I love people that truly honor the scientific method. I wish all YT videos had this level of integrity.

Thanks! I didn’t understand how composting could happen in less than a day. Now I understand - it doesn’t!

I bought one this around Christmas time last year for reduce my kitchen scrap and the odour free. My family likes seafood. The shells can be very bad smell if you don’t take out right away. And after in green bin one week, the smell very bad. So we only eat seafood on the weekend, because Monday is garbage day. Having this machine now we can eat seafood anytime we want. The machine drys and compress the waste very well. After 6 months use this machine, we only got less than 10lbs dry waste. It is works grate! I mix the waste with 80% soil and leave it in container to fermentation for next year to use. Looking forward Organic fertilizer.

This was exactly the video I needed. I was about to waste money on one. Thanks so much. Great video.

This was the exact video I've been looking for. Ever since the Lomi and other "home composters" have been taking over my social media ads for the past 2 yrs, I've regularly said myself "that isn't real compost". I haven't seen anything mentioning the beneficial microbes that are present in real compost that takes weeks to a month to create. It's exactly what you said, dried up material. Now, I guess I could probably add this to my REAL compost bin to substitute for the browns, but putting this straight on my plants? Nope.

They should not be allowed to market these as composters when they don't do any composting.

Thank you for posting your experiment; recently seeing adverts for this equipment, and was wondering how it compared to a “worm-bin”. The bin I have in my kitchen doesn’t smell, and the worms do a great job with my kitchen scraps. I will stick with Mama Nature and my worm bin.

Thanks for another great vid. I've really got a lot out of your Soil Science book. Can't wait for your next one!

I've been using Lomi for several weeks and love it! The ratio suggested with potting mix is :1 compost to 10 potting mix.

I will be keeping an eye out for your new book for sure!! Thank you once again for informing us.

I agree with you 100%, put it in the regular compost bin to finish composting or deep in the dirt in the Spring before planting or spread it on the top of the dirt in the winter, all for all, don't use it directly after it come out of the machine, it is not a finished product, it will burn the plants.

The first reason I would not get one of these is the filters cost $60 per year. No reason for that. Outrageous.

Thank you for this. I am very surprised that there was no sprouting at all from the pot of 100% kitchen scraps. I would have expected something because even a damp paper towel will give you sprouts. From all of your results it appears that the scraps actually inhibit sprouting.

This was a super comprehensive review! Thanks so much.

This is a great reality check. I wonder if it's OK to put into my regular Compost Bin, though. Maybe it will just speed up the normal process in there.

thank you for this video. It clears up a lot of my unanswered questions

This is great info! Thank you for clarifying. I always wondered about these machines. You just can't rush nature, it's a process that needs time.

I had my doubts about the material when I first saw videos on these machines as you talk about. Great experiments, they prove what you are saying. My compliments. Cheers from Ottawa, Canada🍁

Awesome, educational and informative piece. Kudos!

Thank you for your wonderful video. It saved me on buying one of these electronic composter. Extremely valuable for anyone who gardens

Always edifying to see a good experiment.

Excellent video. I really wondered how they were able to do an actual "Compost" in such a short time. Thanks for this video.

Great video, thank you for the experiment.

Thank you! I was thinking about purchasing something like this but decided to do my research. Your findings make good sense and although I'm in a tiny intercity apartment this is definitely not going to help. I'm glad that I happened upon this video.

thank you that was nice of you to bring some reality to this, I purchased a regular composter, thank you

Bravo! I have been doing composting since the 80s and could not understand how an electronic composter could really make "quality" soil! Dehydration is NOT composting! There is so much involved in making real compost, obviously those that invented these "eco-friendly" devices, that use up lots of electricity to use, know nothing about true composting. Thank you for this video!

Great information, as usual!

Exactly what I’ve been looking for, a scientific comparison. Thank you!

This is highly informative and interesting.

