The Composter Arrives

As I mentioned before, choosing a home composter was difficult due to the lack of reviews or descriptive product information available on the Web. In the end, I chose an "Urban Compost Tumbler Uct-7." We ordered it through Amazon.com and the order was fullfilled by a company called Wheatgrasskits. The composter took about two weeks to arrive, and I spent a lot of that time wondering what exactly I was getting. The Amazon description doesn't tell you what is included and I could only hope that the base was part of the unit.
It was. The composter arrived in very minimal packaging, which was good to see, and the parts to put the base together were packed inside the barrel. I needed about an hour to assemble the legs; that was working with the "help" of my three- and five-year-olds.
The included directions get a C-. You need to follow the diagrams very carefully. We put the legs together the wrong way twice before noticing all of the information the diagrams were showing -- two different sizes of bolts, proper positioning of the leg parts, etc.
As soon as the composter was assembled, we packed in a load of twigs, leaves, and green things from the kitchen inside. The compost is supposed to "cook" for two weeks. In the meantime, we get to spin the barrel as often as we like. My kids like doing that *a lot.* One last note: This small-size tumbler is not nearly big enough to cope with all the composting materials our 1/2 acre lot throws out. It is about the size of a standard garbage can.