Just don’t plant directly into the byproduct 😅 compost it or you will regret your choices. It’s a dehydrator combined with a grinder not a Composter. IMO.
I've owned a LOMI composter for about 2 years. 12 LESSONS LEARNED: 1. Using one function is all you need... no bacteria starters, no activated charcoal... just run on the shortest cycle and call it a day. Too much of a hassle to fuss with activated charcoal. Just skip it. 2. Activated charcoal REDUCES odors but it STILL smells. Do you want that in your kitchen? (The odors can get very strong). 3. Same for noise. Grinding, stirring and whirring goes on for HOURS and hours. It seems endless even on the short cycle, which I use all the time. 4. Put your LOMI in the garage or other isolated, well-ventilated area... minimal exposure to noise and odors. I keep ONLY the empty LOMI bucket in my kitchen inside a plain, covered compost tin. When it's full I schlep it to my garage where I keep the machine base unit itself. (Manufacturer: when, oh when can we purchase a SECOND LOMI bucket? I've been asking your reps and get only vague "not available" answers). 5. I accumulate the finished "dirt" in a covered, 5-gallon bucket set next to the LOMI machine (in the garage). When it's full, I use a large pet food scoop to scatter the dirt on my lawn. It simply VANISHES into the grass!! Love it... all my scraps have gone full circle!!! 6. My kitchen is small with limited counter space. The LOMI footprint is bigger than you think, plus, it needs adequate space around the machine to operate effectively. 7. Yes, certain comostable products can be put in the LOMI, but ONLY in very small amounts... AND they have to be manually broken down... hardly worth the effort considering that the LOMI bucket CAPACITY is a significant limiting factor. 8. It is AMAZING all the things that a LOMI will compost. DO NOT compost banana STEMS... they are too tough...whole skins are fine. Don't compost syrupy jams, jellies, pie fillings... the LOMI heat will turn these into concrete. Avocado pits? Yes! 9. Balance wet and dry ingredients. We put in SOME (definitely nor ALL) tissues, paper towels, etc. The LOMI is great, too, for all kinds of sloppy messes... the skill is to properly balance the mix so it "cooks" well. 10. Cardboard? Sure, if you have nothing else to do besides breaking it down first, in very small, tiny quantities... Remember that the LOMI capacity is relatively SMALL and the shortest cycle is several HOURS. 11. There are 2 persons in my household. We ourselves fill the LOMI 2-3 times per week. Larger families need at least TWO buckets. 12. I'm SO glad that I experimented and placed only a small piece of the LOMI (supposedly compostable) PLASTIC SHIPPING BAG in the LOMI mode. What a mess! To properly compost the "compostable" PLASTIC BAG and "turning it into dirt" (this is what is printed on the bag) DIRECTIONS should be CLEARLY and COMPLETELY PRINTED on the bag itself and in the instruction book. The small portion of the bag I tried to compost (LOMI approved mode) turned into a tangled mess! Imagine if someone puts in the whole bag!! It did NOT "turn into dirt"!! ...and the info video on this subject does not demonstrate that the LOMI bag turned into dirt. I REALLY like my LOMI!! Despite the noise and odors and other caveats, I would STILL purchase it. It is an AMAZING device that, if possible, many should get - if you've read this far then you know what to expect.
Will rats eat the byproduct of this machine? I have a composter but it seems to be attracting rats in my backyard. If I put this stuff out will rats just eat this?
I have a knock off that i got for free to review and it's just as objectively useless as the Lomi. But it' doesn't smell. i keep my food waste in a separate bucket, and loaded it like once a week and even after a month of doing that no smell.
Thank you for the info. I now see these cannot be kept on the typical kitchen counter. Must have its own place away from the living area. Garage does sound ideal.
Really appreciated this candid interview. I’ve heard a lot of criticism about the lomi but at the end of the day, it’s really not for people who have access to outdoor composters (have a worm bin, chickens, etc). My family has all three and the lomi just doesn’t makes sense for us. BUT. I purchased one for my grandparents because they live in a complex that doesn’t compost. Everything goes in the trash. And while my grandma does have a small garden, she is in no position to manage a compost pile. That’s where the lomi is the perfect tool. It’s simple enough for them to use and the “pre-compost” can easily be mixed into soil. My grandma can confidently do that! At the end of the day I hope people can see this as a tool for folks who truly don’t have access to an outdoor space and want to do their best to minimize their impact. I truly believe the lomi (despite using electricity) is a FAR better option than throwing food scraps in the trash.
But its not just the electricity, think of the plastic, metal and rare earth used to create this. And probably the hundred of liters of water used in manufacturing it. All it does is dehydrate and blend food scraps. Then the powder gets wet again when you put it in your garden. Its useless. And when it breaks after a year or two, you buy a new one, making it worst.
Yes this seems so useful for people who live in apartments with small rooftop or terrace "gardens" and even for those without, turning your food into this is better than just adding to the dump.
Even feel better sending this to the dump than the raw plastic or adding to the apt buildings smelly trash. Or walk and drop the pre compost in the local park beds where there are worms etc.
I live on the 4th floor of a building so yeah this is the best I can do other than paying a composting service to get my scraps. Looking at houses now as long as I can find a place with no HOA in getting a tumbling compost
I'm one of those cold climate gardeners that has a Lomi. We absolutely love it! We use it year round and use the Lomi "dirt" as food for our worm bin. I've had way less flies and pests in the worm bin since switching over.
I live in SoCal but dont want to attract rats n squirrels 2 my compost bin so it only has yard waste n never seems 2 break down. Instead we put 1/2 gal collected food waste under sink n then pulverize it all in blender 4 worm food in raised beds into a corner. Lomi would reduce fruit flies coming in kitchen in summer.
It's important to know that Lomi doesn't really stand behind their product. I owned mine for just under a year, had issues with it, and their suggestion was simply to spend another $500 on a new one. This despite reaching out to them well within the stated warranty timeline. I would NOT give them my business again.
Absolutely true. Here is what the company told me after my fan broke for the second time in less then one year. I asked them if it is normal for this to happen and this is what they said: "The replacement of a part or a unit really depends on the customer's usage of the unit. Others take more than a year for the replacement, while others less than year. That's why we suggest customers to look into the option for a Lifetime Warranty Membership so that replacements will be free of charge, whether it be a part or the unit itself. BTW the extended warranty is 240 usd per year WTF? Stay away from this company at all costs! The product is very expensive and not engineered in a manner that makes it reliable. There are thousands of customers with the same fan issues as me....just search and review before buying.
We are very happy with our Lomi! We have a 5-acre farm, plenty of room for compost bins, tumblers, worm bins, etc., but also for accompanying wildlife, flies, and rats. We use different composting options for various needs, such as landscape debris, vegetable garden clippings, livestock waste, etc. We aim to avoid attracting animals and flies to our processing bins, and our winters are long and cold enough to slow down the aerobic break-down, so the Lomi provides us the best answer. We got a Lomi for our house food scraps for a number of reasons... We do not have chickens currently. We are retired and love to cook, so scraps from 3 meals a day for 2 to 4 people go into the Lomi, including meat scraps, which you can't easily compost any other way. We run 1-2 short cycles (2-4 hrs each) and 1 long Grow cycle (12-16 hrs with added probiotics) over night every week. We don't remove the "dirt" between short batches, we just add scraps on top, and dump our final Grow cycle bucket load into a bin, to add to our soil mixes. It is clean and easy. No smell, no bugs, no scavengers, and the worms love it. Our power bill isn't noticeably different, maybe an extra $5-8 every 2 months.
Plus, we don't want to pay waste management for yet another bin, just so they can drive it in big trucks to their giant plant where they expend lots of electricity to turn it into "compost", which isn't usable for organic food gardens in the end. (So funny people think sending it away somehow magically makes it disappear.) I'd rather make pre-compost with my Lomi out of my own organic food scraps, including meat, so I can put it back into my organic vegetable garden, knowing it's free of glyphosate and other GMO crap. Truly organic soil/compost is hard to find and very expensive. (Soil companies are allowed to call any non-synthethic soil "organic", but that doesn't mean it's certifiably Organic and chem-free. Think about how your neighbors eat! Is that what you want in your garden? ) Our priority is our food and what we grow it in. The Lomi has reduced stress, eased the workload, and quickly turns our food waste back into food.
To piggyback on this post, I also live in a very rural area and the Lomi has been a lifesaver financially. We were quoted at over 6k to remove a family of skunks from the property. Instead, we invested in a Lomi and since we took away their food source (our compost bin), they've moved on to find food elsewhere. Lomi is as necessary to our household as the clothes dryer. Yes, we can live without it, but Holy smokes, is it nicer to have it.
@@medusalithpax3572 Yes! Years ago we paid thousands for rat/squirrel/raccoon exclusion around our place. Removing the easy food sources is way cheaper and actually more effective. Lomi for the win!
I appreciate how honest and candid their CEO is. I prefer my outside bin for my garden debris and garage worm bin for kitchen scraps, so it's nice that he was honest that this isn't for people like us necessarily. I know a lot of people who would probably use this because my worms are gross to them or a big compost bin full of debris isn't their aesthetic lol. But I think my way is better haha.
Thought the same thing. He wasn't there to hard sell this product. Found him rather candid about its limitations, pricing related to development costs and who would be a good buyer for it. Refreshing. Great video!
I live in the Near North of Ontario, Canada. I have two compost bins and they both end up full well before spring so I can understand the appeal of the Lomi over the winter. The price has been the reason I haven't gotten one. If they are able to aggressively drop the price in two years, I'll definitely be getting one.
Mine was a gift or I wouldn't have one either, but they eventually pay for themselves because of the money saved not buying compost and by reducing food waste. There's no food waste here because of lomi. I put lomi away in Spring. Maine resident here.
I agree. Sask here and we just don't get long enough summers to break down good large compost. However, if these prices drop substantially. I would Get one then
@kdavis4910 It would be many, many years before I spent as much on compost as a Lomi. When you factor in the effort and electricity to get the equivalent of even one bag of compost... I just don't see the value financially right now.
I have a countertop composter that I use for kitchen scraps, etc. I collect them in a 5-gal bucket until I eventually walk them down to my greenhouse where I feed it to my worms. Worms love the already-ground-up food & I love it not collecting fruit flies during the time it collects in the kitchen. Only warning: product needs to be well-mixed into the worm bin & not just dumped on top or else it will clump into rock-hard bricks.
Oh dang, I'm super glad I ran into this comment. Mine clumped up into rock hard bricks when I didn't mix it in, and I didn't think to mix it all up, when I put it in my worm bin. Appreciate the heads up, gonna get this well mixed in next time round.
You know you don't need an overpriced food dehydrator to compost on your countertop. Just an old coffee tin. It's sad that we think we need "high tech" gimics. Just adds to more global emissions.
I was on the fence about buying a Lomi because I didn't know if it would be good for my situation but the amount of respect I have for this man after this interview... I'm going to buy one with my next paycheck for freaking sure. I'm a florist and we're about to use my boss's beautiful yard to grow a large portion of our inventory this year. It would be so great to lomi things in my apartment and bring them to their house. Awesome interview, thank you!!
I think if you start spending too much money on your garden, it may not be worth doing for some people, that's why I try to keep things as cheap as possible, like making my own compost and fertilizers. 😃😃
It eventually pays for itself, especially if the fertilizer shortages hit backyard gardens and it allows those in cold climates to continue building compost. There's the electric bill still, but I generally don't use lomi in summer, opting instead for chicken manure and compost bins.
@@kdavis4910 how could it possibly pay for itself compared to walking the compost outside and dumping it onto a pile? How many years have you had yours? Does it have a multi year warranty?
Another way to use the dried product that you didn't mention in the video is to feed the product into a worm bin. I'm from a cold climate, and we trialed a table top composter at my workspace since we are also not allowed to have a composter outside the building at my workplace. Originally we tried putting the dried product onto the soil surface of our indoor plants, but it became a mush fungi product crust on the top of the soil. We then tried scratching that into the plant soil, but that became too overwhelming for the indoor plant dirt overtime (indoor plant soil isn't an active soil like outdoor soil is). We then fed the product to the worm bin with some moisture, and quickly had a bonanza horde of our compost worms devouring it. Worm castings are much easier to add to indoor plant soil, so this is the method we are sticking to.
Brianna's use of the precomposted material is really intriguing. Use of peat or coir is between a rock and a hard place. So Brianna's use is really interesting. Could you have her do an episode just on her use of Lomi and how she uses the precompost in the soil block. Also really says something about the Matt the CEO. Gives more respect with his honest answer.