Thank you so much for this video, that’s how I find you. I seen one video of a electric compost and I was amazing of it but I was skeptical because it did it only in a couple hours , so I need some more research about it and this video made up my mind going to stick with natural compost , going to buy a Tumblr now thank you 😊

Thank you, this convinced me not to waste $500 on Lumi!!

Wow!! Thank You!! 🤦🏽‍♀️

Very informative. I learned that the machine is expensive dehydrator, no an actual composter. Really the dehydrated material would be great to store over the winter and place in the composter in the spring. But my dollar store bin with a tight seal lid does the trick. Thanks for extinguishing the urge to buy something I thought that’s was actually productive but really cant replace my 2$ compost holder. Thanks. Excellent video

So there’s one called Lomi and the express mode is 3-5 hours and it says not to use as compost but then they have a grow mode and it goes for 16hrs and that’s what you can use with plants. I’d love to see how this one goes up against an experiment like this.

Great video - I keep getting ads for these countertop "composters" and I'm not a gardener or anything of the sort but even to me it was obvious that you can't make actual nutrient rich dirt compost in a few hours. I was thinking that there had to be some kind of additive or something to help the process along. I think you explain it rather well though. Dehydrated food. And like you said as soon as you give it moisture it's going to start decomposing for real and stink and become moldy. I still can't believe the companies that make this advertise it as "compost"!

Great thorough information. Thank you.

I have been reading you Garden Myths for years now and so glad to also now find you on KZfaq. I use Oklin electric composters for larger scale composting and love them, they breakdown and dehydrate a lot of material very quickly. It saves a lot of energy and effort moving it around, so I think there is definitely a place for these, especially in large cities.

Very well done. I couldn’t understand how any device could make compost in hours. It took me weeks.

I live in Winnipeg (winters get to -40c) so no composting from October to April. I got a machine like this to dehydrate what I normally would compost during winter and plan to mix it in my compost bin when the weather warms. Cheers

Brilliant 👏, you sir saved me from wasting my money.

Nice test and analysis Thanks from a new subscriber.

I have seen adds for those composers, I thought it sounded like a scam. Thanks for the video!

This man is a national treasure. Protect him at all cost.

i don't have a food cycler, but i have a dehydrator so i'm gonna conduct an experiment of my own, i'm gonna save up orange peelings, grape stems, and i'm dehydrate them along with beans and as a control i will just shred up the peelings and stems and try and experiment like what you're doing in this video, thanks for posting this and getting the gears in my mind turning👍👍

Excellent video, thanks!

Thank you for this post. I was wondering whether or not to purchase an electronic composter. Now it's a definite no.

These machines do have limited usefulness. I would always take my kitchen scraps, run them through a chipper to increase the surface area and the rate at which they can be composted, and throw them in my compost bin. However that is somewhat laborious and messy for our relatively small working space. And because of that, food scraps tend to pile up and sit for a while between periods where I can process them. I got the Vitamix FoodCycler and it basically just replaces the step of me running my scraps through the chipper, and it's convenient to do more often. And the key is: the end result still goes in the compost bin with everything else. I appreciate Vitamix for NOT claiming to be a composter, the word compost cannot even be found in the manual or on their website. (Although their marketing that it turns food scraps into 'fertilizer' is questionable, and as incomplete). Their manual does say that to be use the dehydrated food product as fertilizer it should be 1-4 weeks before planting. As you've brought out, that still doesn't quite tell the whole story. But I feel that if you understand the principles of composting, it can augment your composting process depending on your use case. Is that worth $500 to accomplish that? I'd say no, I only have one because I found it on offerup for half the price new. Using an old blender or garbage disposal may accomplish the same thing minus dehydration, just messier. But in any event, it is definitely wrong for any of these products to advertise themselves as "composters", the end result will always need it's own composting.

Another winner Robert

Thank you, very informative ☃️❄️💚🙃

Thank you for this! I have one of these and I was suspicious about the advice of sprinkling it on my houseplants, it didn’t make much sense to me. I’m glad it removes food scraps from the local landfill though and I’d be super interested in your new book on composting as I have your pond gardening book which has been very helpful.

