Green Johanna - Swedish Hot Composting System

We are long-time composters and this is definitely the best compost bin we have ever had. Pretty easy to assemble, strong & sturdy, no critters have been able to invade it in our Northwoods location. All the organic matter broke down beautifully and rapidly. Miraculously, there was always that perfect balance of moisture -- never too dry or too soggy. The contents always smelled sweet. In our view, it's worth the cost.

Excellent for those who like to make compost with their kitchen organic waste and garden wastes. So well designed that unwanted visitors (rats and flies) cannot get in and only wanted visitors (earth worms, centipedes...) can. Amazing ! I'm so happy to have found the Green Johanna !

We have had a Johanna for over eight years now. It has faded a bit on the outside, but still decomposes all our food scraps (we don't put in meat or bones) and produces black soil for the garden. More solid and effective than several we had earlier; those simply did not hold up over time. Just ordered one for a friend.

I absolutely love this composting bin. I throw in meat, bones, fish, soups, green scraps, twigs, paper ... it eats it all. It's critter and rodent proof! If I could describe it, it would be like the scene in Little Pet Shop of Horrors, just engulfing anything! Each time I open the top, I get an immense amount of satisfaction, feeling the heat from it working and from seeing the compost just pulsating with life. It must be put in the shadiest part of your yard for it to work effectively. It has drainage holes so you'll never even have to worry about draining liquid. I couldn't be happier with this composting bin. Convert your kitchen scraps into rich compost. It may be a little pricey upfront, but it's totally worth it in the end!

Easy to construct and a good sturdy bin, which works well, despite the fact that I don't regularly turn and mix compost. I added rodent proof mesh at bottom as rats were regularly invading my previous normal compost bin, looking for kitchen veg scraps. The two sliding doors each side on the bottom make it reasonably easy to dig out some compost now and then.

This hot composter is delivered in several sections nesting inside each other to save storage space and shipping costs. You then need to assemble the hoop-sections with 30 or so small crosshead screws before it can be put into use: this takes time and you need space to spread out all the sections to get a handle on what you’re actually doing. The assembly instructions are just adequate if you read them carefully, but the issue I found was that a couple of the sections were warped due to poor manufacture or QC, and so didn’t fit without a good deal of careful work to press and manipulate the pieces to force them together. I found that inverting the whole thing to attach the base at the top was easiest way to get it to fit properly, and then re-inverting it when fully assembled. After around 45 minutes, Bingo! The composter was finally ready: it looks rather like a big green Dalek. The supplier instructs that the composter be sited in shade on flat-levelled earth. It’s probably OK if the ground is not spirit-level flat, but sufficiently so that the bin won’t become unstable when full. The base has small holes in it, designed so that worms may enter directly from the ground to feed and accelerate the composting process, but of a size small enough to exclude rodents. The bin is more or less hermetically sealed when completed with a strong, tight-fitting round lid which twist-locks in place and sealed sliding hatches at the base which should only be unfastened when the compost is ready to remove. The reason I bought this 330L composter was that its capacity is >3x that of our rotary composters, which fill up after around 8 weeks and well before the compost is usable. We’ll see if, during the summer months, it does the business as we load it up with the recommended layered mix of nitrogen and carbon-based waste.

I really like this compost bin and now have two Green Johannas. The design of the bin means that the heat released from the vegetation as it rots does break it all down quickly. I have composted thin branches from cutting our hedges and it has all rotted down in less than a year. The bin is easy to put together.

Copious and efficient. ✔ Build quality. Though relatively easy to assemble, the screw holes are easily stripped and for the price should be much deeper plastic blocks. ✖ The cost of an additional hot jacket at £85 seems steep. Something that could have been factored in as a package deal at a discount price, since the addition of the jacket would have helped over the colder months. ✖ In spite of these issues, over all I'm pleased with the product. At one month old it will be interesting to see how it performs over the winter.

I'm not sure how this will perform over winter as I bought it just at the start of summer. However, it seems to be working as intended. I will wrap it in some laminate floor insulation over winter though. There is a jacket you can buy for it but it's very expensive. It was slightly tricky to put together just because some of the sections would pop out as you are putting the screws in. This was mainly an issue in the middle sections. However, it does fit snuggly together once you check and realign the section after each screw before continuing. Construction tips: I found it helpful to do the North/South and East/West first then do any that are in between last rather than going around it and doing each one in turn. This means that if it pops out you are still able to squeeze the sides a little to push them back into place.