Working on that one, we are experimenting with another material as another alternative too, I’ll get that one out as soon as we get it through some testing! 😊
This video perfectly highlights why I absolutely adore your channel. The honesty, the thought that went into the examples you used and the use cases you presented at the end.. It’s even more amazing that you had the CEO there to ask the questions that we all wondered about, AND that HE was so honest and open and willing to share his insights. Great video (as ALWAYS!) but something about this one in particular really made me want to write a comment telling you and your entire team how thankful I am for the effort and thought you put into your channel, your shop, and your content. ❤
You are propping up a shill. He wasn’t paid, decided to buy a heavy $600 electric appliance, and started walking around with it just for shits and giggles? The CEO of Lomi dropped everything he was doing and decided to pop in all casual like just because some random influencer wanted to interview him? Yep. I was totally born yesterday. The shill even has the Lomi on a pedestal during the interview. Seriously, how stupid do you think the audience is? GTFO with your guerrilla marketing campaign.
I love the idea of pest free composting. While I'm on a half acre, and have active compost bins, my bin does draw pests. I imagine this would be very helpful in this matter.
I invested in LOMI when it was a Kickstarter and have never been more grateful for something. This has changed our world. We live in a very wet climate that breeds insect infestation with any kind of indoor compost. This device has given us the ability to not just throw away our scraps. This preps everything and then we can throw it into a spinner in the yard. Love it.
I have a Lomi and LOVE it. Run a batch every couple of days and mix it in with my enriched soil pile. I can't physically do full-blown compost outside anymore and squirrels ate big holes in my tumbler. So it really suits my needs for small-scale gardening and composting general kitchen scrap.
If you don't mind me asking, how did you set up that enriched soil pile? Plastic bucket? Metal raised bed? Was it easy to set that up, especially for someone with no experience doing this stuff?
@Nick Schrombeck I just cleared out a 4x3 space in a corner of the yard, put down some square concrete slabs and made a pile out of some regular dirt, a few bags of potting soil, organic enriched soil. Mixed in some Blood & Bone meal and dug up some earthworms and stuck 'em in. I dump pot & raised bed dirt in there each season, the Lomi stuff. I'm not sure if I'm doing it by the book lol, but my veg garden & potted plants love it.
@@three2267 Ahh, I gotcha. I'll be doing the apartment lifestyle soon, so I looking to see what people are doing with the output since it's clearly not a true compost. Thanks for the process map!
@Nick Schrombeck If you're doing apartment pots or have plants, you can certainly use the lomi. I like it because there's no smelly scraps hanging around. Even if you toss it in the trash or throw it in a common flower bed, it beats stinky rotting scrap. It's really light weight and has no smell, so you could save it in a bag and give it away. I put coffee grounds, tea bags, cooking scraps, and paper in mine. Everything except bones & pits.
@@three2267 Throwing it in the common flower bed or giving it away to others such as via ShareWaste are great ideas. I'll be living in a city, and there are plenty of beds around that I could drop this stuff into discretely haha Come to think of it, Pela says to place the pre-compost in with soil in a 1:10 mixture. Do you think it would work if I just add this stuff on top of the existing soil for my potted plants? This way, you don't really need to keep buying new soil except maybe every year or so. Definitely a worthy experiment to run.
Another option for apartment-bound or other small property folks is to daily blend your food scraps in a blender with a sufficient amount of water to create a pre-compost slurry that can be watered into existing planting containers or raised beds. Of course you have to have a sufficient planted area to deposit the slurry in, and depending on what you are blending there may be critters who come a callin'. In my case I live on a relatively small 60' x 150' foot lot in a casual suburban area so there are plenty of spots on the property for me to water in a food scrap smoothie. However I generally do deposit the food scraps in a couple of different composting containers, adding in browns from time to time, which do take a while to produce finished compost. But I have utilized the compost smoothie method on many occasions.
I have a different brand of composter that is similar to a lomi and I love it. As someone who does not have a place for "traditional" composting, this is a great option for me. I even got one for my parents. We just take what our scraps are broken down into and add it to the soil. It is AMAZING how much my trash output has been reduced (which is the main reason I got it). Would definitely recommend it for folks like me who have a small garden and/ or no real place to compost the old fashioned way.
Thanks for making this video! And amazing to have the chance to chat with the CEO! I wish they didn’t call the output compost in their marketing and I’m glad he mentioned it’s more of a pre-compost. And great discussion about use cases, nice to hear it’s not the right tool for everyone but I agree, it has its place for some. Thanks so much! Great video 👍
I would agree, it's not quite the most accurate framing to call it compost...I chalk it up to the fact that the average consumer (read: non-gardener) doesn't KNOW what compost is, and perhaps that framing is easier for them to visualize? Pre-compost is for sure more technically accurate
Thanks Eric I found this very interesting. Never had considered purchasing the Lomi,I already compost using bins and don’t have room for any gadgets. I loved your demonstrations and honest talk with the CEO.
@Epic Gardening I think you're right. Lomi is a gift for those living in cold climates. It's cold for 8 to 9 months per year in New England and lomi allows me to keep making compost when my compost piles went inactive long since. September was the last month my piles were active and they won't reactivate until about May. Maybe later, all depending on when spring decides to start.
I've been using a Lomi for about 3 years. I have one of the turning compost bins in my backyard but I wouldn't put food scraps in there because of the smell and the rodent problems. I love that I can use all my food scraps, usually throw in 1/3 dry leaves, use the long cycle and then I have "dirt" to add to my turning bin. I love the term "precompost". I also discovered that you don't want to put this "dirt" directly on your beds -- it definitely need to be mixed in with soil or it will harden and create a water barrier.
I live full time in an RV and travel the country (USA). Lomi has been a great option to reduce greenhouse gas waste and to ‘compost’ in a small area. We obviously don’t have our own yard so this is a really great option. I love Matt’s ideas and where this is headed. This may not be THE answer, but it’s a big step in the right direction. Thanks for the review!
I love my Lomi! I have outdoor composting in my garden, however, to avoid rodent issues, all my kitchen scraps go through the Lomi. Then once I fill up a separate container of the Lomi pre-compost I dump it in my outdoor compost or directly into my garden beds. I live in zone 8b and I love how I use it. The best part is I can put not only kitchen scraps, but dinner scraps. You can’t do that in a regular compost bin. Love it!
Definitely appreciate the candidness of the whole conversation. To ever hear a CEO of a product say, “no you’d not need this product”, that speaks volumes to me.
Thanks so much for this! Very cool that the CEO was on, was REAL, was honest about pro's & con's, and was a genuinely nice guy. Community gardens, balcony gardens for apartment dwellers... great uses for Lomi. Thanks to Matt & his team for creating this very useful, Earth-friendly machine. ♥️
Who says he was being honest? Also, it takes a lot of energy to dry out the food scraps, only to rehydrate them to a ground up version of their pre-lomi state as soon as they hit the garden. I see no reason to believe this is earth friendly at all.
Something I would've liked to see addressed was if Lomi has any advantages in areas that divert food waste from landfills through municipal composting. In the video he made it sound a bit like the only options are composting at home or landfill and that just isn't true for many areas.
I guess one advantage is that it feels cleaner. I have some friends who hate municipal composting because the bins get stinky before weekly pick up, or the bio-bag bursts while they're taking it out
@@Rumade Before I started composting, when I lived in an area with municipal composting, my solution to that was to freeze everything until the morning of pickup.
@Phina Gage that's what I used to do in Japan so I wouldn't have stinky rubbish in my house. But not always feasible obviously depending on freezer size and number of housemates etc. Then again, there's not always space in the kitchen for another appliance either!
Yeah, in NYC, there is municipal composting. It can be done through compost bins at your apartment building that get emptied on recycling day, drop off sites at libraries and community gardens, or even special key-card access compacting bins on street corners in certain neighborhoods.
A lot of people live where landlords, condo associations, or homeowners' associations won't let them have visible compost bins. If they don't have access to municipal composting, or if they can't get there often enough to deal with odors and bugs, this seems great.
I happened to be one the first people that get to try it and I love it. I bought it in their pre sale. Have chickens but I own a restaurant, is a lot of kitchen scraps for the chickens only. So, to me this is a life savior to my plants. I have citruses that didn't produce anything until I put Lomi's dirt on them. So, I'm glad I have it and is part of my grain of sand to help the environment.
A friend of mine wants this and was convinced it came out as finished compost that could be planted in, I'm glad the CEO himself debunked that rumor. It's a great product for apartment gardens but I'm not sure who else can benefit. I compost in bins and although it's slow in the winter time during freezing temps, I usually still have two of the three bins ready to be emptied and used that season. It seems like a fairly limited product as of now but maybe it'll have more use in the future.
I appreciate that this video acknowledges there is no one size fits all solution and there are as many ways to compost and use a Lomi as there are people who compost and use Lomis. I have a very large family, a very small number of chickens, even less time and space to compost, and I LOVE my Lomis (yes, plural, because my family is that big). I run all of the kitchen scraps through the Lomis. Then I give the precompost to the chickens along with their feed and all of the yard clippings. Finally, I clean the chickens coop and yard into a compost tumbler every couple of weeks before eventually putting everything into my big bin with the worms that I turn by hand. The Lomis do a great job of breaking down the food scraps, the chickens love the precompost and do a great job of breaking down the yard clippings and then the more traditional composting methods give me a nice finished product 😊
I rent but have what I call a dead yard. I simply use a blender to reduce it, then bury it well below the surface. I used trench composting when I owned my home. But breaking it down speeds up the composting.
I'm in an association-governed home, so my composting options are limited. I'd seen the Lomi ads and was interested, so this frank assessment was sincerely appreciated. More food for thought. Thanks for making this video and to the CEO for a great explanation of his reasons for creating the Lomi and his goals for it.
Ways that I can see this machine could be useful for me: -pre processing food scrap for my worm bin, sometimes big and wet piece of food scrap creates anaerobic pockets in my bin - clean way of storing food scrap, when I'm building a hot compost pile I like to collect my materials before mixing, and for storing my food scrap I use bokashi bucket, the problems with the bokashi buckets is they can take up some space and once the bokashi is exposed to air it can get quite smelly (although bokashi does a really good job at starting a hot compost pile)
I appreciate this video. I recommend having someone from Vitamix on your show as well. I've been using a Vitamix Foodcycler for almost a year and it has worked very well. We have the option for renewable electricity through our provider, and we're avid gardeners, who follow your show.
I also have the Vitamix, it is a smaller unit with a single setting and i think it was about HALF the cost of the Loomi - I use every day and love it- it just sprinlke the material over my garden beds and it has been a great fertilizer
I would love to see the Lomi be repairable, because as I understand it, it currently is not. That would go a long way towards making it even more environmentally friendly, and would make the price easier to stomach, in my opinion.
Is there a warranty option to send the machine back to the manufacturer for repair or replacement within a certain time period? Because if they don’t already have that, that definitely should.
It has a warranty and is repairable! We have 5 acres and really ran it hard to make sure it would work for us. We needed to replace the fan and their customer service was great. We also threw in too much dough that sheared the bolt in the bottom of the bucket and they replaced that too.
Yeah having parts available online would be super useful I imagine the CEO and the Lomi team have already thought about this, and so they might be waiting until the technology matures more before releasing the parts to the masses. Might be a trade secrets thing
I compost and have chickens and I also have 4 kids. I bought a Lomi ~ 9 months ago. I don’t think my use case is unique. Some materials will attract vermin (possums, rats, raccoons) to your compost bin and/or be too old for chickens to eat. Moldy cheese, animal proteins that have “gone off” (I have a house with 1 vegetarian, 2 pescatarians, and 3 omnivores), and restaurant leftovers of questionable age are all perfect for the Lomi. Being real: my life is busy. Yes, my preference is allocating food waste to the chickens or the compost tumbler (if not avoiding it all-together). I even dry out and crush bones from any animal product and mix those into my compost. However, sometimes I find questionable stuff in my fridge. I would rather make “pre-compost” out to it than send it to a landfill.
Yes! These are the kind of review videos we need! Thank you for taking the time to sit down with the CEO and get us a candid discussion about the Lomi. I am not in the target group, and I appreciate having that knowledge up front so I can focus on strengthening other aspects of my gardening while keeping a product like this in mind for the future, thinking gift-wise. Things like this increase our trust in your team, knowing you put it all put on the line. ❤❤
Thanks for doing a video on the Lomi! My friend has one at her house where we've been staying and it's great for breaking down scraps and leftovers so you're not throwing everything away. You definitely can't put it directly into the garden or on your plants if you use pots. I did that with my roses and it molded as soon as it got wet. It should definitely be added to your compost pile or start one using the material you get out of the Lomi. Overall, it's been interesting to use! If you aren't able to compost in an apartment or something, it is a good alternative.
I’ve have a Lomi and been using it everyday. Been building up my Lomi compost pile and adding it all to my 9 raised bed and 7 greenstalk. We’ll see how my spring garden turns out this year 😅. The beauty of exploring with Mother Nature in the garden 🪴 😊
This is the best video to describe what I've experienced with my Lomi. I couldn't find anything like this out there when I was like "okay this isn't compost, I'm going to have to find a way to continue this compost process in my apartment." Such helpful tips for that here!
-What do we do with all these bread makers that no one uses cause they make bad bread…? -Let’s tell people it’s a revolutionary composting system and spent millions on marketing and a fancy plastic enclosure! In all seriousness if you get one to break down your food scraps that’s great as long as your powering it off renewables. Not powered off clean power though it’s a gimmicky waste of energy.
Kevin did mention that one of his co-workers used an innoculant with the Lomi and got good results, so some advanced strategies with this device, combining what we know from the other methods, would be super useful
@@SeeNickView lomi comes with innoculant pellets. One pellet per cycle. It also comes with charcoal pellets for air filtration. Don't lomi spoiled food because you'll smell it regardless of filtration.
I tried the vermaculture in the basement about 30 years ago. Had to quit cuz of the black flies and attraction to mice (which caused us to hang the box from the ceiling😂). My current compost bin is frozen and filling up fast with wet scraps. This video was very helpful to understand what lomi offers. And I think I’d be a good candidate for using one. It’s just a little pricey. Might wait for the 2.0 version.
Bokashi is misleading though! Everyone says it's great for apartments but you have to do the soil factory stage or bury it somewhere. So if you have a very small apartment balcony, or no balcony; what are you supposed to do with the stuff that comes out of the bokashi system? Whereas the precompost from this stuff looks like it could easily be bagged and given away, or used cleanly in houseplants.
@@Rumade soil factory can be in small bins and you can cut your batches to whatever size and if you have friends that garden or community gardens near you can share it. it's like a double good, you're not filling a landfill and you're making friends and others happy. bokashi isn't really pretty but you're not doing it for pretty. bokashi you can also run without electricity, no parts will break over time (maybe a spout but you can repair that yourself), and results results results.
I am a senior citizen that lives in a community with an H.O. A. My back and I love my Lomi. I live in the desert. Anything I can do for the soil will be beneficial.
Sounds like the Lomi was made for me! NYC apartment with no outdoor space and a growing plant collection. I think my favorite aspect of the Lomi though is it looks like it provides the right conditions for the decomposition of biodegradable packaging. As it stands I don’t live in an area serviced by a compost facility, and biodegradable plastics still end up in landfills- or worse, they ruin plastic recycling. I love the idea of being able to choose compostable products and actually divert them from trash.
I live in nyc too and curbside composting is coming to all five boroughs by 2024 (hooray!) I have the same problem with biodegradable plastics too. Only a few container in downtown Manhattan actually accept these and they are quite a trip for me. Did you end up getting one? I am quite curious about how well they work for plants in apartments
@@jasminewang5514 I’m glad to hear it!! Unfortunately I haven’t yet, I’m staying with family this year and don’t have much dedicated space for it. But it something I’m considering for the future :)
I really really cannot express how much I appreciated the straightforward nature of the interview. I’m so impressed and have a lot of respect for both of you. Thank you so much for reviewing this product.
Lomi is the opposite of eco friendly. You use resources to build the device, to run the device, and to replace the filters, which they want to charge you for on a subscription basis. These resource, of course, cost money. If you heat up your room with the Lomi and you're using air conditioning, you need to run that more to eliminate the humidity and heat that you're adding. In some ways, you're delaying the composting process by using Lomi output product. A good test would be to compare the Lomi output against conventional composting technique and against conventional composting when using a leaf shredder or other means to break it up.
I have a Lomi and I love it. Even if you aren't a gardener, it keeps your garbage from smelling bad. I've tried to encourage my building to have a compost program but they've refused, so this has been a good option for me.
I live in a 59m2 balcony apartment with the wife and we manage to bokashi everything to compost in 6 months. in a world were we need to cut down on energy use this does more damage than good.
I have the Vitamix composter and I love it. At time of purchase Lomi had no warranty and I wasn't comfortable with that. Thank-you for this video. I live in the Rocky Mountains and summer is short so we use our Vitamix fall, winter, and spring. But I wasn't sure how to use the end product as it didn't seem like compost to me. Now I know I'll just add it to my compost pile!
We have a similar product and I dump it into a small trash bin and then dump that into our outside compost bins and into the garden this winter. It degrades the material and makes it into smaller particles, making it more bioavailable. Less small animals getting into the food scraps…I like using it
I have the vitamin counter top composter. As a home owner in a residential neighborhood, I do not compost any animal product. But I really love it and I felt that it really helps keep my vegetable garden with nutrients. I am very happy with mine
I live in Norway. I have no chance of getting a hot compost going. I'm starting Bokashi this month. I would adore having a Lomi for my gardening. Any conservation of nourishment for the soil is a good thing.
I'm in Ohio, zone 5, so it gets below freezing during the winter. I used the lomi from November through March. Once it got warmer I mixed all the lomi "pre-compost" in with my existing compost from last year. Now that it's warmer I put the lomi away for the season and just started a new compost outside that I'll use next year.
I've been on the fence about buying one, but considering I live in canada I just might get one so I can compost over the winter. Thank you for posting this
We are in Chicago. We used to store Bokashi in a bucket. This is so much better! It’s dry, takes up much less space, and is so much easier to work with and incorporate into the soil when spring comes. We save about one garbage can full each winter outside next to the other garbage cans. As opposed to Bokashi 5 gallon buckets stacked up in the garage.
Cold climate gardener here, have had mine for 6 months and it’s been great to have the past few months as we’ve touched -20c. I find I’ve liked the fact that it eliminates space. 30 loads barely takes up any space in a 5 gallon pail, where normally that’s buckets of scraps to sit freezing outside tempting rats. We’ll see how it mixes in the spring but so far I’ve liked mine.
I’m a cold weather gardener as well and am thinking about a lomi. Do you store the lomi pre compost in a bucket and just keep saving it until spring comes and then spread it on your garden? Do you add a lid to your storage container?
Kevin, great video and you asked some excellent questions as well. I applaud the CEO for his candid responses in regards to who would benefit from one of his products. Also for what truly comes out of the machine in lieu of compost. 😊
So so glad you addressed the Lomi. I was on the waitlist for one of these last year, lost the $50 deposit after I found out that I was going to benefit more from a tumbler composter. Thank you muches!!
Certainly remember a whole lot of snobbery when this came out in gardener groups. Having recently gone through our county's master recycler/composter volunteer program, can definitely see the use for this thing. The more broken down the material, the more surface area and faster composting. Love that the CEO is honest about where they see this fitting too, not trying to replace composting systems but give another option. I don't have a large place and my biggest issue is garden scraps, I have one pile but then just have the never ending compost pile. Between this or Bokashi I would probably do this. Though I do want to try it first. And I have no desire for worms, know what it takes to take care of them and just for me.
Breaking material into smaller pieces is a well-proven method for speeding the composting process. But the Lomi not only does this, it also dehydrates the material. It's an energy-intensive and completely unnecessary step. In order for the composting process to actually start, you have to rehydrate the material and allow it to decompose. It's an expensive bread-maker with fewer functions than an actual bread-maker.
Here’s a challenge for you. Go out and buy the cheapest bread maker possible. Then dump your scraps into the machine and run it. All Loomi is is a bread maker you don’t put bread ingredients into. It’s a heater with a spinning agitator. There is no reason for it to be as expensive as it is. I agree with the CEO that food waste should not go into the landfill if possible, but even when I lived in an apartment, I found cheaper and more effective ways to compost my food scraps. I used worm bins, then dumped the worm castings around the plants around the apartment complex. I also petitioned our apartment complex to get community composting bins, which they ended up doing right after I moved out.
I’ve had a Vitamix Food Composter for over a year now. It doesn’t take plastics, but I can put small bones, like chicken in & it composts them down nicely. Everything goes into one of the raised beds that is being setup (limbs, branches etc added) to help fill in without having to use soil. The next season we fill the raised bed with soil & go from there. I love my Food Composter it is a bit more compact in size than the Lomi.
A study on those compostable products found without turning (oxygen) many were exactly the same as when put in, it depends on conditions a lot. The one upside, is that it’s made of non-oil bases which reduce extraction
And municipal sorters can’t determine what is or isn’t a compostable one. It’s okay ur composter doesn’t take plastics (corn or soy even) cause even though it’s Bio-based not oil, still nobody really wants ‘plastic bits’ in their garden.
So good for production emissions reductions mostly. (Plant crops versus gas extraction) do want to say it’s still better to have corn forks instead of wood because trees are great carbon stores and while well carved wooden utensils can last for decades, the cheap ones are barely finished products and meant for throwing out. I come from a place where they log a lot for paper and such, and replacing gas for wood is still harming our atmosphere
Wooden utensils have a future but more in artisan pieces. And a glaze that keeps the wood’s integrity intact and keeps it from going bad (although you could technically sand it down a little) wonder what glazes are good, foodsafe and durable (while balancing good to cook with, with lasts very long)
Got it! It was sitting on my counter when I got home last night. Yay! We live in a strict hoa so this is perfect for us. We have lots of wildlife in our neighborhood and it take two seconds to attract critters so a compost pile is not the best for us. With our new juicing life this is perfect.
Would love to see a video from Briana on her seed starting mix! If I knew I could replace buying bags from the store with a mix of Lomi output and some vermicompost, I'd definitely give it a go to try and switch.
Don’t mix Lomi with any seed mix since it’s not really composted it isn’t broke d down and also provides no microbial Benefits just use worm castings + anything else
@@GarrettXHolder I don't want to mix it with a different seed mix. I want to use it INSTEAD of seed starting mix. I basically want to replace miracle grow indoor seed starting mix with Lomi + worm castings. I can't see how it would differ than peet since peet isn't compost either. So I'm really just trying to get a loose fluffy medium since the worm castings would handle the microbial benefits and fertilizer. Do you think that would work?
@@Ebonyraeful the stuff that comes out of a Lomi is essentially dried up food scraps. Not anything like peat witch is very broken down. If you already have a Lomi great use it for a few years till it breaks, but if you don’t have one I suggest watching the Lomi busted video before you buy.
@@GarrettXHolder did you watch the video? If you did, you’d see that’s not what i used. I experimented with using broken down leaves from the lomi as an alternative to peat and it works great. The harvest and use of peat in the garden is incredibly unsustainable and I’m always on the search for a better alternative. And no, coconut coir isn’t that much better. ;)
I really love mine. It's on the counter and isn't too noisy and definitely doesn't smell. I'll mix it back into the soil around my home, or pop it into my compost bin (which I'm really bad about turning....). Also, I have a clippings bin, and they're encouraging people to put in meat/bones/etc. While the Lomi can handle some meat/fat products, the larger stuff goes into my clippings bin and I'm happy knowing it's not going into the land fill. Oh I've had mine about 7 months and it took me 2 to find the courage to set it up. It was scarier than my Instant Pot for some reason.
I bought one because I am older and handicapped. I used to have a compost heap and a worm bin but as I get older, it is harder to deal with those things. I use the Lomi to break down the large veggie material into a smaller size and then I bury that in a section of my garden that is not closely planted. In with the dirt and water, the outside worms find it and break it down. Then the next season I plant over that area and leave another space free for the Lomi stuff.
1st time ive heard of this device. I will wait 4 an upgrade BUT!!..... your interview & innformation was absolutely fantastic - looked like u & CEO were honest in the discussion. That alone serves to peak my interest.
We got one this christmas and so far pretty happy with it. There's a little bit of a learning curve figuring out what it likes and doesn't like. What's nice about it is less waste going down the drain (we have a septic tank) and i dont like tossing food waste in the trash cause it starts stinking before the bag is full. We've had a couple situations where there was stuff in there that got it jammed up even though it's approved by lomi. So I've started chopping things into small pieces to help it out. Only other issue is its made a weird noise from the fan a couple times but after letting it sit and restarting it it was fine. So time will tell on that i suppose. During the summer it probably wont get used as much because i can toss most things out into the garden but its nice for winter time.