Thank you for testing. I have been wondering about it. I do Bokashi composing for my food waste and also I am waithing for this machine that I have ordered. Now, I got the idea for solution. I will continue Bokashi but after machine cycle, then it shorten the time of composing. I put Bokashi and food mix into pots and cover with soil a few months. But it probably takes much less time if I use both.

Thanks so much to sharing your information

GREAT TESTING== everyone should watch this before using on plants

Thanks for this extremely helpful information =)

When I watched the first video about this machine I thought then the it was too much faff and not worth the effort. This second video has not changed my mind. I agree that the only use for the scraps would be to add them to ones compost bin.

This was a very helpful video in lowering expectations!!! Thank you for your experiment and advice. I do think the “composts” may still be very useful though. They can still help to minimize the amount of kitchen scraps we toss in landfills. Thanks again for the experiment. You seem very knowledgeable in gardening and your video was very refreshing to watch :)

Great information 🌱💚

Agreed... dehydrated kitchen scraps. I have the FC-50 and in general it's great for reducing the volume of waste and take away the "ick" factor from the organic waste bin. I live in an apartment so it's been a decent investment. The biggest issue I have is ensuring the waste is "balanced".. some times the grinding bucket gets stuck and the dehydrated material isn't really dry and has this weird hard caramel type consistency... not sure why - possibly because my partner like to fill above the line...and I keep saying to her - the line is there for a reason.... I give it to my friend for adding to the worm bin... which seems to be okay so far...

Insulate your compost bin, keeps working even in arctic conditions.

Thanks! This was a very interesting video. Although I would love to see the same with basic outside dirt instead of your special growing mix, I don't want to buy something special and I'm interested in seeing if this improve the actual soil that's in tired garden's soil as would be actual compost...

Great videos for me, I learn from each of them. My question is, what do you think about just growing sand ?

I think I may buy that to add to my outdoor compost pile!

Thank you!

I live in New England and have been composting for over 10 years, but with cold winters and lots of trees blocking the sunlight, my compost bins barely made any compost; about 6 inches of compost created in 3 foot high bins in over 7 years. I gave the bins to a friend and now have been putting my Foodcycler end-product into a 6 gallon metal trashcan, along with some water and natural compost acceleratant granules. I have the metal can in the sun to break down quicker (it doesn't smell), and my plan is to wait at least a month before I mix it with soil from a nursery, in a 20/80% ratio. Then I will add it to my garden as about 2 inches of top soil.

I have been composting off and on for over 40 years in a normal pile outside so I was extremely sceptical when they called dehydrated and chopped waste compost, it isn't that isn't the way things work.

I have one and it works beautifully to reduce my waste. There are two grow modes that they claim can work in your garden. The first is a 3-5 hour process. The matter is reduced by about 80% and is very dry, but not nearly as lumpy in this video. The waste, they advise, is good for the trash, the green bin, or to go in one's compost. They do not advise it to be used in plants before further composting. The second mode is what they call the grow mode which is a 16-20 hour process. This comes out like light and fluffy dirt. This, they say, you can use directly on your your plants or in the soil. However, they clearly state that the ratio should be 1:10 ( One cup 'compost' and 10 cups soil) which is significantly less than what you show here. I have no real way of telling how much it may help as I use the short mode and then add to my compost bin. I imagine I will be using this when I do my planting later in the spring. We'll see how that works.

Interesting experiment. I would be curious what the PH and nitrogen levels are in the different test pots?

It seems like the only way this thing would work is if the stuff then went through a worm bin.

Most efficient method to reuse kitchen scraps is laying hens and worms. I hate seeing this lomi ad, absolutely disgusting.

I think that maybe after using the kitchen composter to add it to your yard compost so it can be turned and rest like regular yard compost. For example you don't add the droppings from chickens or rabbits as soon as they dropped because that would burn the plants ... I don't get to garden often but I like it so I hope I'm right.

We'll done Sir, you provided your point. Food scraps is not a planting medium, it's a bio hazard! Lomi is an overpriced garbage dehydrator which is a total disaster!

