Compost Bins

[Airic]

Anyone have some good ideas or pictures of a compost bin? I've got a lot of 1" x 6" pressure treated lumber from a friends old deck. Not sure if I should just build a three sided wall bin or if there are better ideas out there others have deployed. The other thing is that the location I have in mind does not get much direct sun. Is there any real issue with this in regards to the organic breakdown.

 

[randy41]

i think treated lumber is not supposed to be used for organic compost bins.

if you turn your compost every couple of weeks it will break down the components very well whether in the sun or not.

 

[Egon]

Do a goggle search and I'm sure there will be more plans and ideas than one can comprehend.

 

[ragkar]

A compost bin should have a volume of at least one cubic yard before the heat generated by the decay becomes effective.
I don't think that wood is a good idea.
I'd like to suggest building a three sided pen of five foot metal stakes and hardware cloth. I tried chicken wire and that didn't work too well. Three sided so that you can dump in there and also get in with a pitchfork to turn it over every three or four months. Your tractor bucket should do the trick in minutes.
I compost the autumn leaves to make my own soil.
Size wise. Simple math should convince you that building a big heap uses a lot less wall material than a small one. I use to have five heaps of a cubic yard each, then I consolidated and it's now roughly circular and about twelve feet across and three feet high. I have room for many years of leaves in there.

 

[Airic]

Thanks for the info. I didn't know there was an issue with utilizing pressure treated wood. I'm assuming it can leach the chemicals. I'm having a hard time picturing hardware cloth, wouldn't seem to be very durable. I'm thinking of a permeate type bin. I was planning on building multiple bins in a row for different materials (i.e. stone, top soil, clay, sand, mulch and compost) All has accumulated in piles around the property from many of my project and I'd to get a little more organized. The compost bin has had me thinking it should be a little different set up. I could build block walls but that is a little more work than I would prefer.

 

[AlanB]

I am toying with the idea of making my mulch bin walls (and my compost as well) out of rammed earth tires. Google around on earthships and you will see what I am thinking.

I am thinking that the tire filled with wetted and packed red clay, overlapping each other with rebar through occassionally will be cheap, solid, durable, and able to handle the occasional bump from a loader. I am thinking along the lines of two tires side by side, stacked (interlocked) to about chest high.

 

[dtd24]

so alan, the rammed tire thing, basically tire with dirt "rammed" into the center hole? Hmmmmmm. I'll look at it some more. Sounds cool though!!

 

[AlanB]

so alan, the rammed tire thing, basically tire with dirt "rammed" into the center hole? Hmmmmmm. I'll look at it some more. Sounds cool though!!

Yes, the stuff I have seen they do it with a sledgehammer.

I am too fat and lazy to do that.

My current thought is to get some of the clay I am trying to get out of my pond, have a layer of tires in place, and dump with the clay in with the front bucket, then just soak it with a hose and kind of "wash" the clay into place.

One of my earlier thoughts was the HF Jack hammer

Harbor Freight Tools - Quality Tools at the Lowest Prices

and then make a domed head to go on it, do the dump slurry thing then "hammer" it in with that thingy.

I figure every couple of layers go down through every couple tires (real precise wording I know) with some rebar rods to kind of lock it all together.

My mulch beds are empty (mostly) at the moment and I am thinking of doing the center wall this way and see how it works.

As with many of my thoughts, it comes from having old tires to get rid of, and clay to get rid of, and extra Rebar lying about................. Has to be a wall in there somewhere

They had a thing on "invention Nation" where they showed it pretty well Episode of "Desert Power"

Episodes: Invention Nation : The Science Channel

When I was in middle school,,,, (Man, that was a tad bit ago 77 or so) Had this great teacher that was very alternative type lifestyle. We did tire walls etc. with him.

 

[mikim]

wish I could find some old "PSP" -- steel sections with holes in it that we used in SEA for temporary flight line .... and anything else it came in handy for.

 

[wedge40]

Here are a few places to start.
G6957 How to Build a Compost Bin, MU Extension
This one is just the plans. And I'm thinking this is what you're looking for.
They will tell you to use cedar, because it's rot resistant.
http://www.backyardgardener.com/compost/RCO_files/WoodWireStationary3binsystem.pdf
And one more.
LABOR-SAVING Compost Bin

Buy the way I googled composting bin and got over 550,000 hits.