@@epicgardening i used to just toss scraps into the garden even in the winter. Even though it wouldn't compost it would eventually break down and didn't really have any animal issues despite being surrounded by farm field and wooded areas. But this saves me from making a cold walk out to the garden all the time. I will say, when we did a decent amount of tomato the end product smelled like a weird bad pasta sauce lol. Not a problem just an interesting observation. Its limited capacity for compostable plastics and cardboard makes it a little unrealistic for that use in my opinion. Like the bag it ships in. Its a compostable bag but based on lomis quantity advise it would take quite a few runs to break down just that bag. Not a deal breaker for us though.
@@95dodgev10 I guess if you just dont want to compost in the winter, this product is for you. Seems like a huge waste of money. Id bet this company wont last long.
@@chuckybang we like it. It is pricey but it works and it has a lot more going o nthan it appears. It has some type of high torque motor for the grinding, a heating element similar to a rice cooker for drying, and a fan to circulate air also for drying, and a pretty thick non stick coated aluminum pot. Ontop of that they're using as many eco friendly materials as they can which unfortunately cost more than standard plastics and such. . I'm no expert in compost but the end result is a dry well mix and ground material. The book says it isn't intended to be used exclusively for plant dirt but instead to mix it 50/50 with potting soil. Reviews i read claim their plants have responded well to the compost. At this point in time i have no regrets in the purchase and it is running as i type this.
Okay, I feel better. I bought one yesterday. I can't start compost bins because our area already has a pest issue (mainly flies and rats, lots of houses packed together and we are by the river). I've been looking for an alternative and this showed up. This year I plan to go big with raised beds since we did our research and we figured out the height we needed and where to buy them (our dog destroyed our last raised beds by digging up all the plants and sleeping in their holes) so this really does sound like the perfect option for us. I do appreciate that the CEO was honest and told you that this isn't for everyone, this isn't for you. You don't get that type of candor that often.
I was surprised you had the ceo on but you know what Im glad to have heard from him, I wondered if this product was a gimmick but he honestly seems really candid and invested in this issue and idea. Also, I never realized that keeping food out of the landfill is a large part of the reason behind composting, I never knew about the concept of food waste decomposing in an anaerobic environment at the landfill. Very interesting and makes the "small" impact of the lomi make a lot more sense to me.
Thanks for the great review and interview. I compost and have a yard in a rural area, but we have bears and really cold winters, so I love the idea of using this for kitchen waste so a) the byproduct doesn’t attract bears, and b) I can use it in winter when my normal composting is frozen (despite years of trying to keep it hot in winter) And I really like the CEO - seems very down to earth (pun intended!) and doing good in the world!
I have a different coutertop composter. I actually use the end product in my worm bin. It helps me feed them more than I normally would be able to without having an excess build up of moisture in the bin, which anyone with a worm bin knows leads to gnats. It also allows me to compost old rotisserie chicken carcassas that I made soup with and egg or seafood shells that would take a long time to break down in the bin.
@@chrissi827 I've only put in soft bones, like the kind from soup or that you could easily break with your hands. It gets pretty noisy when you put anything too hard in there. I only use 50% meat and bones max. The texture comes out pretty fluffy and nice I think.
@@chrissi827 I don't put sauces in it and I try to let foods dry out a bit before putting them in. The wetter the food is the longer the cycle takes and I try to be energy efficient. I put all my scraps in a small bin and then when it gets full I transfer over to the composter and pour out any liquid that collected at the bottom.
I have the Vitamix Foodcycler and love it- I live in the Colorado Rockies at 10,500’ (ie; COLD). It allows me to pre-compost all winter and then finish it much faster during the short warm season. Once our house is built I plan to get chickens to help me out as well. I’m shocked by how much food waste we produce, so I love that this system allows me to make use of it and keep it out of the landfill. I’ll be incorporating the finished compost with bio char all over our property to help with fire mitigation measures on our 5 acres. I also have an Urban Worm Bag, but I’ve struggled to prevent fungus gnats and fruit flies from taking up residence in it and then moving into the rest of our house since we have to keep it indoors here. Once we have a garage, we’ll see if we can keep it warm enough to keep worms in. I’ll be mixing the worm compost with the pre-compost from the Foodcycler to get the microbial activity going when I go to finish it. I attempted bokashi but, when I buried the supposedly finished product in the yard (REALLY hard in the aptly-named Rocky Mountains) a bear dug it up that night, even though I covered it in large stones once buried🐻
This is interesting. The way I see it, is that you're making a slow release fertiliser and not compost. I do the same process using my oven to dry out and blender to grind. I add a teaspoon or so directly to my pots when planting. I also blend dry leaves before adding as an amendment to my homemade potting mix instead of coir and both options work pretty well. So this actually has a use case when I compare what I do.
I'm in USDA zone 10b and love mine. I till it into the soil all year. It's a lot smaller footprint than composting bins and significantly less work. I recommend running it a few times on eco and then on the third or fourth time run it on grow mode with just fruit and vegetable matter. Then bury it in your beds.
Excellent review. As of Jan 23 have 2 wormeries, 3 dalek bins and 4 bokashi bins between home and my allotment, so I'm not exactly in the target market sector either. But more composting and carbon capture is a good thing and there have been many times in my life, living in urban apartments and so on, when I'd have loved one of these.
I got a Lomi for Christmas and we run it a few times a week. I live in South Louisiana and have a compost bin. The Lomi allows me to put kitchen scraps in my compost. That’s huge for me! I love it. ❤
Where I live it's really dry and hot. Making compost is extremely labor intensive because you have turn it and water it several times a week which is so unsustainable for me (mom of almost 4 kids). This machine sounds amazing even though I do have chickens as well. Just being able to put scraps in a container (with a lid) and dumping it in a compost pile would be so helpful!
Love this! Was on the fence and looking for a thorough and honest review. I appreciate the added context from the CEO too. Not sure it’s right for me now but excited to see how it continues to improve.
I have a Lomi. While where I live isn't a cold climate area, I do however live in a 3rd floor apartment so having a compost bin isn't an option. The Lomi helps so much with breaking down our scraps.
Thank you for the review. 😊 This is exactly what I needed to see if I buy one. I have been wanting to compost for for quite some time now. The reason I haven’t is that every single form of compost I looked at requires worms, and I literally have a phobia of them . Now I just need to know how much to add to the soil.
The compost will attract the worms. I use chopped brown leaves layered with kitchen scraps because I like the minerals leaves provide. Rain water or just a little in the kitchen scraps before we take it out back for the larger compost. Ash is great too. I don't put in proteins that attract mice but they don't hurt anything. Thanks to TV People have such phobia about germs.
I grew up gardening and ended up in a small town with a yard/garden that isn't very big (in north west Canada) and I've gotten my husband into gardening and now he loves it. I've debated buying one and was thinking of getting him one for his birthday because he's taken over the gardening/yard work now due to some health issues I have. It is a lot of money for us to put out, but after this video I think I will get him one. Even if all it does is help us keep food out of the trash and isn't "compost" per se I think it could be worth it for a rural northern Canadian couple with a bunch of houseplants and a small garden 😅
My experience is the "compost" attracts bugs once they rehydrate and start decomposing. You'll need to bury it at the bottom of a very deep container, or risk having a million flies on your balcony if you plant in 1 gallon containers like my mom did.
Calling it compost or dirt is a misnomer. It's ground-up dehydrated vegetable scraps ( or whatever you put in) No composting at all. As you say, the 'finished' product then needs to rehydrate and only then will it actually decompose into compost.
I have a very small balcony garden in an apartment and cannot have a compost system. But I cook a lot and generate a lot of food scraps so this would honestly help reduce how much stuff I throw in my trash. Left outside in a bucket with some leaves, coffee grounds, and balcony plant trimmings I'd eventually get a nice little compost to sprinkle into my plants.
I looked into these a few months ago and the idea of running for 5 - 8 hrs about 5 times a week just seems a lot on the power bill, also you need to replace filters far to often and depending on the brand (lomi is one of many) they can be costly.
I am one of the northern gardeners who can't compost kitchen scraps during the winter months, but I use Bokashi Composting during those long winter months. Once a month or so I empty a bucket of fermented Bokashi into the compost bin and let it set until spring. Because all of the food scraps are fermented, varmints are not interested in it and do not become a problem. No electricity needed, just some natural microbial activity.
Not going to lie, this definitely felt more like an ad than a review. You just brought the CEO on to talk about his product and took everything he said as fact without challenging any of it.
We have one and love it. Saving a ton of garbage space as well as not filling up our septic tank. I have learned not to use the dirt straight from the lomi to plant something but works great in the yard patches, etc.
Ty so much for this! It was hard for me to wrap my head around how fast they claim it to "compost." I was just picturing it being something that just ground things up, but not fully breaking them down that quickly. I was skeptical that it actually came out looking like that (the peat/coco coir like matierial) & learning about how it has a fan to control the moisture & everything was super helpful to know! Even though I have a compost pile outdoors, I'd love to have one! I'd love to be able to mix it into my seed starting mix. I don't like using compost in my seed starting mix because I don't want to bring a bunch of bugs in the house...
I love mine so much. I got this for our gym. We had to deal with our own garbage. It is great it made such a great garden addition last year. My garden did so well. I just added it to my garden weekly.
This answered all the questions I had about Lomi. Thank you! This is something my daughter can use once she’s done with grad school. When she gets her own place, she’ll definitely have an apartment balcony garden. Thanks!
Does the CEO know most landfills are now collecting the methane and using it to run their dump trucks. What happens if we remove the methane from landfills, then the trucks need to be reworked for gas or electric? The methane is really a renewable resource at the landfills.
The problem with most electronics like this, is if you use them consistently for 2-3 years, something stops working. so you think you're going to not waste money with this type of system but you keep having to shell out money every few years.
Just don’t plant directly into the byproduct 😅 compost it or you will regret your choices. It’s a dehydrator combined with a grinder not a Composter. IMO.
Yes, very true!
Agree! MUST mix
@@epicgardening my worms love it!
@@GardeningInCanada was going to ask if it's good to feed to worms!
@@bbbuds8880 yea! They really enjoy it. Plus it helps with moisture control
I've owned a LOMI composter for about 2 years. 12 LESSONS LEARNED:
1. Using one function is all you need... no bacteria starters, no activated charcoal... just run on the shortest cycle and call it a day. Too much of a hassle to fuss with activated charcoal. Just skip it.
2. Activated charcoal REDUCES odors but it STILL smells. Do you want that in your kitchen? (The odors can get very strong).
3. Same for noise. Grinding, stirring and whirring goes on for HOURS and hours. It seems endless even on the short cycle, which I use all the time.
4. Put your LOMI in the garage or other isolated, well-ventilated area... minimal exposure to noise and odors. I keep ONLY the empty LOMI bucket in my kitchen inside a plain, covered compost tin. When it's full I schlep it to my garage where I keep the machine base unit itself. (Manufacturer: when, oh when can we purchase a SECOND LOMI bucket? I've been asking your reps and get only vague "not available" answers).
5. I accumulate the finished "dirt" in a covered, 5-gallon bucket set next to the LOMI machine (in the garage). When it's full, I use a large pet food scoop to scatter the dirt on my lawn. It simply VANISHES into the grass!! Love it... all my scraps have gone full circle!!!
6. My kitchen is small with limited counter space. The LOMI footprint is bigger than you think, plus, it needs adequate space around the machine to operate effectively.
7. Yes, certain comostable products can be put in the LOMI, but ONLY in very small amounts... AND they have to be manually broken down... hardly worth the effort considering that the LOMI bucket CAPACITY is a significant limiting factor.
8. It is AMAZING all the things that a LOMI will compost. DO NOT compost banana STEMS... they are too tough...whole skins are fine. Don't compost syrupy jams, jellies, pie fillings... the LOMI heat will turn these into concrete. Avocado pits? Yes!
9. Balance wet and dry ingredients. We put in SOME (definitely nor ALL) tissues, paper towels, etc. The LOMI is great, too, for all kinds of sloppy messes... the skill is to properly balance the mix so it "cooks" well.
10. Cardboard? Sure, if you have nothing else to do besides breaking it down first, in very small, tiny quantities... Remember that the LOMI capacity is relatively SMALL and the shortest cycle is several HOURS.
