How to Build a Simple Compost Bin

Do you buy chemical fertilizers for your garden each year? This practice is both expensive and environmentally hazardous, because of run off. There is a better way, an older way, a more natural way to rejuvenate your soil. Compost is the answer. Small farmers and homesteaders have known the practice of composting for centuries. If you are new to gardening or your garden failed last year, maybe composting is something you want to try.

What do you compost? Many of the things you send to the dump can be turned into compost-given a little time and not too much work from you. Anything that can decay can turn into compost. If you have ever taken a walk through the wood, you will see decaying leaves and rotting wood, this is nature composting. Nature is filled with little critter anxious to begin the work.

Compost has a side benefit beyond adding natural nutrients to the soil. Compost creates a more porous soil. This more porous soil is better able to absorb and hold moisture. This saves on water and improves both the quality and quantity of whatever it is you are growing.

You can purchase pre-made compost bins in a variety of sizes and styles and an equally wide range of prices, or you can construct a relatively simple one as follows:

Materials Needed To Build A Simple Compost Bin:

• Enough 4 or 5' high wire to enclose the size bin you wish to make, mine are 5' in diameter (chicken wire, old fencing, any type of wire as long as it has holes to allow air circulation, but not so large that the holes allow the compost materials to fall out).
• 5 wooden stakes or poles long enough to drive into the ground and still reach the top of the wire. (You have the choice of making this bin round or square. I prefer round, but if you go for square, you may need more stakes.)
• Enough flexible wire or twist ties to secure the wood stakes to the wire
• Wire cutters
• Pliers
• Hammer

How To Build A Simple Compost Bin:

• Place the wire in a circle so that the ends meet
• Place one stake directly across from the point where the two ends meet, drive it into the ground close to the wire with the hammer, then tie it to the wire using flexible wire or twist ties (use the wire cutters for cutting wire and the pliers for twisting)
• Repeat this process on the two sides of the circle.
• Where the two ends meet, drive one stake into the ground at one end of the wire and attach it to the wire with flexible wire or twist ties
• Place one stake on the remaining open end of the wire, where to two ends meet, but do not drive it into the ground. Just tie it to the wire. This serves as your door for stirring, turning or removing compost.
• Tie the free end stake to the stationary end stake with wire, remembering that you will be tying and untying these wires.
• Now start filling with composting materials.

Note: If the wire circle seems unstable, you can add more stakes.

Remember, anything that decays can become compost. Leaves, grass clippings, hedge trimmings, fruits, vegetables, weeds and garden scraps. You have merely to pile it up, stir or turn it from time to time and let nature do her work.

This simple compost bin can be moved from place to place, it can be rolled up and stored when not in use and doesn't require great technical know how to construct. You may want to have a second set of hands available, wire can sometimes be hard to wrangle, if it has been tightly rolled.

How do you know when it is "cooked?" The compost will be dark, moist and in small bits. When it reaches this stage, add it to your garden soil by tilling or turning. I always keep two compost bins going. When one is getting close to finished, I can add new materials to the other, without losing any time.