Compost Bins - Grow Your Own Wants Your Advice!!

[Lesley Jay]

Grow Your Own is running a feature on building your own compost bins and wants your advice. Have you built your own compost bin? If so how did you build it and is it any good? What are your top tips?

The best will be published in the April issue of Grow Your Own so come on!! This will be a big plug for the Grapevine plus you might get your suggestions published.

[Alison]

Step 1 - mention that you really need more compost bin capacity on a daily basis but that the ready to assemble kits are very expensive.
Step 2 - carry on mentioning it until OH decides that it would be a lot easier for him to make them for you
Step 3 - fill compost bins as appropriate!!!!!

Seriously though we just built ours based on some cheap wood from a local shop. It's a double bin arrangement with the back, sides and middle section all fixed and a beam running along the top and bottom of the front section. The remainder of the front is then formed by planks which slot in for filling and can be removed when emptying. There is then separate wooden lids which are covered with roofing felt so it all looks dead smart. Only got them built last year and pretty much filled the first one already so will be leaving that and moving onto the second later this year. No real down points and it's much the same as the ones you can buy except that we were able to build it to fit exactly in the space required and it was a heck of a lot cheaper.

[vicki lorraine]

Yes Yes Yes
Im so proud of my compost bins
We made them in June 06 with some pallets. The fronts all slide in and out for easy access. The gaps in the pallets were just perfect for allowing air to circulate.
We began the piles with some twiggy matter and then tried to ensure an equal balance of "green and brown" matter.( carbons and nitrates)
Allow me to show you all once again my three little babies!


I used my first batch of fresh, loose black homemade compost to plant my new soft fruits.

[Peter]

Contrary view.
Don't bother to build your own, ring Blackwall and get a Dalek delivered at a realistic rather than DIY chain price. Recycled plastic as a bonus.

[supersprout]

For disabled gardeners - sheet composting! Smothers weeds and creates lasagne-type beds that turn into a nice tilth with time. Early crops of spuds, squash and other gross feeders love it. You can empty your kitchen waste bin direct between other gross feeders as a mulch (e.g. blackcurrants, jerusalem and globe artichokes, raspberries). When I could dig, shovel or bend, I'd have compost bins all over the plot and move them around, so the compost went straight onto the bed next to it, and when the compost bin was moved the soil would benefit from those juicy leachings. Now I sheet compost, and I'm very pleased that there's a workable alternative

If you're worried about appearance, fruit flies and other by-products of sheet composting, cover with a layer of straw!

[Alison]

Contrary view.
Don't bother to build your own, ring Blackwall and get a Dalek delivered at a realistic rather than DIY chain price. Recycled plastic as a bonus.

Some of this depends on where you will be siting your compost bin. I previously had some Dalek style ones but they didn't look very attractive and I could see them from the kitchen window . The wooden bins we've built fit in far better in my garden but I would have probably continued with the plastic ones otherwise as I got them cheap off the council on some recycling scheme.

[OverWyreGrower]

We got some wooden pallets from Freecycle and are making 2 bins consisting of 6 pallets - the front of the bins are half-pallets.

We also have 3 "dalek" type bins which were delivered free from a company our local council deals with. You should check with the Waste Disposal/Recycling area of your local council to see if they have any initiatives in place.

[Snadger]

I think people get frightened of composting and regard it as an exact science, which it's not! For years all I used to do was throw garden waste material into a heap somewhere out of the way, and later in the year dig out compost and put on the land!

Runner bean trenches are filled throughout the year, and when they are capped with soil the filling is never fully composted, but the heat given off as the material rots down helps the beans as does the moisture retention

These days I have built some compost bins out of old pallets, just to tidy it up a bit. The compost I get at the end of it is no better than the old heaped version, but it just means I can have one ongoing and one being used!
The way the seasons work out for me, I seem to get a mixed bag of weeds, haulms and brassica waste and the only addition is a bit of newspaper now and again and a little bit wood chippings as they become available.

Of course, one has to activate it all with a nitogenous fertiliser and what better way of doing this, than peeing on it! Just like adding sulphate of ammonia really and a necessity when no toilets are about! Just make sure you site the compost facing away from overlooking houses or you may frighten the neighbours!!

[rustylady]

Have 2 Daleks and one homemade wooden effort made from my Ex's wardrobe (long story). Wooden one works better (I think it's because it is wider). You can also make compost in the ground, as in digging out bean trenches and filling with fresh veggie waste, topping off with soil. Whichever method you use it is better to site the bin or heap on soil so that it drains well and worms etc can get into it.

[nick the grief]

.......Just make sure you site the compost facing away from overlooking houses or you may frighten the neighbours!!

And Down wind

I agree with Peter. I got 3 Daleks for £15 I think it was through the county council. I'm just trying to persuade my neighbour she wants 3 now

Sort of connected
I did wonder about the viability of making a "Manure Bin" out of radiators and then using the heat from the muck to heat the water in the radiators and then my greenhouse

[Birdie Wife]

I've heard of some people digging a big hole and building a compost pit rather than a compost heap. It's apparently a good way to recycle all sorts of kitchen leftoevers that otherwise would tempt rats and mice, they can even put cooked meat scraps and carcasses into it. Seems to me to be a good way of decreasing landfill, but you'd have to layer the pit quite carefully because it's not easy to turn it, and also getting the compost out again would be a chore. Has anyone tried this method?

[supersprout]

In a way, that's what you do with a bean trench

[Birdie Wife]

Do you put meat waste in your bean trench too?

I know gardeners usually say don't compost cooked stuff because it doesn't have that many nutrients in it because it's cooked, but from a point of view of reducing household waste I'd be for it (and there must be some nutirents, because we eat it and do okay, right?!). And I saw on the news there is a community composting scheme somehwere that takes everyones dinner plate leftovers and composts the lot in hot heaps, so there must be something in it?

Am I being contrary? OR just wrong? Please let me know!

[madderbat]

Birdie Wife, I beleive it is possible, but as an anti-rat procedure is not often done. Our local council were asking for vounteers recently to experiment on cooked/meat waste composting, so it must be possible.
In days gone by the midden heap contained everything (including dead bodies).
Have no personal experience (yet) though.

[BristolBirds]

Compostin bins with pallets and cable ties!

We recently took on our first allotment both agreing that we didn't want to spend much money on the things we needed to get it ready for the spring.
Basically we have searched skips, knocked on doors for peoples garden junk, recycled and even just picked stuff up off of the street that we could find a use for on the allotment.
Firstly we needed compost bins, after looking at the prices of decent bins we decided we'd have a go at making one.
We managed to get pallets from asking a mate in the building trade, delivered the next day were 12 pallets.
Both being a little impatient, we got straight on to trying build the bins. Then realising we didn't have a hammer!
But what we did have was a bag of cable ties, which we used to secure 3 pallets together forming a 3 sided cube.
We are well pleased with the results, didn't cost a penny to make and if we need to move them we can or even take them apart by cutting the cable ties.
The bins are very sturdy.