11. There are 2 persons in my household. We ourselves fill the LOMI 2-3 times per week. Larger families need at least TWO buckets.
12. I'm SO glad that I experimented and placed only a small piece of the LOMI (supposedly compostable) PLASTIC SHIPPING BAG in the LOMI mode. What a mess! To properly compost the "compostable" PLASTIC BAG and "turning it into dirt" (this is what is printed on the bag) DIRECTIONS should be CLEARLY and COMPLETELY PRINTED on the bag itself and in the instruction book. The small portion of the bag I tried to compost (LOMI approved mode) turned into a tangled mess! Imagine if someone puts in the whole bag!! It did NOT "turn into dirt"!! ...and the info video on this subject does not demonstrate that the LOMI bag turned into dirt.
I REALLY like my LOMI!! Despite the noise and odors and other caveats, I would STILL purchase it. It is an AMAZING device that, if possible, many should get - if you've read this far then you know what to expect.
Will rats eat the byproduct of this machine? I have a composter but it seems to be attracting rats in my backyard. If I put this stuff out will rats just eat this?
I have a knock off that i got for free to review and it's just as objectively useless as the Lomi. But it' doesn't smell. i keep my food waste in a separate bucket, and loaded it like once a week and even after a month of doing that no smell.
I appreciate your thoroughness 🎉
Thank you for the info. I now see these cannot be kept on the typical kitchen counter. Must have its own place away from the living area. Garage does sound ideal.
That has to be the longest "u had me in the first half" ever😂
Really appreciated this candid interview. I’ve heard a lot of criticism about the lomi but at the end of the day, it’s really not for people who have access to outdoor composters (have a worm bin, chickens, etc). My family has all three and the lomi just doesn’t makes sense for us. BUT. I purchased one for my grandparents because they live in a complex that doesn’t compost. Everything goes in the trash. And while my grandma does have a small garden, she is in no position to manage a compost pile. That’s where the lomi is the perfect tool. It’s simple enough for them to use and the “pre-compost” can easily be mixed into soil. My grandma can confidently do that! At the end of the day I hope people can see this as a tool for folks who truly don’t have access to an outdoor space and want to do their best to minimize their impact. I truly believe the lomi (despite using electricity) is a FAR better option than throwing food scraps in the trash.
But its not just the electricity, think of the plastic, metal and rare earth used to create this. And probably the hundred of liters of water used in manufacturing it. All it does is dehydrate and blend food scraps. Then the powder gets wet again when you put it in your garden. Its useless.
And when it breaks after a year or two, you buy a new one, making it worst.
Yes this seems so useful for people who live in apartments with small rooftop or terrace "gardens" and even for those without, turning your food into this is better than just adding to the dump.
Yes, I live in a mobile home park that doesnt allow composting so this is perfect.
Even feel better sending this to the dump than the raw plastic or adding to the apt buildings smelly trash. Or walk and drop the pre compost in the local park beds where there are worms etc.
I live on the 4th floor of a building so yeah this is the best I can do other than paying a composting service to get my scraps. Looking at houses now as long as I can find a place with no HOA in getting a tumbling compost
I'm one of those cold climate gardeners that has a Lomi. We absolutely love it! We use it year round and use the Lomi "dirt" as food for our worm bin. I've had way less flies and pests in the worm bin since switching over.
Amazing to hear!
That's a great idea!
I live in SoCal but dont want to attract rats n squirrels 2 my compost bin so it only has yard waste n never seems 2 break down. Instead we put 1/2 gal collected food waste under sink n then pulverize it all in blender 4 worm food in raised beds into a corner. Lomi would reduce fruit flies coming in kitchen in summer.
Me too ❤ and I love it. Accept it draws worms into my garden because I don't have worm bins.
And a higher electric bill. Hey why worry about contributing so much to global warming when you use an overpriced food dehydrator for your garbage.
It's important to know that Lomi doesn't really stand behind their product. I owned mine for just under a year, had issues with it, and their suggestion was simply to spend another $500 on a new one. This despite reaching out to them well within the stated warranty timeline. I would NOT give them my business again.
Absolutely true. Here is what the company told me after my fan broke for the second time in less then one year. I asked them if it is normal for this to happen and this is what they said:
"The replacement of a part or a unit really depends on the customer's usage of the unit. Others take more than a year for the replacement, while others less than year. That's why we suggest customers to look into the option for a Lifetime Warranty Membership so that replacements will be free of charge, whether it be a part or the unit itself.
BTW the extended warranty is 240 usd per year WTF?
Stay away from this company at all costs! The product is very expensive and not engineered in a manner that makes it reliable. There are thousands of customers with the same fan issues as me....just search and review before buying.
@@jasonbeiko2995good to know. Thanks
We are very happy with our Lomi! We have a 5-acre farm, plenty of room for compost bins, tumblers, worm bins, etc., but also for accompanying wildlife, flies, and rats. We use different composting options for various needs, such as landscape debris, vegetable garden clippings, livestock waste, etc. We aim to avoid attracting animals and flies to our processing bins, and our winters are long and cold enough to slow down the aerobic break-down, so the Lomi provides us the best answer. We got a Lomi for our house food scraps for a number of reasons... We do not have chickens currently. We are retired and love to cook, so scraps from 3 meals a day for 2 to 4 people go into the Lomi, including meat scraps, which you can't easily compost any other way. We run 1-2 short cycles (2-4 hrs each) and 1 long Grow cycle (12-16 hrs with added probiotics) over night every week. We don't remove the "dirt" between short batches, we just add scraps on top, and dump our final Grow cycle bucket load into a bin, to add to our soil mixes. It is clean and easy. No smell, no bugs, no scavengers, and the worms love it. Our power bill isn't noticeably different, maybe an extra $5-8 every 2 months.
Plus, we don't want to pay waste management for yet another bin, just so they can drive it in big trucks to their giant plant where they expend lots of electricity to turn it into "compost", which isn't usable for organic food gardens in the end. (So funny people think sending it away somehow magically makes it disappear.) I'd rather make pre-compost with my Lomi out of my own organic food scraps, including meat, so I can put it back into my organic vegetable garden, knowing it's free of glyphosate and other GMO crap. Truly organic soil/compost is hard to find and very expensive. (Soil companies are allowed to call any non-synthethic soil "organic", but that doesn't mean it's certifiably Organic and chem-free. Think about how your neighbors eat! Is that what you want in your garden? ) Our priority is our food and what we grow it in. The Lomi has reduced stress, eased the workload, and quickly turns our food waste back into food.
Appreciate the breakdown. Love that you have a multifaceted approach
The hot compost bins are super well secured so I haven't had pest problems since upgrading my bin. Of course I enjoy that it works faster too.
To piggyback on this post, I also live in a very rural area and the Lomi has been a lifesaver financially. We were quoted at over 6k to remove a family of skunks from the property. Instead, we invested in a Lomi and since we took away their food source (our compost bin), they've moved on to find food elsewhere. Lomi is as necessary to our household as the clothes dryer. Yes, we can live without it, but Holy smokes, is it nicer to have it.
@@medusalithpax3572 Yes! Years ago we paid thousands for rat/squirrel/raccoon exclusion around our place. Removing the easy food sources is way cheaper and actually more effective. Lomi for the win!
I appreciate how honest and candid their CEO is. I prefer my outside bin for my garden debris and garage worm bin for kitchen scraps, so it's nice that he was honest that this isn't for people like us necessarily. I know a lot of people who would probably use this because my worms are gross to them or a big compost bin full of debris isn't their aesthetic lol. But I think my way is better haha.
Yeah, it was a rare moment to get the chance to speak to the CEO of a company, so was refreshing how candid he was!
Thought the same thing. He wasn't there to hard sell this product. Found him rather candid about its limitations, pricing related to development costs and who would be a good buyer for it. Refreshing. Great video!
The CEO is obviously a salesman, why would you listen to his sales pitch? Go look at user reviews and you’ll know exactly what the product is like.
Or maybe if you need more “ browns” to throw into your compost? We have two bins and always too many food scraps
@@TroyParry74 Did you watch the video? What was his sales pitch?
I live in the Near North of Ontario, Canada. I have two compost bins and they both end up full well before spring so I can understand the appeal of the Lomi over the winter. The price has been the reason I haven't gotten one. If they are able to aggressively drop the price in two years, I'll definitely be getting one.
I think I had 12 coffee cans coming into last spring in Michigan, couldn't wait to bury those
Mine was a gift or I wouldn't have one either, but they eventually pay for themselves because of the money saved not buying compost and by reducing food waste. There's no food waste here because of lomi. I put lomi away in Spring. Maine resident here.
I agree. Sask here and we just don't get long enough summers to break down good large compost. However, if these prices drop substantially. I would Get one then
@kdavis4910 It would be many, many years before I spent as much on compost as a Lomi. When you factor in the effort and electricity to get the equivalent of even one bag of compost... I just don't see the value financially right now.
Get a regular countertop composter. $40. Same thing
I have a countertop composter that I use for kitchen scraps, etc. I collect them in a 5-gal bucket until I eventually walk them down to my greenhouse where I feed it to my worms. Worms love the already-ground-up food & I love it not collecting fruit flies during the time it collects in the kitchen. Only warning: product needs to be well-mixed into the worm bin & not just dumped on top or else it will clump into rock-hard bricks.
Such a good use case!
Thank you for this comment! Great info for us beginners
@@TDAEON The goal is that we all don't make the SAME mistakes, right? 🤣
Oh dang, I'm super glad I ran into this comment. Mine clumped up into rock hard bricks when I didn't mix it in, and I didn't think to mix it all up, when I put it in my worm bin. Appreciate the heads up, gonna get this well mixed in next time round.
You know you don't need an overpriced food dehydrator to compost on your countertop. Just an old coffee tin. It's sad that we think we need "high tech" gimics. Just adds to more global emissions.
I was on the fence about buying a Lomi because I didn't know if it would be good for my situation but the amount of respect I have for this man after this interview... I'm going to buy one with my next paycheck for freaking sure. I'm a florist and we're about to use my boss's beautiful yard to grow a large portion of our inventory this year. It would be so great to lomi things in my apartment and bring them to their house. Awesome interview, thank you!!
I think if you start spending too much money on your garden, it may not be worth doing for some people, that's why I try to keep things as cheap as possible, like making my own compost and fertilizers. 😃😃
I can certainly respect that
Gardening for me isn't just about the produce I grow, it also is relaxing, rewarding and helps my PTSD.
@@davidbrooks9576 Here here! It has helped with my PTSD and depression. I still have both, but it's a great, meditative outlet.
It eventually pays for itself, especially if the fertilizer shortages hit backyard gardens and it allows those in cold climates to continue building compost. There's the electric bill still, but I generally don't use lomi in summer, opting instead for chicken manure and compost bins.
@@kdavis4910 how could it possibly pay for itself compared to walking the compost outside and dumping it onto a pile? How many years have you had yours? Does it have a multi year warranty?
Another way to use the dried product that you didn't mention in the video is to feed the product into a worm bin. I'm from a cold climate, and we trialed a table top composter at my workspace since we are also not allowed to have a composter outside the building at my workplace. Originally we tried putting the dried product onto the soil surface of our indoor plants, but it became a mush fungi product crust on the top of the soil. We then tried scratching that into the plant soil, but that became too overwhelming for the indoor plant dirt overtime (indoor plant soil isn't an active soil like outdoor soil is). We then fed the product to the worm bin with some moisture, and quickly had a bonanza horde of our compost worms devouring it. Worm castings are much easier to add to indoor plant soil, so this is the method we are sticking to.
Do you put other carbon material like cardboard into worm bedding? Or you just put this pre-compost things purely into worm box?
I was just thinking about this!! Thank you !
Brianna's use of the precomposted material is really intriguing. Use of peat or coir is between a rock and a hard place. So Brianna's use is really interesting. Could you have her do an episode just on her use of Lomi and how she uses the precompost in the soil block.
Also really says something about the Matt the CEO. Gives more respect with his honest answer.
Working on that one, we are experimenting with another material as another alternative too, I’ll get that one out as soon as we get it through some testing! 😊
Definitely will have her do one!
@@epicgardening I look forward to this.
@@Blossomandbranch that would be really useful. Thanks
This video perfectly highlights why I absolutely adore your channel. The honesty, the thought that went into the examples you used and the use cases you presented at the end.. It’s even more amazing that you had the CEO there to ask the questions that we all wondered about, AND that HE was so honest and open and willing to share his insights.