Wedge

 

[ragkar]

Hardware cloth is that steel screen with half inch holes. It's sold by all hardware stores usually in 3' by 50' rolls.

 

[RalphVa]

Easiest compost bin to make is to just make a fence surround. You don't need a very fine mesh fence, just one that will stand up by itself. Buy a 25' roll of fence. Unroll it and then make it into a circular fence. Fill with stuff to compost. Pull up fence every so often, relocate and refill from stuff left on ground.

Ralph

 

[JeremyL]

After consulting this thread I built this for composting our plentiful horse manure. First I had to build a barn to store the hay, then get & stack the hay so the horses can turn out "road apples" which we can now turn in to black gold over the winter. It is built in to the bank below the barn and next to the garden. So load it from the top, mix and remove from the front. It is 6' wide and 4' deep and 3 1/4' tall. The Boss will likely want me to divide it down the middle so that we can work two piles. Piles of hay, piles of manure, piles of compost; ain't we got fun?

 

[Egon]

Piles of hay, piles of manure, piles of compost; ain't we got fun?

It would sound like you may as well get started building at least two more compost bins!

 

[polo1665]

Nice job, I need to build myself something like that next spring. Right now my compost heap is just that, a heap. Sure wish I had some of that yummy horse manure to add to it.

Mark

 

[RobertBrown]

My compost bin has about two yads of compost. It's a three sided bin built with pt lumber.
The important thing to remember about a compost bin is the material has to be turned regularly to incorporate air into the mix. Air is necessary to keep the microbes healthy. A three side bin is a no brainer if you have a tractor with a loader. Build it wde enough to accomadate the loader and life will be a lot easier.Turning a yard or two of wet compost with a shovel two or three times a month is no fun at all

 

[RalphVa]

Last year at master gardener college, one of the classes was a visit to the composting area at Va Tech. The guy in charge there told us what they do and showed it to us. They have HUMONGOUS bins, about 30' cubes. They have perforated pipes (just that 4" to 6" corrugated stuff like you can get at Lowes or Home Depot) that they lay down first and blow air through them with a compressor once the stuff to compost is put into the bins. He said that a perforated pipe just laid underneath would do almost as good a job, in their experience when they've had their compressor out. Based on this, I leave a perforated pipe underneath my pile. Right now, the pile is so big from shredding 80-100 bags of leaves that it has over flowed the pipe ends. I need to turn it and uncover the pipe. Actually, I need some more pipe.

The guy told us that he'd composted whole cows in the bins and that the highway department composted road kill all the time in some of their compost areas. He says you can compost anything organic, e.g. not metal or plastic. If you compost stuff like this, you have to make sure that you get it to heat up (to around 140 F) and all to really cook and compost. Most people (like me) don't get it hot enough consistently; so, we caution people not to put animal matter into their piles.

Ralph

 

[RobertBrown]

I put fresh grass clippings, 3-4 wheelbarrows full, several times over the summer and that gets the temperature to just under 150 f. for about 48 hours, then it starts to come down. The green stuff really seems to get it hot! Afew weeks after you add the greens the pile starts to shrink and you can add more. I add in horse waste a month before I use the compost and it seems to work well.

 

[kossetx]

I have to ask. Is a bin needed due to area constraints? If it is, used cyclone fence works well to keep materials in check. If not, large piles work for me.

Every year I pick up 100-500 bags of leaves to compost. I used to shread and container them but now I just unbag and pile them. I add whatever manure I can find, and anything else compostable for that matter, and I just let it sit in piles untill it rots. It does tend to end up spead out some but that is taken care of when I turn and re-pile it using the fel. I could easiley use all the leaves I could get if I had the means to move them all. What this ends up being is the most economical way to compost. The more energy you save making the compost the better our world is.

 

[schmism]

i knocked 3 pallets together with front section that takes slats so i can raise the front as it fills.

when its fill i snatch it with the FEL and lift it up leaving a pile of nice compost.