This afternoon we started what we figured would be a pretty short and simple process. Of course any time you’re doing something for the first time, it tends to take a bit longer and be slightly more challenging than you expected. But I think we still managed to come through with flying colors.
My mom sent me photos of her own compost bin at home which is made from a rabbit cage. The cage is set far enough off the ground that you can reach under it to get your fresh compost and hardly any effort is required for it to work. When the dead plant matter that you have dropped in the bin is composted, it will fall through the wire of the cage and onto the ground. No turning or digging is required…and it’s a minimal investment. We actually only need to buy fresh wire to cover the cage and perhaps some lattice. Our PO (previous owner, not parole officer lol) left plenty of wood, screws and nails here for us to live off of for a while, even after we’ve disposed of a lot of it.
We had a couple of old chicken coop doors sitting on top of the wine cellar which we originally planned to throw away. But after looking at them a bit closer, we realized the wood would probably be perfect to construct the compost bin from them. The wood is sturdy and looks like it could be galvanized so it should hold up well outside.
We started by constructing the base. It measures 100 x 62 centimeters. Each board we used is 6 cm thick. Then we used 2 beams spaced 29 cm from each inner edge for support on the bottom. We’re screwing everything together with 5 x 70 screws.
The sides we built 70 cm high. We cut two 70 cm pieces and braced them along the top with a 94 cm beam. Then we screwed the front and back on and cut two more support braces for the top of the sides. These ended up at 53.5 cm for us.
Now our basic box is finished and we need to decide the right height for the legs. We also need to cover the bin with chicken wire or a finer mesh wire which will keep all the compost inside the bin. We are also thinking about covering the sides with lattice just to beautify it a bit.
We called it quits since we don’t have the wire yet to cover it or the lattice yet. And since it’s Sunday we’re not supposed to be making much noise. I don’t think using the power tools in your barn really dampens the noise so we hope our neighbors weren’t getting too perturbed. But we were inspired so we had to go with it…