Great video (as ALWAYS!) but something about this one in particular really made me want to write a comment telling you and your entire team how thankful I am for the effort and thought you put into your channel, your shop, and your content.
❤
Very much appreciate you, Stephanie!
You are propping up a shill. He wasn’t paid, decided to buy a heavy $600 electric appliance, and started walking around with it just for shits and giggles?
The CEO of Lomi dropped everything he was doing and decided to pop in all casual like just because some random influencer wanted to interview him? Yep. I was totally born yesterday.
The shill even has the Lomi on a pedestal during the interview. Seriously, how stupid do you think the audience is?
GTFO with your guerrilla marketing campaign.
Totally agree! This is one of my very favorites!
I love the idea of pest free composting. While I'm on a half acre, and have active compost bins, my bin does draw pests. I imagine this would be very helpful in this matter.
I invested in LOMI when it was a Kickstarter and have never been more grateful for something. This has changed our world. We live in a very wet climate that breeds insect infestation with any kind of indoor compost. This device has given us the ability to not just throw away our scraps. This preps everything and then we can throw it into a spinner in the yard. Love it.
And did you make any money from ure investment
U got scammed
It’s a scam…
I have a Lomi and LOVE it. Run a batch every couple of days and mix it in with my enriched soil pile. I can't physically do full-blown compost outside anymore and squirrels ate big holes in my tumbler. So it really suits my needs for small-scale gardening and composting general kitchen scrap.
If you don't mind me asking, how did you set up that enriched soil pile? Plastic bucket? Metal raised bed? Was it easy to set that up, especially for someone with no experience doing this stuff?
@Nick Schrombeck I just cleared out a 4x3 space in a corner of the yard, put down some square concrete slabs and made a pile out of some regular dirt, a few bags of potting soil, organic enriched soil. Mixed in some Blood & Bone meal and dug up some earthworms and stuck 'em in. I dump pot & raised bed dirt in there each season, the Lomi stuff. I'm not sure if I'm doing it by the book lol, but my veg garden & potted plants love it.
@@three2267 Ahh, I gotcha. I'll be doing the apartment lifestyle soon, so I looking to see what people are doing with the output since it's clearly not a true compost.
Thanks for the process map!
@Nick Schrombeck If you're doing apartment pots or have plants, you can certainly use the lomi. I like it because there's no smelly scraps hanging around. Even if you toss it in the trash or throw it in a common flower bed, it beats stinky rotting scrap. It's really light weight and has no smell, so you could save it in a bag and give it away. I put coffee grounds, tea bags, cooking scraps, and paper in mine. Everything except bones & pits.
@@three2267 Throwing it in the common flower bed or giving it away to others such as via ShareWaste are great ideas. I'll be living in a city, and there are plenty of beds around that I could drop this stuff into discretely haha
Come to think of it, Pela says to place the pre-compost in with soil in a 1:10 mixture.
Do you think it would work if I just add this stuff on top of the existing soil for my potted plants?
This way, you don't really need to keep buying new soil except maybe every year or so. Definitely a worthy experiment to run.
Another option for apartment-bound or other small property folks is to daily blend your food scraps in a blender with a sufficient amount of water to create a pre-compost slurry that can be watered into existing planting containers or raised beds. Of course you have to have a sufficient planted area to deposit the slurry in, and depending on what you are blending there may be critters who come a callin'. In my case I live on a relatively small 60' x 150' foot lot in a casual suburban area so there are plenty of spots on the property for me to water in a food scrap smoothie. However I generally do deposit the food scraps in a couple of different composting containers, adding in browns from time to time, which do take a while to produce finished compost. But I have utilized the compost smoothie method on many occasions.
My chickens would hate me if I got something like this. Love that the CEO can speak so candidly about the pros and cons of their product.
Just the sort of thing id use it for
I have a different brand of composter that is similar to a lomi and I love it. As someone who does not have a place for "traditional" composting, this is a great option for me. I even got one for my parents. We just take what our scraps are broken down into and add it to the soil. It is AMAZING how much my trash output has been reduced (which is the main reason I got it). Would definitely recommend it for folks like me who have a small garden and/ or no real place to compost the old fashioned way.
Which one do you have?
yes please, which one?
What composter do you use?
Thanks for making this video! And amazing to have the chance to chat with the CEO!
I wish they didn’t call the output compost in their marketing and I’m glad he mentioned it’s more of a pre-compost. And great discussion about use cases, nice to hear it’s not the right tool for everyone but I agree, it has its place for some.
Thanks so much! Great video 👍
It's great to see fellow gardening channels here! I subbed!
I would agree, it's not quite the most accurate framing to call it compost...I chalk it up to the fact that the average consumer (read: non-gardener) doesn't KNOW what compost is, and perhaps that framing is easier for them to visualize? Pre-compost is for sure more technically accurate
Thanks!
Thanks Eric I found this very interesting. Never had considered purchasing the Lomi,I already compost using bins and don’t have room for any gadgets. I loved your demonstrations and honest talk with the CEO.
@Epic Gardening I think you're right. Lomi is a gift for those living in cold climates. It's cold for 8 to 9 months per year in New England and lomi allows me to keep making compost when my compost piles went inactive long since. September was the last month my piles were active and they won't reactivate until about May. Maybe later, all depending on when spring decides to start.
I've been using a Lomi for about 3 years. I have one of the turning compost bins in my backyard but I wouldn't put food scraps in there because of the smell and the rodent problems. I love that I can use all my food scraps, usually throw in 1/3 dry leaves, use the long cycle and then I have "dirt" to add to my turning bin. I love the term "precompost". I also discovered that you don't want to put this "dirt" directly on your beds -- it definitely need to be mixed in with soil or it will harden and create a water barrier.
I live full time in an RV and travel the country (USA). Lomi has been a great option to reduce greenhouse gas waste and to ‘compost’ in a small area. We obviously don’t have our own yard so this is a really great option. I love Matt’s ideas and where this is headed. This may not be THE answer, but it’s a big step in the right direction. Thanks for the review!
Love the RV perspective and I hope the company is exploring this application.
I love my Lomi! I have outdoor composting in my garden, however, to avoid rodent issues, all my kitchen scraps go through the Lomi. Then once I fill up a separate container of the Lomi pre-compost I dump it in my outdoor compost or directly into my garden beds. I live in zone 8b and I love how I use it. The best part is I can put not only kitchen scraps, but dinner scraps. You can’t do that in a regular compost bin. Love it!
Another option to consider is keeping your scraps inside until they get rotten and the critters don't like em anymore.
Definitely appreciate the candidness of the whole conversation. To ever hear a CEO of a product say, “no you’d not need this product”, that speaks volumes to me.
Thanks so much for this! Very cool that the CEO was on, was REAL, was honest about pro's & con's, and was a genuinely nice guy. Community gardens, balcony gardens for apartment dwellers... great uses for Lomi. Thanks to Matt & his team for creating this very useful, Earth-friendly machine. ♥️
Who says he was being honest? Also, it takes a lot of energy to dry out the food scraps, only to rehydrate them to a ground up version of their pre-lomi state as soon as they hit the garden. I see no reason to believe this is earth friendly at all.
Something I would've liked to see addressed was if Lomi has any advantages in areas that divert food waste from landfills through municipal composting. In the video he made it sound a bit like the only options are composting at home or landfill and that just isn't true for many areas.
I guess one advantage is that it feels cleaner. I have some friends who hate municipal composting because the bins get stinky before weekly pick up, or the bio-bag bursts while they're taking it out
@@Rumade Before I started composting, when I lived in an area with municipal composting, my solution to that was to freeze everything until the morning of pickup.
@Phina Gage that's what I used to do in Japan so I wouldn't have stinky rubbish in my house. But not always feasible obviously depending on freezer size and number of housemates etc.
Then again, there's not always space in the kitchen for another appliance either!
Yeah, in NYC, there is municipal composting. It can be done through compost bins at your apartment building that get emptied on recycling day, drop off sites at libraries and community gardens, or even special key-card access compacting bins on street corners in certain neighborhoods.
A lot of people live where landlords, condo associations, or homeowners' associations won't let them have visible compost bins. If they don't have access to municipal composting, or if they can't get there often enough to deal with odors and bugs, this seems great.
I happened to be one the first people that get to try it and I love it. I bought it in their pre sale. Have chickens but I own a restaurant, is a lot of kitchen scraps for the chickens only. So, to me this is a life savior to my plants. I have citruses that didn't produce anything until I put Lomi's dirt on them. So, I'm glad I have it and is part of my grain of sand to help the environment.
A friend of mine wants this and was convinced it came out as finished compost that could be planted in, I'm glad the CEO himself debunked that rumor.
It's a great product for apartment gardens but I'm not sure who else can benefit. I compost in bins and although it's slow in the winter time during freezing temps, I usually still have two of the three bins ready to be emptied and used that season. It seems like a fairly limited product as of now but maybe it'll have more use in the future.
I think it would be interesting to see if this could be used in a mushroom farm as a nutrient rich growing medium for mushroom grow bags
Amazing idea!
Might fuck around and try that when I have money honestly
I would also love to know if this would work!
Please update if you do this !
I appreciate that this video acknowledges there is no one size fits all solution and there are as many ways to compost and use a Lomi as there are people who compost and use Lomis.
I have a very large family, a very small number of chickens, even less time and space to compost, and I LOVE my Lomis (yes, plural, because my family is that big).
I run all of the kitchen scraps through the Lomis.
Then I give the precompost to the chickens along with their feed and all of the yard clippings.
Finally, I clean the chickens coop and yard into a compost tumbler every couple of weeks before eventually putting everything into my big bin with the worms that I turn by hand.
The Lomis do a great job of breaking down the food scraps, the chickens love the precompost and do a great job of breaking down the yard clippings and then the more traditional composting methods give me a nice finished product 😊
I rent but have what I call a dead yard. I simply use a blender to reduce it, then bury it well below the surface. I used trench composting when I owned my home. But breaking it down speeds up the composting.
Blender technique is a good one!
I'm in an association-governed home, so my composting options are limited. I'd seen the Lomi ads and was interested, so this frank assessment was sincerely appreciated. More food for thought. Thanks for making this video and to the CEO for a great explanation of his reasons for creating the Lomi and his goals for it.
Ways that I can see this machine could be useful for me:
-pre processing food scrap for my worm bin, sometimes big and wet piece of food scrap creates anaerobic pockets in my bin
- clean way of storing food scrap, when I'm building a hot compost pile I like to collect my materials before mixing, and for storing my food scrap I use bokashi bucket, the problems with the bokashi buckets is they can take up some space and once the bokashi is exposed to air it can get quite smelly (although bokashi does a really good job at starting a hot compost pile)
I appreciate this video. I recommend having someone from Vitamix on your show as well. I've been using a Vitamix Foodcycler for almost a year and it has worked very well. We have the option for renewable electricity through our provider, and we're avid gardeners, who follow your show.
I also have the Vitamix, it is a smaller unit with a single setting and i think it was about HALF the cost of the Loomi - I use every day and love it- it just sprinlke the material over my garden beds and it has been a great fertilizer
I love mine too! And just use the product as a soil amendment directly in the garden.
@@debs7252 It's the first countertop composter that breaks down bio plastics. He mentioned in the video the price is expected to drop in ~ 2 years. (:
I wish it was half the price in Canada, usually it’s at least 75% the price
I would love to see the Lomi be repairable, because as I understand it, it currently is not. That would go a long way towards making it even more environmentally friendly, and would make the price easier to stomach, in my opinion.
Couldn't agree more!
Is there a warranty option to send the machine back to the manufacturer for repair or replacement within a certain time period? Because if they don’t already have that, that definitely should.
It has a warranty and is repairable! We have 5 acres and really ran it hard to make sure it would work for us. We needed to replace the fan and their customer service was great. We also threw in too much dough that sheared the bolt in the bottom of the bucket and they replaced that too.
@@darthvanderh that’s great! I was under the impression that they would only replace the machine, not repair it, so I’m glad to hear that!
Yeah having parts available online would be super useful
I imagine the CEO and the Lomi team have already thought about this, and so they might be waiting until the technology matures more before releasing the parts to the masses. Might be a trade secrets thing
I compost and have chickens and I also have 4 kids. I bought a Lomi ~ 9 months ago.
I don’t think my use case is unique. Some materials will attract vermin (possums, rats, raccoons) to your compost bin and/or be too old for chickens to eat. Moldy cheese, animal proteins that have “gone off” (I have a house with 1 vegetarian, 2 pescatarians, and 3 omnivores), and restaurant leftovers of questionable age are all perfect for the Lomi.
