Learn how to make a DIY Compost Bin with this simple tutorial that identifies the best way to make a compost bin out of wood scraps from past projects. This simple and beautiful DIY compost bin will be a great addition to your garden this year.
For many home gardeners, having a composting system is not only a great way to minimize waste, but also to save money on buying needed compost throughout the growing season. It’s a great way to dispose of yard waste and dried leaves along with kitchen scraps. We tried many systems like the compost bin when we first started making compost, but this newer system combined with our chickens is a great way to create nutrient-rich compost in a great way. easy, low cost and beautiful. Even though it is homemade it feels really nice and modern. It doesn’t take much effort and can be placed near the garden or anywhere you want.
When we designed our compost bins, we wanted them to connect to our custom chicken coop (you can get plan for our big diy chicken coop!). Chicken manure is a great source of heat especially in cool climates for composting, so we wanted to get all the benefits out of it. They also make it easier to deal with compostable organic materials.
That said, our compost bin is attached to the back of the run for our chicken coop, but this bin can be built standalone with 6-8′ tall 6.4″x4″ posts protected by cement. But you can use scraps to create these posts as well as full content, and in fact, that’s what we did. With leftovers from our own construction DIY chicken coop, we’ve got everything to build this DIY compost bin. If you used Do-it-yourself garden fence you can actually use a post to secure this.
Quick tips for successful incubation:
Successful composting can seem daunting, but it’s actually quite simple to compost almost all of your kitchen scraps, garden leftovers, and even some packaging you receive in the mail. At the high end, all you need is a healthy balance of brown and green matter to start the composting process. In general, if your compost pile is smelly, you need to add brown matter. It is best to lay the layers evenly, but monitoring the pile and turning it frequently will encourage the pile to heat up and stay active. Here are some things you can brew:
- Brown Matter items: These items are things like cardboard, leaves, shredded cotton material, straw, shredded paper, wood chips, natural fibers of any kind, wood ash from fire pits, newspapers, and chopped grass. At the start of your stack having a good hard layer on the bottom of the bin or brown matter (carbon) pile will ensure faster processing times.
- Green material: All vegetable scraps from the kitchen (some take longer to process than others like banana peels and avocado peels), coffee grounds, compostable tea bags, animal manure (chicken or animal manure) other herbivore), old flowers, animal or human hair, crushed eggshells, and garden debris.
More or less you are looking to balance the Nitrogen and Carbon in your compost bin by layering the material regularly and mixing the compost well. It’s a huge science experiment going on but it will come together when you pay attention and give it the proper rotation, humidity and heat. This can be difficult through the very cold winter months, which is where we put a weighted tarp over the pile to compress and seal the heat inside in the winter. We provide chicken scraps in the winter and in the spring, move the floor to the compost bin. This raises heat levels in the spring when it is difficult to do so. This pile then becomes our working pile in the summer and is spread in the fall.
There’s a larger post where we’ll be sharing our full range of compost suggestions and tips next month.
The best materials for a do-it-yourself compost bin:
There are many materials you can use for your compost bin. Mostly you want to use materials that are non-toxic or don’t wash away anything into your compost bin. If you use wood, I recommend untreated woods as they will leach chemicals into your compost, then you will potentially contaminate your vegetables if you do this. I do not recommend using shipping pallets because it is very difficult to know where the wood comes from and how it has been treated. Here are some suggested materials that you can use for wooden exteriors.
- Galvanized steel
- Cedar
- Plastic fence
- Aluminum fence
- Metal cladding for cattle
- Large Trash Can or even a Plastic Tote
For this DIY we used Cedar left over from the construction Do-it-yourself garden fence and Homemade chicken coop.
How to protect the compost bin:
Most people are interested in animals and compost bins. This is a real concern. We personally have very few problems and despite the bears being around we haven’t had any. Therefore, at present, we do not pay too much attention to the preservation of compost. But you can do this by using metal boards etc to secure the compost inside with the top cap. It’s an easy addition to this design. You’ll want to add a lock as well on top because bears are so smart! Other creatures I worry less about. We have rats and rabbits to visit our compost regularly but if you keep the system spinning and even layers the scent will be very limited in attracting animals. You’ll also want to make sure you don’t add any meat or fish that would attract bears.
How many booths do I need for a Compost Bin?
For an efficient composting system you will need at least 2. You will see some people have 3, which is great too! But we have one heap in progress and one that is usable all the time. This means this:
- Booth 1: Here’s one we’re adding throughout that season. Usually this is late spring when we start adding and continue to decrease until fall. This will then be the processing pile starting in the Fall. We will stop adding to it.
- Booth 2: We’ll be the ones handling the whole winter, and we’ll start stocking things in the garden in the spring or even wait until fall. We keep rotating it and moving it, but nothing is added to it until it is emptied. Once we’ve emptied most of it, we’ll add to this both winter and spring again.
It all depends on what you are looking for and how much space you have available to you. The larger the space the more stalls you will need but for the casual or even family home gardener, this is a very normal sized composting system a must have.
How to make a simple DIY Compost Bin:
To create a simple compost bin, you will need some materials such as the following:
Materials for DIY compost bin:
- 6, 4 x4 6 or 8 Cedar Posts (Vertical Posts)
- Cedar Pillar 3-6, 4 x4 4 (Horizontal Beam)
- Cedar or hardwood planks
- Hardware cloth or galvanized fence
- Nail
- screw
- Drill
- hammer
- Shovel
- Saw
Step 1: Find your level
Almost every area will have some level or slope, and with your pillars falling to the ground 2′ to 3′, you’ll want to make sure that the vertices of your 4″x4″ pillars are equal. plane.
Step 2: Dig a hole in your post
As mentioned in Step 1, you want to make sure that your posts are safe in the background. A good rule of thumb is that 1/3 of the pier should be placed in the ground and placed on a concrete foundation. For the 8 ′ 4 ″ x4 pillars, we dug 3 holes and used a gravel base to create a good foundation for all 6 pillars.
Step 3: Cut the notches on your front side
In order for the drop-in bars to fit snugly, they need a groove to slide in. This doesn’t need to be an exact measurement as you can cut the boards to fit the space once the posts are in place, but you must ensure that the boards have some room to fall.
Step 4: Pour concrete foundation
After you’ve dug and leveled your holes, place your first pier in the ground and drop a mixed bag of quick dry concrete. It is safe to assume that, one bag is needed per article. Also, make sure you set the pitch for each post to make sure it’s correct before the concrete dries quickly. It can also be helpful to use a guide board screwed into the top of a post to connect posts as they set.
Step 5: Add Cross Posts
With the main post set, you’ll need to add top and possibly bottom cross posts to connect the front and back vertical posts. The bottom diagonal columns are an option if you are in an area that is not on the ramp.
Step 6: Add the wire
To keep all of your compost in the bin, you’ll need something to help hold the soil gold. We used 2″x4″ welded wire fence left over from the Chicken Coop enclosure, however, any non-degradable fence will work.
Step 7: Add the bars
You’ll want to measure the clearances to ensure a custom fit, but the boards should have enough room to slide up and down without getting stuck in motion.
Then you’re ready to start making your compost and end up having a beautiful finished compost pile in a few months’ time. Your garden will be grateful when you add it to create beautiful rich soil from all that composting material you can already handle so well.
You can learn more about composting in the Making Podcast episode, where I show you a bunch of great info on how to get started!
For more information on compost and soil, you can check out the following blog posts:
