Nick Noyes - Easy Composters You Can Build

Nick Noyes

Composting, which in its most basic form is simply the process of decomposition, began long before we humans ever took it upon ourselves to make it an organized activity. Given enough time and the proper conditions, organic matter breaks down. Composting, as we use the term in the modern sense, is a system for enhancing, and thus accelerating, the natural process of decomposition. Since composting is going to take place with or without us, we can make the process as simple or as complex as we choose and be assured of success every time.

When I began, everything I knew about composting was what I had learned from my dad. Its a wonder that I ever started, though, as his experience was... well, ill-fated. Always a person ahead of his time, one spring in the mid-1960s he decided to make a compost bin out of a big old steel oil tank. The tanks walls were quite thick, so he had a welder cut a hole in one end to put in materials, and a door in the other end to remove the compost. Iron legs were welded to the bottom for stability. Dad painted the tank green and stood it up in the backyard. It was about six feet tall, four feet wide, and two feet deep.

A tank that big can accommodate a great deal of compostable material. In fact, it held much more than a family of four in a suburban neighborhood could produce. For the first time in our familys history dad stopped insisting that we finish all the food on our plates. In fact, we were lucky to have eaten what we wanted before our plates were scraped and dad was headed for the tank. Unfortunately, everything went into that tank, including meat, fat, and bones, and I shudder to think what else. With his family unable to generate sufficient waste, my father also collected all sorts of material from friends (many of whom were fishermen).

Almost no air could get to the material in the tank, and in no time it was filled with a rotting, awful-smelling mess. My brother and I complained. Our neighbors complained. Dad kept heaping on the materials. It was only a matter of time, he said, before the system would be working correctly. The outcry grew louder, though. By September, due to popular demand, dad stopped using the bin.

Dads oil bin composter stood in the back yard for more than a decade. The stuff in it eventually stopped smelling bad, and by the early 70s he was indeed using compost from it on his garden. See, it did work. he said at the time. You wont find plans for my dads composter here.

Personally, I am a lazy composter. Unlike my dad, who wanted compost for his garden, I began composting as a way to reduce the waste that my family sent to the landfill. My first compost bin was a concrete block enclosure made by simply stacking the blocks. I took advantage of a corner of the chain link fence that enclosed our backyard, and used the blocks to form a square. Two sides of the bin were fence, and two sides were block. When our dog developed a fondness for the area, I added a lid, making a frame with 2x4s and stapling chicken wire to the frame. I attached the lid to one of the chain link walls of the composter with heavy wire. The lid lifted easily to put in my compost materials and then dropped right back into place over the pile. Keeping out a bigger dog than ours might have also required a latch.

Almost nothing but kitchen and yard waste go on my compost pile. Other materials, as you will read, may be used if handled properly, but the memory of dads compost mix lingers, so I play it very safe. I rarely turned that first compost pile of mine, usually only when adding fall leaves, to mix it up a bit. But it made a great rich humus anyway. After four or five years there was a great base of decomposed material. I never did put any of it in my garden. I ended up using it to fill in some low spots in my yard as I prepared to sell the house. This seems like a terrible waste of that great stuff now, but it got me started on the right track.

Ive built a number of bins since that original one of concrete block, and, by trial and error, learned a bit more every time. This book is designed to help both the beginning and seasoned composter to organize an efficient composting system to fit their particular needs. It covers the reasons for composting, the materials and methods of composting, and finding a suitable location. It also presents a variety of plans for building your own bins and boxes for efficient composting.

My dads experience notwithstanding, a compost system should be one of the more pleasurable minor accomplishments of life. With as much or as little effort as you wish to put into it, youre helping to address the environmental problems that we all share. Plus, youre creating a useful, beneficial product. Composting can be a simple matter of tossing kitchen and yard waste into a contained pile or it can be a three-bin, multi-layered time- and temperature-monitored extravaganza. What works best is what works best for you.

Even though youve already decided to make compost, thinking about the why of making compost is important in deciding what type of bin to make and where to locate it. Perhaps your only interest is to save money on your trash disposal bill and/or be kinder to the environment. Maybe (horrors!) you dont even have a garden. For you the simplest of bins is probably the best answer. If youre in no rush to have usable composted material you can keep your easy-care pile working and odor-free with just an occasional turn of the pile and little else. A simple wire bin or quickly assembled concrete block enclosure may be all you need.

Gardeners who compost save money in many ways. Compost contains nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, plus trace nutrients that plants need, so it reduces the need for purchased fertilizer. It releases nutrients at a natural rate, keeping pace with the growth patterns of plants, and makes wonderful improvements to soil texture. In addition, its filled with organisms useful to the soil, from microorganisms to earthworms. Finished compost may be used as mulch around plants, saving the cost of wood mulch and helping to conserve water by keeping roots moist. And because it is so helpful to soil texture, compost also eliminates the need to purchase peat moss.

As a gardener discovering the myriad uses and virtues of compost, you may decide that you must quickly produce vast quantities on an ongoing basis. A system such as this will require a bit more time and attention to detail. You might want to consider a large and durable structure situated for easy access, and convenient to load and turn.

Although they are not strictly required for composting to occur, compost bins are useful for a number of reasons. First, bins are tidy. Piles out in the open are harder to control, especially to keep piled up and properly aerated and watered, than ones that are contained. Frequent turning accelerates composting, and a pile in a bin is easier to turn without making a mess. Bins help hold in heat as the compost works, increasing the likelihood that weed seeds and pathogens will be destroyed, an especially important factor if you will use the compost on your garden.

Another good reason for a bin is animals. Animal problems are second only to odor problems as the factors that gave early composting efforts a bad name. Both problems are easily avoided. With minimum effort, a properly designed and managed compost heap will not create any problems with animals. Period. Ive never had problems with wild animal visits, even living in the country. Of course, if you toss on something appealing to varmints and dont cover it up right away, having a bin that restricts animals will head off potential raids. An animal-proof bin will also help alleviate concerns that uninitiated neighbors might have about your new pursuit (until they see your success and start composting themselves).