Build Your Own Compost Bin

For The Ultimate Organic Fertilizer

From Your Home & Garden Showplace

Veteran gardeners swear by compost. Compost starts out as household waste, but when ready, becomes a great addition to gardens that help transplants along and keeps the soil healthy. Just think of a compost heap as a pile of rotting garbage that ferments into useful garden fertilizer!

You can toss in all kinds of materials ranging from grass clippings to dead leaves to kitchen scraps such as vegetable peelings and nitrogen-rich eggshells. To speed the fermenting process along, try to use only small pieces and add manure, blood meal or cottonseed meal, all of which will accelerate decomposition. If the bin starts giving off heat, your compost pile's a winner. Here's a tip: aerate the pile regularly with a pitchfork to keep the micro-organisms working at full efficiency.

But just because it is a mound of trash, a compost heap doesn't have to look like one... just follow these plans for an environmentally friendly, aesthetically pleasing bin.

Here's what you'll need:

• Wood for the frame
• Wire mesh or wood for the walls
• Drill, screwdriver and screws to build frame
• Metal clippers for the mesh (if used)
• Metals hinges or latches for the removable wall
• Manure
• Fertilizer
• Pitchfork or shovel

Step 1. Choose a site that's level and shady, has good drainage and allows easy access to wheelbarrows, garden paths and water hose hookups.

Step 2. Compost bins have three permanent walls and one that's removable, allowing you to "turn" (mix) the materials within the bin. Whether you use wire mesh or wooden slats for the walls, you must have aeration to speed the decomposition process, so don't build anything airtight. And wherever in the bin you use wood, buy cedar or cypress, which will better resist the decaying effect from the bin's contents.

Step 3. Commonly, gardeners will build two bins with a shared middle wall: one bin to store already composted materials; the other for material that's still composting. Bins tend to be three feet wide by three feet long, and three- to four-feet high. There's no need for a top; moisture's a good thing because it speeds decomposition.

Step 4. Once you've built the bin, start by laying in a foot or so of material. You want a mix of fresh green materials (lawn clippings, weeds, sod) and inert materials (bone meal, sawdust, shredded paper). Next, put in a layer of manure or fertilizer, followed by an inch of topsoil. Repeat these layers until the bin is filled.

Step 5. Watch football games. Work on your barbecue sauce recipe. Visit with the family.

Step 6. After about three weeks have passed, take that removable wall down and use a shovel or pitchfork to mix the material. Throw on some fertilizer. About two weeks later repeat the process. Forgot to turn it? No problem, it will just take longer to decompose. If it seems too dry, just hose it down. Once it's turns a uniform brown, crumbles to the touch and is nearly odourless, it's all set for spreading!