Thank you for doing this excellent experiment. This definitely has helped me make my decision not to purchase a Lomi. Lomi products are (yet again) based on the philosophy of quick and easy convenience.

Vitamix recommends 10% and adding it to established plants I would never use it for a seed starter.

You are too kind I just watched their add, they are lying, they say right out it is real compost. Thanks for saving us cash

I have the Vitamix eco 5 and it does grind it up like it’s supposed to be. I then mix it with large amounts of soil and water it for a week to let it compost. It’s very hot for sure and I’ve found about a tablespoon per gallon works well if it hasn’t been in a composter for a week first. Thought the grind on your ,aching is very lackluster so that may not be the case for you.

Thank you for this video. I have a question. I am a beginner gardener who rarely uses fertilizer because I’m afraid that I will burn my plants. It has always been my understanding that when starting seeds, one should never use fertilizer. Not for the first couple weeks after germination (until after it gets its true leaves). Isn’t that what this compost is when it comes out of the Lomi? I would be interested in seeing a similar control test based on using the compost on several young plants instead of seedlings.

Too much organic material decomposing at once and your 'soil' more closely resembles a newly established and highly active compost-pile full of nitrogen rich material, which is great if you're intending to start a compost pile but terrible to grow anything in directly other than microbes. However, many seasoned gardeners know that burying kitchen scraps in the garden is highly beneficial for feeding the microbes present in the soil and improving soil fertility. Soil itself is basically mother natures digestive system. That's where everything goes eventually, even us... But you really can't grow anything in an active compost pile even if it is nestled down neatly into a small cup like this. Disappointing, I know. However, if you were to repeat this same experiment only using a common organic fertilizer like 'alfalfa meal' or Dr. Earth (in place of the dry kitchen scraps) you will get very similar results! But why? Too much organic decomposition = stinky anerobic mess that promotes plant pathogens. Don't over-fertilize and this problem is solved. The results of this experiment demonstrate the hazards of overfertilizing (with any organic fertilizer) and is to be expected. Try this for an experiment: Grind those dry scraps down into a homogenous powder and then disperse a very small amount (perhaps a teaspoon or so) per-gallon of fertigation water for a good starting application rate and then take things from there with the concentrations and compare to the controls. A little goes a long way. Remember, pelletized organic fertilizers take some time to break down as they nourish the soil food web more slowly, whereas a fine powdery material has far greater surface area contact with the soil and microbes- so it speeds up the colonization and decomposition of the material, thus less of it should be used than your typical pelletized organic amendments but should also be applied more often. Also, I think it would be better to run the experiment for a little longer to observe any long-term morphological changes taking place in the plants and changes in the soil or substrate as things develop. I suspect you will have more useful experimental results this way and be able to determine what the efficacious application of this fertilizer material is. Much depends on the biology of your soil to begin with, so seeding the substrate with some leaf mold or well matured compost is a really good idea. I'd also be interested in seeing what this stuff can do in a Jadam-style liquid fertilizer.

Thank you for this experiment! I was wondering if that contraption was worth the money. Now I know it is not!

This machine would be great for living soil or a worm bin maybe even to make a compost organic matter tea just fill the tea bags with the machine processed matter ( you'll probably get some good enzymes out of it depending on what you put in the mix) ... ✌💚

oh yeah, and i had to hit the sub button for this

I read another composter instructions. It said use it after 3 or 4 weeks after mixing in with soil. Don’t plat right away. I guess it needs to absorb moisture first. Thanks interesting video.

The Cavle Composter my daughter bought me just came today. Glad I read this before getting it dirty so I can return it for a refund.

ROFLMAO -- I posted information about this on a site. And someone from Lomi responded that when in Growth Mode the Lomi Dirt produced should be mixed 1 part Lomit Dirt to 10 parts Natural dirt or soil. And then THAT should be used on plants in the home and in the garden. That is .. wow .. so stupid to make this worthless.

Thanks for saving me money.

