Near the top on any unromantic Christmas gift list, right up there with blenders, vacuum cleaners and toasters, has got to be the composter.

For those of you who are not avid gardeners, a composter is an outdoor container into which leaves, grass clippings and kitchen waste are dumped and from which, miraculously, dirt is produced.

Composters can take any form: from a hole in the ground to an enclosed circle of chicken wire to a rough-hewn cube cobbled together from discarded wooden pallets.

But the fancy ones produced by Gardener's Supply Company in Burlington, Vt., are its hottest Christmas sellers.

Hard to believe that among all the charming and adorable accessories available to give the avid gardener, the top choice would be a black, plastic cube that looks a lot like an old coal stove.

"We sell perhaps 400 a week of our most popular model, the Pyramid Composter, during the year," says company spokesperson Maree Gaetani. "But in the weeks leading up to Christmas, it jumps to maybe 1,000 a week."

She doesn't know for sure, but the indication is that husbands are buying them for their wives.

"Because women are such big gardeners."

If the man in your life is looking for something besides jewelry, there are several composter models to choose from.

One of the favorites is the Tumbling Compost Mixer, advertised in the Gardener's Supply catalog as the "the sports car of batch composters."

It is shaped like a mini-cement mixer. Spin it often and you can have compost in as little as five weeks.

This is not, it must be said, as much fun as getting the keys to a real sports car.

For the urban gardener, there is the SpaceSaver Pyramid Composter, a smaller and less expensive version of the most popular model.

"That one has always been a popular model for us," says Mel Buss, product design manager for Gardener's Supply.

"It is perfect for small yards and people who are looking for ways to compost without spending a lot of money."

Buss says it includes design suggestions from customers, including a hinged lid for "one-handed composting," and a rodent screen for people who live in urban areas.

Buss says composting took hold in the late 1970s and early '80s as environmentally conscious homeowners, who were also getting into gardening, realized that a lot of good stuff was being hauled off to the county landfill.

Now, even those gardeners who don't compost themselves visit local municipal compost sites to purchase it.

"Landscapers are using a lot of compost now, too," says Buss. "And it is actually more expensive than top soil."

Unfortunately, compost is no substitute for fertilizer. It is a soil conditioner, adding organic matter and promoting drainage. But, aside from the micro-organisms it can contain, compost is almost inert, Buss says.

"If the standard fertilizer is 5-5-5," he says, referring to the nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium levels, "compost might register below 1-1-1. Maybe even .1."

The recipe for good compost can be complex - just the right amount of brown material and green material layered, add water, but not too much, and then stir regularly. You can add heating agents and monitor the temperature at the core. Or you can enrich it with hay and horse manure.

But most gardeners just dump yard and kitchen waste into their composter and wait until it decomposes, turning it occasionally if they remember.

Then they scoop out the rich-looking, chocolate-colored results - usually dotted with bits of the egg shells that are slow to decompose - and cultivate it into the soil around perennials or into the vegetable garden before planting.

To be honest, a composter is going to take up a lot of space under anybody's Christmas tree - 34 inches high and 12 cubic feet for the largest model.

But there are composting "accessories" that are less expensive and more accessible.

A compost aerator for $21.95. Plunged into the depths of the compost pile, it increases air circulation at the core.

A compost thermometer for $19.95 to make sure the compost pile is hot enough to kill weed seeds and plant diseases.

Bags of "compost starter," organic activators that are added to the compost pile to speed up decomposition with a blend of nitrogen and hungry micro-organisms. An 8-pound bag goes for about $10.

Attractive kitchen crocks made of everything from stainless steel to ceramics (about $35 each) for collecting kitchen scraps. (They come with carbon filters to trap odors.)

It is clear that composting opens up many new gift-giving opportunities for the loved ones in a gardener's life.

Buss says it makes sense that composters would make good Christmas presents.

"For people who are avid gardeners, this is the time of year when seed catalogs start to arrive. People are thinking about their gardens.

"Although, personally, I don't think I'd want that for Christmas."