Being real: my life is busy. Yes, my preference is allocating food waste to the chickens or the compost tumbler (if not avoiding it all-together). I even dry out and crush bones from any animal product and mix those into my compost. However, sometimes I find questionable stuff in my fridge. I would rather make “pre-compost” out to it than send it to a landfill.
I can appreciate this approach! Very honest
Yes! These are the kind of review videos we need! Thank you for taking the time to sit down with the CEO and get us a candid discussion about the Lomi. I am not in the target group, and I appreciate having that knowledge up front so I can focus on strengthening other aspects of my gardening while keeping a product like this in mind for the future, thinking gift-wise. Things like this increase our trust in your team, knowing you put it all put on the line. ❤❤
Thanks for doing a video on the Lomi! My friend has one at her house where we've been staying and it's great for breaking down scraps and leftovers so you're not throwing everything away. You definitely can't put it directly into the garden or on your plants if you use pots. I did that with my roses and it molded as soon as it got wet. It should definitely be added to your compost pile or start one using the material you get out of the Lomi.
Overall, it's been interesting to use! If you aren't able to compost in an apartment or something, it is a good alternative.
I've literally been throwing things on my dehydrator over night and zip it through the food processor in the morning.... boom same thing
I’ve have a Lomi and been using it everyday. Been building up my Lomi compost pile and adding it all to my 9 raised bed and 7 greenstalk. We’ll see how my spring garden turns out this year 😅. The beauty of exploring with Mother Nature in the garden 🪴 😊
Lomi + Greenstalk = small space garden pack
This is the best video to describe what I've experienced with my Lomi. I couldn't find anything like this out there when I was like "okay this isn't compost, I'm going to have to find a way to continue this compost process in my apartment." Such helpful tips for that here!
-What do we do with all these bread makers that no one uses cause they make bad bread…?
-Let’s tell people it’s a revolutionary composting system and spent millions on marketing and a fancy plastic enclosure!
In all seriousness if you get one to break down your food scraps that’s great as long as your powering it off renewables. Not powered off clean power though it’s a gimmicky waste of energy.
Next video for this: compare the use cases for the LOMI vs vermicompost vs bokashi compost, all of which can be done in a small apartment.
Kevin did mention that one of his co-workers used an innoculant with the Lomi and got good results, so some advanced strategies with this device, combining what we know from the other methods, would be super useful
@@SeeNickView lomi comes with innoculant pellets. One pellet per cycle. It also comes with charcoal pellets for air filtration. Don't lomi spoiled food because you'll smell it regardless of filtration.
I tried the vermaculture in the basement about 30 years ago. Had to quit cuz of the black flies and attraction to mice (which caused us to hang the box from the ceiling😂). My current compost bin is frozen and filling up fast with wet scraps. This video was very helpful to understand what lomi offers. And I think I’d be a good candidate for using one. It’s just a little pricey. Might wait for the 2.0 version.
Bokashi is misleading though! Everyone says it's great for apartments but you have to do the soil factory stage or bury it somewhere. So if you have a very small apartment balcony, or no balcony; what are you supposed to do with the stuff that comes out of the bokashi system?
Whereas the precompost from this stuff looks like it could easily be bagged and given away, or used cleanly in houseplants.
@@Rumade soil factory can be in small bins and you can cut your batches to whatever size and if you have friends that garden or community gardens near you can share it. it's like a double good, you're not filling a landfill and you're making friends and others happy. bokashi isn't really pretty but you're not doing it for pretty. bokashi you can also run without electricity, no parts will break over time (maybe a spout but you can repair that yourself), and results results results.
I am a senior citizen that lives in a community with an H.O. A. My back and I love my Lomi. I live in the desert. Anything I can do for the soil will be beneficial.
Sounds like the Lomi was made for me! NYC apartment with no outdoor space and a growing plant collection.
I think my favorite aspect of the Lomi though is it looks like it provides the right conditions for the decomposition of biodegradable packaging. As it stands I don’t live in an area serviced by a compost facility, and biodegradable plastics still end up in landfills- or worse, they ruin plastic recycling. I love the idea of being able to choose compostable products and actually divert them from trash.
I live in nyc too and curbside composting is coming to all five boroughs by 2024 (hooray!) I have the same problem with biodegradable plastics too. Only a few container in downtown Manhattan actually accept these and they are quite a trip for me. Did you end up getting one? I am quite curious about how well they work for plants in apartments
@@jasminewang5514 I’m glad to hear it!! Unfortunately I haven’t yet, I’m staying with family this year and don’t have much dedicated space for it. But it something I’m considering for the future :)
I really really cannot express how much I appreciated the straightforward nature of the interview. I’m so impressed and have a lot of respect for both of you. Thank you so much for reviewing this product.
Lomi is the opposite of eco friendly. You use resources to build the device, to run the device, and to replace the filters, which they want to charge you for on a subscription basis. These resource, of course, cost money. If you heat up your room with the Lomi and you're using air conditioning, you need to run that more to eliminate the humidity and heat that you're adding.
In some ways, you're delaying the composting process by using Lomi output product.
A good test would be to compare the Lomi output against conventional composting technique and against conventional composting when using a leaf shredder or other means to break it up.
I have a Lomi and I love it. Even if you aren't a gardener, it keeps your garbage from smelling bad. I've tried to encourage my building to have a compost program but they've refused, so this has been a good option for me.
I live in a 59m2 balcony apartment with the wife and we manage to bokashi everything to compost in 6 months. in a world were we need to cut down on energy use this does more damage than good.
That's amazing!
I have the Vitamix composter and I love it. At time of purchase Lomi had no warranty and I wasn't comfortable with that. Thank-you for this video. I live in the Rocky Mountains and summer is short so we use our Vitamix fall, winter, and spring. But I wasn't sure how to use the end product as it didn't seem like compost to me. Now I know I'll just add it to my compost pile!
We have a similar product and I dump it into a small trash bin and then dump that into our outside compost bins and into the garden this winter.
It degrades the material and makes it into smaller particles, making it more bioavailable. Less small animals getting into the food scraps…I like using it
I have the vitamin counter top composter. As a home owner in a residential neighborhood, I do not compost any animal product. But I really love it and I felt that it really helps keep my vegetable garden with nutrients. I am very happy with mine
I live in Norway. I have no chance of getting a hot compost going. I'm starting Bokashi this month. I would adore having a Lomi for my gardening. Any conservation of nourishment for the soil is a good thing.
I'm in Ohio, zone 5, so it gets below freezing during the winter.
I used the lomi from November through March. Once it got warmer I mixed all the lomi "pre-compost" in with my existing compost from last year.
Now that it's warmer I put the lomi away for the season and just started a new compost outside that I'll use next year.
I've been on the fence about buying one, but considering I live in canada I just might get one so I can compost over the winter. Thank you for posting this
That makes sense. Even once I get my compost set up going, winter discourages me from bringing the scraps outside.
I live in WI. I love it, especially during the winter.
In Maine is works beautifully. We use it late fall through early spring and I have no complaints.
We are in Chicago. We used to store Bokashi in a bucket. This is so much better! It’s dry, takes up much less space, and is so much easier to work with and incorporate into the soil when spring comes. We save about one garbage can full each winter outside next to the other garbage cans. As opposed to Bokashi 5 gallon buckets stacked up in the garage.
Cold climate gardener here, have had mine for 6 months and it’s been great to have the past few months as we’ve touched -20c. I find I’ve liked the fact that it eliminates space. 30 loads barely takes up any space in a 5 gallon pail, where normally that’s buckets of scraps to sit freezing outside tempting rats. We’ll see how it mixes in the spring but so far I’ve liked mine.
I’m a cold weather gardener as well and am thinking about a lomi. Do you store the lomi pre compost in a bucket and just keep saving it until spring comes and then spread it on your garden? Do you add a lid to your storage container?
Kevin, great video and you asked some excellent questions as well. I applaud the CEO for his candid responses in regards to who would benefit from one of his products. Also for what truly comes out of the machine in lieu of compost. 😊
So so glad you addressed the Lomi. I was on the waitlist for one of these last year, lost the $50 deposit after I found out that I was going to benefit more from a tumbler composter. Thank you muches!!
Certainly remember a whole lot of snobbery when this came out in gardener groups. Having recently gone through our county's master recycler/composter volunteer program, can definitely see the use for this thing. The more broken down the material, the more surface area and faster composting. Love that the CEO is honest about where they see this fitting too, not trying to replace composting systems but give another option. I don't have a large place and my biggest issue is garden scraps, I have one pile but then just have the never ending compost pile. Between this or Bokashi I would probably do this. Though I do want to try it first. And I have no desire for worms, know what it takes to take care of them and just for me.
Breaking material into smaller pieces is a well-proven method for speeding the composting process. But the Lomi not only does this, it also dehydrates the material. It's an energy-intensive and completely unnecessary step. In order for the composting process to actually start, you have to rehydrate the material and allow it to decompose. It's an expensive bread-maker with fewer functions than an actual bread-maker.
Here’s a challenge for you.
Go out and buy the cheapest bread maker possible. Then dump your scraps into the machine and run it.
All Loomi is is a bread maker you don’t put bread ingredients into.
It’s a heater with a spinning agitator.
There is no reason for it to be as expensive as it is.
I agree with the CEO that food waste should not go into the landfill if possible, but even when I lived in an apartment, I found cheaper and more effective ways to compost my food scraps.
I used worm bins, then dumped the worm castings around the plants around the apartment complex.
I also petitioned our apartment complex to get community composting bins, which they ended up doing right after I moved out.
I’ve had a Vitamix Food Composter for over a year now. It doesn’t take plastics, but I can put small bones, like chicken in & it composts them down nicely. Everything goes into one of the raised beds that is being setup (limbs, branches etc added) to help fill in without having to use soil. The next season we fill the raised bed with soil & go from there. I love my Food Composter it is a bit more compact in size than the Lomi.
A study on those compostable products found without turning (oxygen) many were exactly the same as when put in, it depends on conditions a lot. The one upside, is that it’s made of non-oil bases which reduce extraction
And municipal sorters can’t determine what is or isn’t a compostable one. It’s okay ur composter doesn’t take plastics (corn or soy even) cause even though it’s Bio-based not oil, still nobody really wants ‘plastic bits’ in their garden.
So good for production emissions reductions mostly. (Plant crops versus gas extraction) do want to say it’s still better to have corn forks instead of wood because trees are great carbon stores and while well carved wooden utensils can last for decades, the cheap ones are barely finished products and meant for throwing out. I come from a place where they log a lot for paper and such, and replacing gas for wood is still harming our atmosphere
Wooden utensils have a future but more in artisan pieces. And a glaze that keeps the wood’s integrity intact and keeps it from going bad (although you could technically sand it down a little) wonder what glazes are good, foodsafe and durable (while balancing good to cook with, with lasts very long)
Got it! It was sitting on my counter when I got home last night. Yay! We live in a strict hoa so this is perfect for us. We have lots of wildlife in our neighborhood and it take two seconds to attract critters so a compost pile is not the best for us. With our new juicing life this is perfect.
Would love to see a video from Briana on her seed starting mix! If I knew I could replace buying bags from the store with a mix of Lomi output and some vermicompost, I'd definitely give it a go to try and switch.
Don’t mix Lomi with any seed mix since it’s not really composted it isn’t broke d down and also provides no microbial Benefits just use worm castings + anything else
@@GarrettXHolder I don't want to mix it with a different seed mix. I want to use it INSTEAD of seed starting mix. I basically want to replace miracle grow indoor seed starting mix with Lomi + worm castings.
I can't see how it would differ than peet since peet isn't compost either. So I'm really just trying to get a loose fluffy medium since the worm castings would handle the microbial benefits and fertilizer. Do you think that would work?
@@Ebonyraeful the stuff that comes out of a Lomi is essentially dried up food scraps. Not anything like peat witch is very broken down. If you already have a Lomi great use it for a few years till it breaks, but if you don’t have one I suggest watching the Lomi busted video before you buy.
@@GarrettXHolder fair enough! Thank you!!
@@GarrettXHolder did you watch the video? If you did, you’d see that’s not what i used. I experimented with using broken down leaves from the lomi as an alternative to peat and it works great. The harvest and use of peat in the garden is incredibly unsustainable and I’m always on the search for a better alternative. And no, coconut coir isn’t that much better. ;)
I lvoe the honest and straight forward answers from the Lomi CEO. Refreshing to hear.
