Here is an album of mine. I built it in the last 2 weeks. The bins are about 5' wide and 4' deep each. I build these so that I could have compost but so that it would also look okay to people that visited my house.

Here is a link that might be useful: Compost Bin

Here's mine along with my garden helpers.

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Most compost is coffee waste, some leaves & grass chippings.
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Nice! I wished my comp wasnt a pice of $**t. I want to compost my comp! I cant upload pics because my comp wont recognize my camera.

I wish I could get some "garden helpers". My grandmother is afraid they will stink plus my city "outlawed" them :-(

Despite your passionate emotions I would not advise composting your computer. The boards are loaded with heavy metals and the plastic likely has quite a bit of polybrominated diphenylether fire retardants which will (if you are male) cause you to grow man-boobs. If you are female I won't even go into it, but it's even worse.

My usual remesh panel bin. I don't really "turn" them, I wait until it's time to rip the bin apart and get more compost.

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Compost being removed - the outer border is not ready, so it gets tossed into the bottom of the new bin, as does any large lump of compost that makes it through the sifter.

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and compost sifter, Three scrap bicycle rims, some scrap lumber, and about 6 feet of 1/2 inch hardware cloth, and some teensy wheels.

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OH ... I grow stuff in them too.
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@lazygardens: I really like your setup. Are your panel bins made from "concrete reinforcing wire" (4' x 8' panels)?

I also like how your growing in the actual compost pile. I had a couple of "volunteer" tomato plants grow out of my compost pile this year and I decided to let one of them grow. It's outside my fenced garden area, so my little dogs will probably eat all the tomatoes.

Here's one of three piles:
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Management:
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Life is so much easier with a front end loader!

I compost horse manure and pine stall bedding. Stall leavings are dumped from a wheelbarrow into a small utility trailer beside the barn, then once a week I move the trailer to a big pile in my composting area. Every few months I start a new pile.

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I know I should have included something to give scale to the pile, the fence behind is six feet tall, the pile is five feet tall, freshly turned.

There you go Allen456, looks alot like my pile! Inlcluding the over tall grass growing along the edges :)

That's one reason I'm considering some sort of containment. I guess all the good nutrients oozing out of the compost pile is encouraging growth around the edges.

I'm thinking either a "panel bin" (as pictured above by lazygardens or a couple of pallet bins (no pictures of one of those yet.)

Scotty -
Two remesh panels and some hog rings to make the circle. When I need to open the bin, I remove one set of rings and unwrap the "muffin".

Stuff does fall out of the sides, especially if the thrashers and towhees and quail start digging, but I rake it up and toss it back on top. If you wanted to have a tidier bin, an outer wrap of chickenwire would work.

The tomatoes are growing in a layer of 50/50 garden dirt and compost from another bin. I made a shallow saucer, lined it with newspaper and filled it with the mix, then planted tomatoes. A 1/4 in soaker line looped into the planters to keep the plants happy, and the water also speeds up the composting process.

After the tomatoes freeze in the fall, I either rip the heap apart or toss a bunch more stuff on it ... depends on how much is sank over the summer.

The heaps are casual - I toss all the kitchen scraps, occasional dead pigeons, dry leaves, weeds, and what little grass clippings we produce. Old plants too ... the bean vines, queen's wreath, etc. If we're shredding stuff, it usually ends up as mulch, not compost.

Lazygardens,

I love your harvester...and the fact that it's made from reclaimed materials. Is it possible for a compost harvester to be sexy? Clearly, the answer is yes.

lazygardens, yours looks like ours. We just keep piling it up till it's full, then lift the wire, move it over, then scoop the pile over and use what's ready. It's simple and it works. Just hate that having to bend part in our old age.

Pile #1 by the deck

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Piles #2 and 3 by the garage

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..
Lazygardens,

I think your sifter is brilliant.

I also like your general approach I'm picking up on. If necessity is the mother of invention, laziness is the father.

thanks
..

All I have is a video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6PfMUzAGyU

Rob

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Fun video Rob. Hope you don't get composted.

thanks
..

I have an album on Flickr of compost. I like hot composting.

Here is a link that might be useful: my compost photos

Here are the plans for the compost sifter.

I sift to get out the big chunks of things that aren't decomposed yet: pine cones, twigs, etc.

What I use in the garden is about half-done because it lasts longer in our climate. And I'm not intimidated by the rules of compost making.

Here is a link that might be useful: Plans for compost sifter

I have several compost piles of various sizes and ages. Some are enclosed in fencing, others are just piles - like this one that was made today. A section of my yard was reclaimed which had 3 years of leaves and lots of greens in a fairly good mix, so they're getting composted in place.
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Lazygardens, thanks for the plans.

