Build your own compost bin

Garden Project #1
Building a Compost Bin
Difficulty: Easy, Construction requires basic carpentry skills and tools.

There is no better substance for soil and growing medium and no better fertilizer one can use than compost. Organic and full of the helpful bacteria that petroleum fertilizers don't have, compost not only serves to loosen soil but also to completely change it. A well-devised compost operation can do away with the idea of fertilizing completely. Bear in mind, composting is a natural biological process where bacteria, fungi and other organisms decompose organic materials such as leaves, grass clippings, and food wastes. The end product is called compost. For more info on compost >>

While composting occurs naturally, the process can be accelerated and improved by human intervention. This is what I want to address now.

There are basically 5 ways we can compost in our yards:

1. In a Holding Unit
2. Turning Units
3. Heaps
4. Soil Incorporation
5. Worm Incorporation

A word on all: I recommend a combination of the Holding Unit and the Turning Unit. I do not recommend the others in here unless you are ready to purchase a rotating 55 gallon drum (208 litres), which the "turning unit" requires and do some welding.

"Heaps" are fine if you have a lot of land. Make yourself a heap and let her rip, lol, and honestly that is the science involved there. But they do smell some and they are somewhat unattractive. Soil Incorporation is essentially just adding not-quite composted materials into soil - a completely unscientific and glacially slow way of creating compost and a streakly, uneven result. Now, worm incorpration is really pretty cool but one has to monitor the products and the numbers of worms to make it all happen. You can see, therefore, why I would opt for the most common solution anyway - it is compact and easier by far to work with, the Holding Unit/Turning Unit hybrid Method.

Building the Compost Bin

Essentially, what we are creating are three bins, with wire mesh walls in order for oxygen to get inside - to let the material breathe.The strict "turning method" means there will be materials developing at 3 different rates of composition, from the "new" stuff in one bin, to a slighly more workable material, advanced in its development as a compost, to the "ready" material in the final bin. It is somewhat labor intensive but it ofers the quickest turnaround for composting and it also has the virtue of being compact in size and as attractive as one cares to make it. It is also the most thorough of all methods of composting.

Materials needed to build the bin (a concise list):

A wood and wire three-bin turning unit can be used to quickly compost large amounts of yard, garden and kitchen wastes. Although relatively expensive to build, it is sturdy, attractive and should last a long time. Construction requires basic carpentry skills and tools.

Materials

• Four 12-foot (3.66m) lengths of pressure-treated 2 x 4 lumber
• Two 10-foot (3m) lengths of pressure-treated 2 x 4 lumber
• One 10-foot length of construction-grade 2 x 4 lumber
• One 16-foot (4.88m) length of 2 x 6 lumber
• Six 8-foot (2.44m) lengths of 1 x 6 lumber
• A 22-foot (6.7m) length of 36-inch-wide 1/2-inch hardware cloth
• 16d galvanized nails (2 pounds, 0.9kgs) (screws can also be used)
• Poultry wire staples (250)
• Twelve 1/2-inch (1.2cm) carriage bolts, 4 inches long, with washers and nuts
• One quart wood preservative or stain

Materials for optional lids

(These are completely optional but they have real merits for containing heat and moisture and therefore moving it along)

• One 4-x-8-foot (1.22mx2.44m) sheet of 1/2-inch exterior plywood
• One 4-x-4-foot sheet of 1/2-inch exterior plywood
• Six 3-inch (7.62cm) zinc-plated hinges
• Twenty-four 3/16-inch (0.48cm) galvanized steel bolts, with washers and nuts

As the diagram shows, the process is simple and doable in a few short hours. The lids would be cut to fit individually over the tops of each bin for easier loading. Access, of course, is always easy from the front in as much as the front panel slides right up.

Read This - An Important Note:

In the end, what my plan illustrated above offers is a system for rotating developing composting materials. The primary consideration is that each bin have different levels of composting completed (or begun) before moving along. The fact is, almost any system can work, bearing in mind the factors looked for. You can make 3 bins from concrete blocks, for example. Or you can use a two bin system, such as this picture shows.

What is most essential, in the end, is that the materials compost down and create what we are looking for - that black gold for dirt and plants that we create from our very own kitcxhens and lawn and gardens, free of charge, recycled and far superior to any product offered anywhere on the market for upgrading garden soil and for fertilizing the right way.