of the Earth Machine is specially designed to control moisture.
On high humidity days turn the lid to expose all the vents.
On cool day, keep the vents closed to maintain the optimum composting temperature.
Mix the compost every couple of weeks or each time you add new material. This keeps the compost well aerated.
Removing the finished compost is simple. for small quantities, slide open the door and take out the composted material. For large quantities, lift the entire cylinder; remove the top active uncomposted layer to one side, remove composted material from the bottom, then re-install the composter with the screw pegs and put back inside the active umcomposted layer; which you had set to one side.
For more information on home composting, go to:
Enter postal code at the Earth's 911 site, http://www.cleanup.org/ then follow the composting links.
NaturTech
Composting Systems, Inc.