Could we get a few pics of what the neighborhood is using to contain their compost?

I got one of these:
Click here for more information
But I paid a lot less. The summer I bought my house, there was some program encouraging composting and they made these available for something like $10 or $15. I later added an extension to it so I could make a little more.

I have a little bin in the back corner of the yard that I made out of scrap wood I had laying around. I'll try to remember to take a picture tonight. The only problem I have with it is trying to move everything around when I add to the mix.

i dont have any photos but i use a blue 55 gallon food grade drum which has been prodigiously perforated for starting my pile. Its great because I can just push it over and roll it a few yards to mix it up. For finished compost, if I have any left, Im putting together a 3x3x3 cedar bin.

my only issue is finding stuff to compost. there are no trees in our development yet, so no sticks and or leaves. only grass clippings, garden waste and food scraps. i need more browns. we eat a LOT of fruit, and it gets quite soggy when all of that breaks down. I have been thinking about chopping down the grass in the water easement behind my fence. technically, its still my yard. its a ditch that separates us from the farmers field (which by the way has EXCELLENT dirt... ) im just worried that my pile might not heat up enough to kill the millions upon millions upon millions of foxtail seeds that will be in there.

MorpheusPA wrote:

i need more browns

OT, but shredded newspaper and junk mail? I import my mother's old newspapers as browns are tough to get in summer.

good idea. i did some shredded cardboard but never thought about junk mail (or bills!!!) that would be highly satisfying knowing that im essentially feeding my bills to ruthless killer organisms.

Here's one of my compost bins:


For $35 you can get 50-feet of the fencing at the box stores - enough for 4-6 bins.

In the past I was fancy and used clips or cable ties to hold the shape (unclip to open the bin and completely turn the compost), but now I just wrap the wire and lift the whole bin off, set it next to the pile and turn the compost into the new location (when I bother to do a full turning).

I'll put just about anything into them - for me it's more an issue of waste-stream reduction than compost production. I save some of the fruit scraps & shredded mail for the worm bins. I do get rats/mice from the extra pizza slices and pasta tossed into the bins, but some snap traps take care of the problem. And yep, the dead rats go in too.

I'm in the process of building mine. Total size is pretty big, it's about 3' high, 6.5' wide and about 6' deep. That's 4 yards just about. All made out of wood (4x4's for the corners, 2x4's all the way around, 1/2x6 dogeared fence posts for the floor), 1/4" poultry fence for the sides and front door, and standard poultry fence for the hinged doors on top.

I will post pics to the forum when I'm done. The front has a hinged door with a latch that is the full size of the front of the bin. The top is split in 2 with hinged doors on both sides. I'm thinking about making those double hinged so they hinge in the center and at the rear of it.

I'm going a little over board but it works. Some lumber was free and some was cheap so why not!

I've used and still utilize several different methods of composting;

Large bins

Wire Bin

Different sizes of tumblers

Windrows

Pallet bins

EarthMachine

Each method has pros and cons.

Lloyd

I forgot to add my picture. It is basically just some scrap wood that I found laying around that I built a bin out of and it works pretty well. The picture also shows off my dying ferns.

I don't believe in containing compost, prefer free range compost, piled up, never turned, left to fend for itself.
this season it sprung butternut squash, which is now about 14' in diameter. I was hoping for some cantaloupe , maybe next year.

clay&crabgrass wrote:I don't believe in containing compost, prefer free range compost, piled up, never turned, left to fend for itself.

Wow, you and David should compete for the laziest/cheapest lawn enthusiast award. I think you might be ahead in the standings right now.

after the last harvest, I got to whack it up and mulch mow it in. think I read a fortune cookie message that said something about laziness becoming efficency. that probably rules out competing. it's just what it is.

(peel and chunk the squash, steam until tender, mash, put in container for freezing. good for everything from soup to pies.)

clay&crabgrass wrote:I don't believe in containing compost, prefer free range compost, piled up, never turned, left to fend for itself.
this season it sprung butternut squash, which is now about 14' in diameter. I was hoping for some cantaloupe , maybe next year.

My dad had an old chain link gate that he couldn't figure out how to get rid of, so he stuck it behind a tree on some concrete blocks. Then he started piling "stuff" on that. When it fell through, it was nice and black, so he'd occasionally stick a shovel under the gate and use whatever was there. I might have taken a similar approach, but SWMBO "suggested" that the nice plastic bins that the city was selling for $10 (I think the normal retail price was > $100) would be a better idea (I think the alternative she mentioned was that I'd get to find out whether a free range compost pile made a nice mattress).

chain link gate on concrete blocks----design genius! thanks.