Best composter

(Image credit: Lifetime)

published 11 May 2021

Get a composter for your garden to save money, deal with waste in an eco-friendly way, and improve garden soil. The grass you’ve mowed, plant clippings, leftover vegetables and fruit, and more can all rot down in a composter to give your garden a natural boost without the need to buy bagged compost. Check out our selection of the best composters.

Best overall

4smile garden composter

300-litre capacity

This plastic compost bin has space inside to turn plenty of kitchen and garden waste into compost. A hinged lid on the top makes it easy to fill, while the hatch door creates good access to the compost. You will need to build it yourself, but it simply clicks together.

Best for style

Easipet wooden compost bin

Beehive lookalike

If your composter will be on show because of the size or shape of your garden, you might like to opt for this handsome design. It has a hinged roof to make adding waste simple, and a removable panel at the base for getting compost out. Made from wood, it has a capacity of around 328 litres.

Best rotating pick

Lifetime compost tumbler

Skip forking

You can save yourself the job of turning the waste you’re making into compost with this design. It rotates on its axis to mix and aerate its contents. Made from high-density polyethylene (HDPE), it has double-wall panels to help it absorb and retain heat for speedier results, too.

Best big model

Combined Harvesters Eco King composter

Make more

With a 600-litre capacity, this composter is great for bigger gardens. It flaps open for filling at the top, and there’s also a flap at the bottom for removing the compost. It has to be self-assembled, but this doesn’t require any tools.

Best for eco points

VOUNOT compost bin

UV resistant

Go even greener with this neat mode that is made from recycled plastic. The polypropylene is weatherproof and durable and will stand up to life in the garden. Shovelling compost from the base is straightforward, and the lid is hinged, so you don’t have to look for a place to set it down.

Best for blending in

Lacewing medium composter

Stay natural

Ideal for locating at the back of a larger garden, this open composter is a good value way to make lots of compost. It has a generous 580 litres of operating capacity, and the slatted design keeps the material added well aerated. It’s made from pressure-treated wood for a long life.

Bottom line

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Making your own compost avoids the need to spend out on the bagged variety and is an efficient way to deal with waste from the kitchen as well as the garden. The 4smile garden composter has a 300-litre capacity and has a hinged lid and bottom flap, making accessing material no hassle.

If your composter will be on display rather than hidden at the back or in a corner of the garden, the Easipet wooden compost bin is a top option. The beehive-style wooden design makes it a pleasing garden feature as well as a useful one.

Sarah is a freelance journalist and editor writing for websites, national newspapers, and magazines. She’s spent most of her journalistic career specialising in homes – long enough to see fridges become smart, decorating fashions embrace both minimalism and maximalism, and interiors that blur the indoor/outdoor link become a must-have. She loves testing the latest home appliances, revealing the trends in furnishings and fittings for every room, and investigating the benefits, costs and practicalities of home improvement. It's no big surprise that she likes to put what she writes about into practice, and is a serial house revamper. For Realhomes.com, Sarah reviews coffee machines and vacuum cleaners, taking them through their paces at home to give us an honest, real life review and comparison of every model.