The 5 best compost bins to help fertilize your garden in 2021

The 5 best compost bins to help fertilize your garden in 2021

The best worm bin composter

Red worms are highly effective at rendering organic waste into nutrient-rich compost, and Nature's Footprint's easy-to-manage Worm Factory 360 composter hosts thousands of them in a compact space.

Pros: Compact, spigot to drain compost tea, comes with access to instructional videos, option to expand with additional trays

Cons: Can't withstand extreme heat or cold 

As with all things, what goes in must come out, and that's what makes worm composting “” also called vermicomposting “” so effective. Worms devour your food scraps, digest them, and then poop out super-rich, fertile compost loaded with nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and micronutrients. The action of the worms also keeps the compost aerated and tumbled, so there's no need to do that yourself. When tended to properly, your worm composter should have no smell.

The Worm Factory 360 is small enough to set up on a sun porch or a kitchen corner, or you can tuck it into a protected area of your patio. Worm bins do need to be kept in a temperature range of 40 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit, so you may need to bring the bin indoors for the winter or summer months (perhaps both), depending on where you live.

The composter includes