New Compost Bin

What do you do during the winter?

Quite simply, we build and repair things. You know, general maintenance. Sure it can be cold outside but that's part of owning a farm! You get to experience each season as it is.

For our first project, I decided to put together a compost bin. We already had most of the wood we needed squirreled away in our pole barn and we were struggling with a loose pile of food scraps. It only made sense!

Gather the materials.
 

I decided to build it 3' high and 4' wide. No formula or anything. I just thought about how I'd rather not have to dig into a super deep pile. But that's just me!

I also decided to make the corners out of 3' long pieces of 2x2. But since I wanted to make the front of the bin removable, I need a total of six 3' pieces. I'll explain this a bit later. After a trip to Home Depot, I was ready to head out to the pole barn to pull out pieces that would make up the sides of the compost bin. Each one was about 12' long so I could get three 4' pieces out of each. I wasn't sure how many I would need so I decided to just grab a bunch and start cutting. If you don't have the scraps to do this, you might want to do some measuring and some math.

Cut it out.

Using a circular saw and a couple of saw horses, I cut the 2x2 pieces into 3' lengths and the 12' lengths into 4' pieces. Each piece of scrap lumber ended up being just under 6" wide so I needed six pieces per side. Four sides times six pieces equals 24. But whatever. I also decided to cut little triangles out to put in each corner for reinforcement. I assumed that this would be necessary but I don't know for sure that it is.

Lay it out.

Space out the corner pieces and lay the side pieces between them as you cut them out. This is actually what let me know that I would need six pieces per side. I laid everything out before I started screwing anything together.

Put the pieces together.

Once the pieces were spaced out evenly, I started screwing them in using deck screws. This is easier if there is a flat surface for you to work on. I started out on the back deck but ended up moving into the garage.

Make a box

Once I had one piece put together, I built a frame upon which I can start adding pieces. This ended up being a bit clumsy and maybe there's another way to do it? Or if you have a friend to help, s/he can hold pieces for you while you screw them in. Notice that in the front, I put two pieces of 2x2 lumber. The purpose of this was to create a track. The reason why I did this was to make it so I could remove the front slats to make accessing the compost easy. I just pictured trying to get a shovel over the walls and what a pain that would be. Just check out the first picture and all will be clear!