Today was a FULL outside work day! Me and my brother built a 4-in -1 compost bin out of old pallets. We also started compost in all four of the bins, using the resources we have on the farm, including goat, rabbit and chicken poop, old hay and pine shavings, food scraps and dead leaves. Take a look below to see what we built!
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| Front of the bin |
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| Back of the bin |
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| Middle of "compost city" |
Now we have 8 compost bins (including the ones I built a few months ago). I stir each compost bin every Monday (or try to ;), that way it gets enough oxygen to break down the components of the organic material. I'm hoping to get enough compost to fill all of our beds, and keep them going all year long.
Wanna know how to make compost? Here's how (not promising that it'll work for you, but it has for me)
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| Start out with a fresh, bare bin. |
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| Put a layer of old hay or grass clippings, preferably if it's peed and pooped on by chickens, rabbits and goats. This layer should be fairly thick. |
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| Add some food scraps (not too thick & too big) |
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| Add a layer of dead leaves on top of the scraps |
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| Add a small dousing of water to the bin |
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Do this kind of layering over and over until you have your bin at the fullness you want it. Make sure that you stir it at least once a week, and add stuff to it throughout the week. My bins usually take about 6 weeks (most of the time, composting takes longer than this, but I think mine compost faster because of the chickens scratching around and pooping in it every day...and the kind manure I'm using tends to compost faster) to completely compost into rich dirt. It's better if you have some earthworms in there, as they help break the compost material into rich soil...but don't worry if there isn't.
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| Me adding scraps to a bin |
Thanks for reading!
Goodnight everyone!
-Hannah
This post is linked to the Homestead Revival
Barn Hop #6
Wow! That's a composting operation for sure! I love your use of old pallets for the bins themselves. I need to build some new ones this spring and I think I'll see if I can find some. Great tutorial - thanks for linking up to the Barn Hop!
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting! I hope you're composting is successful too :)
ReplyDeleteYes! Thank you so much for this tutorial!
ReplyDeleteI have never composted anything except for the shavings and manure from my horse stalls......I get a lot!!!
I just have my husband mound it in a long tall furrow.
He can turn it over with his Bobcat now and then.
However I have just started to save food scraps from my kitchen and place them in a container under the sink with the intentions of learning how to compost....Iv looked at the compost bins you can buy and they are very expensive! I'm going to give this a try.
Oh yes, horse manure is EXCELLENT for composting! I would love to hear how your bins and compost turns out...I've had great success with mine doing it this way :) I hope you do too!
ReplyDeleteWhat awesome bins! And so much room- we definitely need to build some more at our house. The horse manure alone fills ours up! ;) Thanks for sharing this tutorial with the Homestead Barn Hop!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome! And thanks so much for your comment :)
ReplyDeleteLove this! I have a few pallets laying around and we need two compost piles for our modest sized backyard where we keep laying hens! I came over from the Barn Hop!
ReplyDeleteI'm the Cottage Hens entry!
thanks for this today!
Deb
Wonderful! Thanks for reading :)
ReplyDeleteThis is great! I will have to see if our bulk store would let us take some of their pallets... hmmm. Thanks for sharing!!!!
ReplyDeleteYes Marillyn, that is a great idea! That's where I got my pallets...at a local store. Thank you for commenting!
ReplyDelete