I really love mine. It's on the counter and isn't too noisy and definitely doesn't smell. I'll mix it back into the soil around my home, or pop it into my compost bin (which I'm really bad about turning....). Also, I have a clippings bin, and they're encouraging people to put in meat/bones/etc. While the Lomi can handle some meat/fat products, the larger stuff goes into my clippings bin and I'm happy knowing it's not going into the land fill. Oh I've had mine about 7 months and it took me 2 to find the courage to set it up. It was scarier than my Instant Pot for some reason.
I was scared of my insta pot for 3 months 😊
I bought one because I am older and handicapped. I used to have a compost heap and a worm bin but as I get older, it is harder to deal with those things. I use the Lomi to break down the large veggie material into a smaller size and then I bury that in a section of my garden that is not closely planted. In with the dirt and water, the outside worms find it and break it down. Then the next season I plant over that area and leave another space free for the Lomi stuff.
Hey Kevin, thanks for reviewing the Lomi. It was great to see it in action. Also, "High 5" to the CEO for being honest.
1st time ive heard of this device. I will wait 4 an upgrade BUT!!..... your interview & innformation was absolutely fantastic - looked like u & CEO were honest in the discussion. That alone serves to peak my interest.
We got one this christmas and so far pretty happy with it. There's a little bit of a learning curve figuring out what it likes and doesn't like. What's nice about it is less waste going down the drain (we have a septic tank) and i dont like tossing food waste in the trash cause it starts stinking before the bag is full. We've had a couple situations where there was stuff in there that got it jammed up even though it's approved by lomi. So I've started chopping things into small pieces to help it out. Only other issue is its made a weird noise from the fan a couple times but after letting it sit and restarting it it was fine. So time will tell on that i suppose. During the summer it probably wont get used as much because i can toss most things out into the garden but its nice for winter time.
Glad to hear this! Seems like a lot of people w/ long cold winters like to use it
@@epicgardening i used to just toss scraps into the garden even in the winter. Even though it wouldn't compost it would eventually break down and didn't really have any animal issues despite being surrounded by farm field and wooded areas. But this saves me from making a cold walk out to the garden all the time. I will say, when we did a decent amount of tomato the end product smelled like a weird bad pasta sauce lol. Not a problem just an interesting observation. Its limited capacity for compostable plastics and cardboard makes it a little unrealistic for that use in my opinion. Like the bag it ships in. Its a compostable bag but based on lomis quantity advise it would take quite a few runs to break down just that bag. Not a deal breaker for us though.
@@95dodgev10 I guess if you just dont want to compost in the winter, this product is for you. Seems like a huge waste of money. Id bet this company wont last long.
@@chuckybang we like it. It is pricey but it works and it has a lot more going o nthan it appears. It has some type of high torque motor for the grinding, a heating element similar to a rice cooker for drying, and a fan to circulate air also for drying, and a pretty thick non stick coated aluminum pot. Ontop of that they're using as many eco friendly materials as they can which unfortunately cost more than standard plastics and such. . I'm no expert in compost but the end result is a dry well mix and ground material. The book says it isn't intended to be used exclusively for plant dirt but instead to mix it 50/50 with potting soil. Reviews i read claim their plants have responded well to the compost. At this point in time i have no regrets in the purchase and it is running as i type this.
@@95dodgev10 Great that it works for you. I put my stuff in a pile outside for free and get the same results.
Okay, I feel better. I bought one yesterday. I can't start compost bins because our area already has a pest issue (mainly flies and rats, lots of houses packed together and we are by the river). I've been looking for an alternative and this showed up. This year I plan to go big with raised beds since we did our research and we figured out the height we needed and where to buy them (our dog destroyed our last raised beds by digging up all the plants and sleeping in their holes) so this really does sound like the perfect option for us.
I do appreciate that the CEO was honest and told you that this isn't for everyone, this isn't for you. You don't get that type of candor that often.
I was surprised you had the ceo on but you know what Im glad to have heard from him, I wondered if this product was a gimmick but he honestly seems really candid and invested in this issue and idea. Also, I never realized that keeping food out of the landfill is a large part of the reason behind composting, I never knew about the concept of food waste decomposing in an anaerobic environment at the landfill. Very interesting and makes the "small" impact of the lomi make a lot more sense to me.
It releases the methane emissions from the dump, which are some of the higher emittors
Thanks for the great review and interview. I compost and have a yard in a rural area, but we have bears and really cold winters, so I love the idea of using this for kitchen waste so a) the byproduct doesn’t attract bears, and b) I can use it in winter when my normal composting is frozen (despite years of trying to keep it hot in winter) And I really like the CEO - seems very down to earth (pun intended!) and doing good in the world!
I have a different coutertop composter. I actually use the end product in my worm bin. It helps me feed them more than I normally would be able to without having an excess build up of moisture in the bin, which anyone with a worm bin knows leads to gnats. It also allows me to compost old rotisserie chicken carcassas that I made soup with and egg or seafood shells that would take a long time to break down in the bin.
can u mention a bit more about your experience using meat/bones in the lomi? i wish they touched on that more in this video
@@chrissi827 I've only put in soft bones, like the kind from soup or that you could easily break with your hands. It gets pretty noisy when you put anything too hard in there. I only use 50% meat and bones max. The texture comes out pretty fluffy and nice I think.
@@gennafer thank you! any sauce concerns or extra wet concerns? ideally id like to use lomi as a complete alternative to tossing food of any kind
@@chrissi827 I don't put sauces in it and I try to let foods dry out a bit before putting them in. The wetter the food is the longer the cycle takes and I try to be energy efficient. I put all my scraps in a small bin and then when it gets full I transfer over to the composter and pour out any liquid that collected at the bottom.
I have the Vitamix Foodcycler and love it- I live in the Colorado Rockies at 10,500’ (ie; COLD). It allows me to pre-compost all winter and then finish it much faster during the short warm season.
Once our house is built I plan to get chickens to help me out as well.
I’m shocked by how much food waste we produce, so I love that this system allows me to make use of it and keep it out of the landfill.
I’ll be incorporating the finished compost with bio char all over our property to help with fire mitigation measures on our 5 acres.
I also have an Urban Worm Bag, but I’ve struggled to prevent fungus gnats and fruit flies from taking up residence in it and then moving into the rest of our house since we have to keep it indoors here. Once we have a garage, we’ll see if we can keep it warm enough to keep worms in.
I’ll be mixing the worm compost with the pre-compost from the Foodcycler to get the microbial activity going when I go to finish it.
I attempted bokashi but, when I buried the supposedly finished product in the yard (REALLY hard in the aptly-named Rocky Mountains) a bear dug it up that night, even though I covered it in large stones once buried🐻
Cool to hear you have an urban worm bag!
This is interesting. The way I see it, is that you're making a slow release fertiliser and not compost. I do the same process using my oven to dry out and blender to grind. I add a teaspoon or so directly to my pots when planting. I also blend dry leaves before adding as an amendment to my homemade potting mix instead of coir and both options work pretty well. So this actually has a use case when I compare what I do.
I'm in USDA zone 10b and love mine. I till it into the soil all year. It's a lot smaller footprint than composting bins and significantly less work.
I recommend running it a few times on eco and then on the third or fourth time run it on grow mode with just fruit and vegetable matter. Then bury it in your beds.
Will try!
Excellent review. As of Jan 23 have 2 wormeries, 3 dalek bins and 4 bokashi bins between home and my allotment, so I'm not exactly in the target market sector either. But more composting and carbon capture is a good thing and there have been many times in my life, living in urban apartments and so on, when I'd have loved one of these.
I got a Lomi for Christmas and we run it a few times a week. I live in South Louisiana and have a compost bin. The Lomi allows me to put kitchen scraps in my compost. That’s huge for me! I love it. ❤
Where I live it's really dry and hot. Making compost is extremely labor intensive because you have turn it and water it several times a week which is so unsustainable for me (mom of almost 4 kids). This machine sounds amazing even though I do have chickens as well. Just being able to put scraps in a container (with a lid) and dumping it in a compost pile would be so helpful!
Love this! Was on the fence and looking for a thorough and honest review. I appreciate the added context from the CEO too. Not sure it’s right for me now but excited to see how it continues to improve.
I appreciate the CEO being honest by saying it’s not for everyone, he seems intelligent and genuine
I have a Lomi. While where I live isn't a cold climate area, I do however live in a 3rd floor apartment so having a compost bin isn't an option. The Lomi helps so much with breaking down our scraps.
Thank you for the review. 😊 This is exactly what I needed to see if I buy one. I have been wanting to compost for for quite some time now. The reason I haven’t is that every single form of compost I looked at requires worms, and I literally have a phobia of them . Now I just need to know how much to add to the soil.
The compost will attract the worms. I use chopped brown leaves layered with kitchen scraps because I like the minerals leaves provide. Rain water or just a little in the kitchen scraps before we take it out back for the larger compost. Ash is great too. I don't put in proteins that attract mice but they don't hurt anything. Thanks to TV People have such phobia about germs.
I grew up gardening and ended up in a small town with a yard/garden that isn't very big (in north west Canada) and I've gotten my husband into gardening and now he loves it. I've debated buying one and was thinking of getting him one for his birthday because he's taken over the gardening/yard work now due to some health issues I have. It is a lot of money for us to put out, but after this video I think I will get him one. Even if all it does is help us keep food out of the trash and isn't "compost" per se I think it could be worth it for a rural northern Canadian couple with a bunch of houseplants and a small garden 😅
My experience is the "compost" attracts bugs once they rehydrate and start decomposing. You'll need to bury it at the bottom of a very deep container, or risk having a million flies on your balcony if you plant in 1 gallon containers like my mom did.
Make sure you're blending the product into the soil itself. It's not meant to be laid on top of growing containers.
Calling it compost or dirt is a misnomer. It's ground-up dehydrated vegetable scraps ( or whatever you put in) No composting at all. As you say, the 'finished' product then needs to rehydrate and only then will it actually decompose into compost.
I have a very small balcony garden in an apartment and cannot have a compost system. But I cook a lot and generate a lot of food scraps so this would honestly help reduce how much stuff I throw in my trash. Left outside in a bucket with some leaves, coffee grounds, and balcony plant trimmings I'd eventually get a nice little compost to sprinkle into my plants.
I looked into these a few months ago and the idea of running for 5 - 8 hrs about 5 times a week just seems a lot on the power bill, also you need to replace filters far to often and depending on the brand (lomi is one of many) they can be costly.
I am one of the northern gardeners who can't compost kitchen scraps during the winter months, but I use Bokashi Composting during those long winter months. Once a month or so I empty a bucket of fermented Bokashi into the compost bin and let it set until spring. Because all of the food scraps are fermented, varmints are not interested in it and do not become a problem. No electricity needed, just some natural microbial activity.
Not going to lie, this definitely felt more like an ad than a review. You just brought the CEO on to talk about his product and took everything he said as fact without challenging any of it.
We have one and love it. Saving a ton of garbage space as well as not filling up our septic tank. I have learned not to use the dirt straight from the lomi to plant something but works great in the yard patches, etc.
Ty so much for this! It was hard for me to wrap my head around how fast they claim it to "compost." I was just picturing it being something that just ground things up, but not fully breaking them down that quickly. I was skeptical that it actually came out looking like that (the peat/coco coir like matierial) & learning about how it has a fan to control the moisture & everything was super helpful to know! Even though I have a compost pile outdoors, I'd love to have one! I'd love to be able to mix it into my seed starting mix. I don't like using compost in my seed starting mix because I don't want to bring a bunch of bugs in the house...
I love mine so much. I got this for our gym. We had to deal with our own garbage. It is great it made such a great garden addition last year. My garden did so well. I just added it to my garden weekly.
After I seen some of the examples I knew that this would be great for making a soilless seed starting mix.
This answered all the questions I had about Lomi. Thank you! This is something my daughter can use once she’s done with grad school. When she gets her own place, she’ll definitely have an apartment balcony garden. Thanks!
this could be very useful for drying and grinding herbs at the same time
Does the CEO know most landfills are now collecting the methane and using it to run their dump trucks. What happens if we remove the methane from landfills, then the trucks need to be reworked for gas or electric? The methane is really a renewable resource at the landfills.
The problem with most electronics like this, is if you use them consistently for 2-3 years, something stops working. so you think you're going to not waste money with this type of system but you keep having to shell out money every few years.
This is greenwashing at its finest
Thank you for talking to him Kevin, you are our go to person. This was special, thanks!