Tropical thought, do the cats help the compost process? I find they only think they help.
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nice instructions Lazygardens! I hadn't screened my compost before, maybe that explains why I have so many volunteer tomato and watermelon plants this year :)

Hey Carrie...if I am seeing correctly, you used zip ties to hold the corners together? I remember you had problems with those bins but never did hear how you resolved the issue. They look fine now.

Lloyd

Lloyd - exactly right - you've got a good memory! I drilled holes all up & down all four corners of each bin & zip tied them together. The bins themselves are pretty flimsy - but I went on the cheap. When it's time to replace these, I will get sturdier bins - ones that the rodents have to spend 20 minutes chewing through rather than 20 seconds... examine the inner top rim of the left hand side bin.

Posted by scotty66 8 Hutto TX (My Page) on
Tue, Apr 24, 12 at 19:52

nice instructions Lazygardens! I hadn't screened my compost before, maybe that explains why I have so many volunteer tomato and watermelon plants this year :)
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Maybe, but I suspect your pile isn't getting hot enough to kill the seeds (most seeds will find their way through all but the smallest sifters).

FWIW, every year I get some volunteer plants. I often will let them go. Guess I have a soft spot.

Carrie, I saw that hole and assumed you had just damaged it out of frustration with your fork. Rodent, eh?

Lloyd

Lloyd, no pic's?
lazygardens, love your simple compost pile.
My uncle had one of them, it worked great.
The compost looks like it would feed a no till garden & mulch the weeds at the same time.
I have got to remember to make one this fall, for all the spare leaves.
Been using a flat screen, but think I will make yours,too.

Lloyd - I assume so. I live in a big city... I've got lots of squirrels visiting my yard, but they're not the suspect rodents...

Hole that big? Not squirrels? Kinda narrows it down, I hate them with a passion!

Haven't posted pics because I think darn near everyone has seen my pics already. :-)

Lloyd

"near everyone" is the key phrase ... post away!!!

I'd post a pic but I'm too lazy to figure out how to post a pic using this 1970's-era sire :-)

Start with these.

Then if you're really bored, these.

Lloyd

can someone explain how to post an image? I read the directions and they make no sense. Or maybe I read the wrong directions ...

That's some good lookin' farmland, Lloyd!!

Yeah Loyd what is that a sod farm? Or soybean? Looks nice!

Lol!! Loyd if that is you with the beard in the last two pics me and you look exactly alike! Except I got less grays but Im catchin up;-)

jrmckins - to post a photo, you can upload your photos to one of the free hosting sites (I use Photobucket) and then, from there, copy the html code fro your photo, from the hosting site, into the body of your message. When you hit "preview" you should be able to see your message with the photos in it.

Lloyd - it could actually be the squirrels chewing the holes through my bins, right? And not anything else, right? It is squirrels, right? Please tell me that it is only squirrels that are going after my compost.

Here's my two-stall compost bin. The one on the right is almost done. You can also see that my 7 year old wasn't very neat when she added the shredded phone book.

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Not me in the picture.

I grow wheat. If it ain't wheat it's a weed. :-(

I take anywhere between 350-500 metric tonnes of yard trimmings each year and rotate the application between three fields. Some I use to make actual compost but 80-90% is applied directly to a fallow field.

Carrie...I had a squirrel chew a really nice hole in a large rubbermaid container I had bird feed in. It was an incredibly perfect round hole up near the top of a three foot container. How the heck he hung over the edge of the lid to do it is beyond me. I hate squirrels almost as much as I hate rats.

Lloyd

My composting story is the link below. Like Carrie, I am an urban gardener and I also use zip ties to hold the bin together.
Kath

Here is a link that might be useful: Oh Poo

The dominant weed in my garden? Matt's wild Cherry tomato, and tomatillos.

I don't worry about killing weed seeds with a hot compost pile. I just run a scuffle hoe over them after they sprout.

Mine is made from a 10 foot roll of hardware cloth (wire). I move it every once in a while because the ground underneath gets a load of nutrients. Volunteer tomatoes do sprout up. The stake is so it doesn't blow away in a Santa Ana wind.

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Here is a link that might be useful: Compost basics

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Older pile that I ran over with the lawn mower a few times and turned:

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The straw was free after Halloween from craigslist.

art 1, you get the prize for a compost pile most resembling cousin itt.

Lol cousin it!

Heres mine. Just a box now in the back of the yard.

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blazeaglory, nice yard.

joli thanks! Here it is a little over a year ago...Lol If I would have known better I would have planned things better but I take it day by day:-) My grandfather used to manage the yards but he passed away last December so I came home to stay and help Granny.

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Here is a link that might be useful: Yard Progress