Hmmm I have a lomi and when i used the "plant setting" which is specific for placing in plants it was ground to comparable soil mixture. I by their instructions added a 1:10 compost to soil mixture for some corn i decided to grow and not a week later after I placed my kernels in the container(container growing corn) I have what appears to be all but maybe 1 kernal sprouting. ehh I'm pleased...

Great report Robert! As so often happens, the manufacturer is putting out false and misleading information on their product.

update: i used my dehydrator on all my food scraps for a 48 hour period, and that turned everything into a fine powder, i'm glad i came across this video, because i was considering the vitamix food cycler, but when i conducted my experiment with my dehydrator, i'm happy with the results.

I use lomi, and then put in my composer to mix with other stuff.

The good video

I love experiments, this is great. Recently these dehydration device reviews keep popping up on my suggested videos, but no one seems to go much further than actually trying out the device. I was obvious to my that it wasn’t making compost as I make compost myself and know about the time things take to break down. I think really the end product would still need to be added to the compost bin and I’m assuming it would be ready much quicker than it you just put all the scraps straight into your compost bin. I think maybe for people who don’t compost themselves or don’t have a garden and don’t want scraps sat in the trash stinking it could be useful, they could then collect a bucket full of this dehydrated stuff and donate it to someone with a compost bin or a community place as it would still need to be left to decompose and be mixed in with other materials. However for the price of the machine and the space it takes up I don’t think those people would bother and for those of us with a compost bin there isn’t much point in this, if you want the scraps broken down a bit already you can just put them all in a blender and add it to the compost bin. I’m just not sure the manufacturing and cost of this product is worth it 🤷🏻‍♀️

I have yet to buy a bag for it or change the filter I clean it with a little brush and only run it when full which is once a week. I’m disabled so burying my food waste for me isn’t feasible so I use this and then just toss it out on my grass or plants. My dog likes the smell of it and actually eats a lot of it I’ve noticed. The smell usually is of roasted veggies 🥕 i don’t like the price point and know real composting would be better but since I’m disabled and can’t always go outside in my wheelchair nor can I dig a compost heap this is what I use. I wish I could put a solar adapter to make it run more efficiently

Quality video thank you! I think I will still get the lomi machine but I'll just use it to file down my trash

I own an electric compost machine and the manufacturer's instructions clearly states to use a 1 : 10 byproduct to soil ratio. (1 : 15 if the byproduct contains meat). It could vary from brand to brand.

I have an Idoo Garbo and I figured out after the first time using it that it wasn't compost but dehydrated scraps. What I'm thinking of doing is maybe feeding some to my worms and putting the excess into my Bokashi composter. The inoculant should help ferment it into real compost. I hope I don't kill my worms 🤔😒

I think it is still a great tool to reduce and recycle. Just taking the scraps and finishing them off in a secondary container for a season in the garage would probably be the best thing for an annual soil amendment.

It would seem to me that it would be more prudent to test 20% "compost” as a maximum as that was the manufacturer’s recommendation. My question would be whether 20% is even safe and if not , is there a safe level below 20%. In any event, you’ve convinced me not to buy one of these.

The manufacturer of Nagual contacted me and said the following: "First of all, the electronic composter's end product is highly concentrated nutrients and may burn the plant if not handle properly. 1. the plants that you use in the video are way too little while the compost are way too much in ratio. 2. the compost should stay away from plants' roots 3. compost should only touches soils, not plants. " My Response: 1) no compost is high in nutrients - even well made compost has an NPK of less then 1-1-1. The nutrients in the dried kitchen scraps produced here have almost no plant available nutrients. The company does not understand what plant "nutrients" are. 2) What good is compost if you can't put it near plants? The problem here is that the material produced is not compost - which is the conclusion in the video. 3) I agree with their suggestion - don't put it near plants.

GFnt.. thanks for the analyst, no disrespect to Lumi, or any other compost electronic machine, but i will stick with nature... I knew it intuitively it wasnt going to work.

I knew those things were wrong

Deceptive advertising? I’m starting to not believe in ANY advertising promotions for any new products