I started what I called a "compost bin" a long time ago. That first bin was made from the old landscape timbers, stacked two layers high, with an old storm door fastened over the top of it. Pretty much the only thing I put in it was vegetable scraps - things like lettuce, tomato and potato peels, ends off of the squash, etc. When I got ready to put something in it, I'd just lift the door, dump the scraps in and lay the door back down. It got very hot under the glass during the summer, so even though the pile wasn't dense enough to heat up on its own, the stuff in it did decompose pretty quickly. It just didn't make very much compost because I really wasn't putting much in it.
When I moved the old recycling box out under the tree and turned it into a house for my little chickens, I put what little compost was under the old door out in the garden, and decided I would turn that spot into a raised bed instead. I didn't have a compost bin for a while. I don't remember for sure, but I must have just dumped my vegetable scraps over the fence for the cows?
But after my sweet little chickens all died/were killed, I decided that rather than tear down their little pen, I'd take the wire off the top and turn it into a new compost bin. A friend from work had given me four old pallets, and I fastened those around the edges thinking I could just fill that up and use it as a passive compost bin.
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| What was left of my old compost bin, made from the little chicken coop. Three of the fours pallets have already been removed. |
There were a couple of problems with that setup. First, if I wanted to do anything with the compost (other than add stuff to the bin), I had to untie one of the pallets, and drag it out of the way. Not that big of a deal, except the pen was under a small ash tree, so getting access to the panels turned out to be much harder than I thought. Second, because I had left the wooden sides of the old chicken coop in place, I had a hard time getting my shovel down into the compost to "turn" it, so it seemed like the pile just always had a bunch of undecomposed "stuff" on top. I sure wasn't getting much usable compost out of it!
I think my early mistakes with composting were a result of me just not knowing what I was doing. It makes so much sense to me now, and should have been obvious to me all along: If you want to make lots of compost, 1) you have to compost lots of stuff. And if you want to make lots of good compost, you don't just need to add "lots of stuff." 2) You need to add lots of the right stuff. And if you want to make lots of compost in a shorter amount of time, 3) you have to put some work into your bins, turning the pile every so often.
I was 0 for 3 on my composting.
This isn't going to be a lesson on "greens" and "browns" or about how to compost in general. There are lots of good articles online about that. All you have to do is go to The Google and type in something like "greens and browns in composting" or "how to compost" and it will show you all kinds of articles. I also won't list the many composting articles I've read this winter, or the YouTube videos I've watched. But this one by Charles Dowding is one of the ones that got me going on my composting again.
Three Types of Heap, see how they work and the compost they make
Since I already had four old pallets, enough to build one bay, I decided why not give the three-bay system a try?
Dowding mentioned that he didn't put anything under their bays...they just set them up on top of the grass. I decided against that though. With the aggressive Bermuda grass that's in the yard. I figured it might not be a very good idea to give that stuff easy access to my compost bays, so I started out with a layer of old tin underneath. A potential drawback I can see from doing this is that it also cuts off access for things like earthworms that might migrate up into the bin. So I'll have to see how this works out.
The long-term plan is start with this single bay, then add two additional bays to the right, using those for my first and second decomposition bins. This original bin with the tin under it will be my "final" bin where I store the finished compost.
Anyway, back to the project. The back pallet was secured to one of the existing fenceposts and shimmed up where necessary so it was level and plumb (I have my daddy to thank for that...but that's another story unto itself!). Because the ground sloped down a bit toward the fence, the side pallets had to also be shimmed up a bit on the east side, but when they were all tied together, I wasn't unhappy with how it turned out.
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| The first bay, ready for some greens and browns! Yes, the pallet on the left is a little out of plumb...it needs a support post in the ground beside it to hold it straight. |
The first layer that went in was a wheelbarrow load of the wonderful leaves that RAF helped me collect in the yard earlier in the winter.
The second layer was a cart load of "green manure" that RAF helped me collect today from the field. I had joked with him and with my dad about how there was so much out there that I should take my cart and gather it up. My dad just laughed and said that's what his grandpa used to do...gather up the cow manure from the lot where he fed the cattle and put it in a pile to rot. That's what he and Mamaw used to fertilize their garden. They never bought chemical fertilizer, instead just using what nature provided for them.
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| A cart load of "green manure" for the new compost bin. |
So if it worked for Papaw and Mamaw, why wouldn't it work for me? And there are lots of compostable-material-producing friends out in the field....
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| Some of my compostable-material-producing friends. |
(Just as a side note, it was sort of an interesting experience collecting the manure today. It turned out to be much easier to shovel up than I had anticipated (because it was frozen!) and it turned out to be much heavier than I had anticipated! RAF joked that if my dad went to sell any of the cattle, he needed to be sure to make them wait to poo until after they were weighed at the sale barn!)
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| More compost friends...earthworms! |
At that point, I took the top layer of compost off the old compost bin (again, much harder than it looked because it too, was frozen) and I tossed that on top of the leaves and poo. This layer wasn't very thick, but it did have some more compost friends in it.
All that was left was temporarily attaching the last pallet to the front of the bin. A couple of strings later, and the bin was at a stage where it is now a usable compost bay.
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| The last pallet in place. All that was left was tying it in place so it wouldn't fall over. (The "out of plumb" pallet on the left was pulled back straight when it was connected to the front pallet!) |
I've already starting adding more "stuff" to the new bin...some rotted wood that blew out of the top of the old silver maple in the front yard, along with the coffee grounds and other vegetable scraps from the bucket I keep under the kitchen sink.
I'm not at all sure how long that green manure will take to break down, and I'm sure I didn't add enough earthworms today to do much good. I also need to buy a soil thermometer to keep an eye on the temperature in the bay, and get a pitch fork to use when turning the pile. But I feel pretty hopeful that this project has put me on the right path to creating lots of good compost, something I really, really need if I'm going to keep my pledge to use a no-till approach to gardening.
As I walked Mo around the yard this evening, I looked over at the mud-hole, where I had tossed all of the old vegetation I cleared out of the yard this past summer and fall, and told myself, "Next year, all of that will go in my compost bin."
If it all works like I hope it will, it will be a very good thing.