I like that, keep us updated with pictures please.

What a great idea! I see you have lots of other bins too. Looks good.

Holy cow. That is such a cool idea. Good job Paul and Mrs. Paul. I like.

On posting pictures - The best you can do is post a link to this page. People can click through to the picture. If you attempt to link the picture itself, Spike's machines will complain about a double post. Embedded pictures generally originate from another site.

Eventually the whole thing composts down eventually is what I meant to say :^)
I'll pass your compliments along to the chef, and thanks for the picture advice.

Here is the bin three and a half months later, a little neglected (yes that's a maple sucker in there) but not forgotten. Last night we half-filled it with layers of crushed crab from the fish plant and hay. Next, a couple layers of horse manure, some straw, some grass clippings to get it really cooking. We'll give it at least a year. Then put a plate on top, flip, turn out and wala: Bundt compost. Serves ten.

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It still looks good to me. Have you used the crushed crab before? I find crab and/or lobster are somewhat fragrant, even in small quantities. (Mind you, that doesn't actual deter me from using them!)

Sherry
(Wishing this gallery were used more often...)

Sherry, I think it's pretty too. It's full now and the temp. is up to 120F - will try to post a picture of it.
About the crushed crab, we've used three truck-fulls of it this past month and no matter how we spread it - in the bird's nest, in trenches, in regular bin composters, under dirt, under eelgrass, under sawdust or lots more compost, it reeked for four or five days. That is, it didn't reek to us - to us it smelled very frgrant :) - but it did to our non-composting nearest neighbours who have been really patient about it. The smell is unfortunate, as there is so much of the stuff free for the taking. The fish plant sends the crushed crab by the transport truck-full all the way to New Brunswick to dispose of, at great cost, and when soil around here is so poor. They're happy to give anybody as much as they want.
So...how are those meconopsis?

Paul -- The Meconopsis are definitely done for the season. I've had a very hard time keeping them well-watered this year in our record-breaking heat. I did have one last small bloom a couple weeks ago, which was a surprise. All in all, it was an excellent year for them, despite our warm temps.

Sherry
(who just buried in the compost pile some of last year's salmon to make room in the freezer)

Here is the bin, filled and topped with eelgrass, settled and ready for more material. Btw please ignore the bundt compost recipe above - you'll only get the hole (but anybody knew that right).

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Here is a sunflower volunteer we didn't have the heart to get rid of.

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Nice pics Paul, thanks for the updates. Maybe the offended neighbors could use several baskets of fresh produce from you then they'll start associating the smell with real food on the way. My neighbors were Polish and every spring they would spread fresh cow manure on their veggie garden. Their garden ran the length of our driveway so there was no way to avoid the smell. Being "city" kids we would shriek a bit about the smell but it was one of the things that made our neighbors our neighbors (they also had a rooster and hens).
Kathy

Train them so they salivate at the smell of rotting crab. "Pavlov's neighbour's." I like that :)

that is some really nice compost there Paul, and Mrs. Paul. This compost bundt ring helped saved me from a bit of 'crabbiness' myself. (Unfortunately not the fishy kind, just the grumpies.) My kids and I have been trying to clean up the dumpster area of our church/school for as many years as we've been there. The problem is the maintenance director just tells everyone to keep piling everything behind the dumpsters, on the asphalt. Piles of brush get very high, grass clippings are just dumped, and dumped, and dumped, so you know they get pretty rank with out browns layered between. Everything was a mess. About five years ago, my dear kids helped haul over twenty trailer loads off, they said they would haul no more. Next year they helped haul another twenty trailer loads. (We take the brush to the composting facility in our town, where it is magically turned into lovely compost.) Then dear kids helped build a three bin compost system. I guess the concept of one, two, three was too complexfor school employees, so stuff was just piled in each bin, whenever. Grr. Well, finally got that taught to the maintenance crew. Now, they wanted the bins up on the asphalt, instead of down in the ravine where we put the first set of bins, as it was difficult to walk down the slope, when wet. OK, so we built another set of three bins up directly behind the dumpsters, on the asphalt. Bins don't have contact with the soil, but it will have to do. Well, the heaps of shrubbery are showing up again, as the parish is doing a remodel, and lots of shrubs are being removed. I keep telling the director of buildings & grounds to have that stuff hauled off as part of the building process, but he thinks it will make such lovely compost, and he thinks we should be selling the compost. He also thinks we are saving just tons of money by not hauling off shrubbery. More grrrr.

Well, I decided to make lemonade instead of just being a sourpuss, so now I am setting up bundt composts with all that brush. Then the crew can keep dumping willy-nilly into the bundts, I'll keep my three bin system humming along in one, two, three fashion. So, we'll have bundt holding bins.

As for selling the compost, I'm going to look the director of buildings and grounds straight in the eye and ask him if he wants that compost now that he let some of the crew leave cans of old asphalt sealant out to dry right by the compost bins, where they got dumped over and 'accidentally' incorporated into the compost by who knows who? Yuck toxic waste!! I removed all I could, but every now and then I get a whiff of fresh asphalt when I fluff the compost. Some people just don't get it. Oh well, nuff venting. The bundt bins work well. Contains the mess, keeps my blood pressure down. Thanks Paul.

Kathy, I loved your comment about your neighbors. Maybe I need to have that attitude about our B & G director He means well. ;-)
happy gardening,
cantstop

Cantstop that's great! I haven't been here in a while and for some reason gardenweb has stopped sending posts to my home email so I just read yours. It's disheartening when people aren't inspired - or worse, when they seem to go out of their way to spoil perfectly good garbage. You deserve some kind of composting medal/commendation/plaque.
The beauty of the bundt bins, as you say, is that they're a form of 'slow composting' (like the slow food movement). Don't worry be happy composting. They also make good worm bins - though chances are the worms wouldn't appreciate asphalt sealant. When we got a truckload of manure with lots of red wigglers in it I threw a few shovelfulls of that on the bird's nest. When I checked last they were colonizing it.
Sounds like you've done the hard work and have enough of a system going now to take it easier. People will see what you've done - it's bound to sink into their unconscious and do some good there, at least.

Thanks for the words of encouragement. So far, the bins look good. I haven't been checking up on it too much, as I get a bit riled when it's messed with, but slow composting will work. But, I'll keep picking that asphalt sealant out when I can. Somehow, I have faith in the ability of compost microorganisms to survive and overcome the asphalt sealant.

Our kids' 4-H club will probably use that compost on the hill we landscape in exchange for meeting space at the church. A couple of the 4-H kids helped build the newest set of bins, so they'll be interested in seeing what comes out of it. This September, when we were working on 'our hill', I had the 4-H kids haul the grass clippings, weeds, leaves we cleaned up to the newest compost bins. Then we used a bit of the older finished compost (not affected by the asphalt sealant,) to add to the flower beds we've created. I think the kids are getting a bigger benefit out of this than the church. Future composters! Yay!!