Pallet Compost Bins

Another trash-to-treasure accomplishment from this past weekend? New compost bins made of out of the pallets leftover from all the bricks we used back in the summer.

Up to this point, our compost piles were incredibly slap-dash. When we moved in, we knew we wanted to get them started, so we used some wire fencing to make big, circular corrals for our leaves, kitchen scraps, and garden waste:

As you can see, they are neither attractive nor particularly sturdy. The one on the right has fallen apart, but that also reveals that, after two seasons of breaking down, there's some nice, dark stuff in there.

Still, after going to all the trouble of designing and building our dream garden, it would be a shame to spoil the view by leaving piles of crap around the edges. In fact, our compost bin design helped us deal with not one but two piles of crap at the same time:

We had a dozen or so pallets in varying conditions from all the bricks stacked up in the driveway. These are just a couple of them. Kirk took three of pallets (of the same size, to make it easier) and screwed them together to make the back and sides of a bin. Then he attached another pallet to the front with a bracket cut out of some scrap plywood:

The pallets are stable and heavy enough to stand up in place without too much help, and the bracket does enough to hold it together while still being easy to remove. When we want to open up the bin to shovel out compost or turn the pile, we'll pull off the brackets and move the entire front piece off to the side. This seemed easier in the long run than trying to deal with a hinged door or gate that could settle into the dirt and cause problems later. A dozen pallets make three nice, new compost bins:

Kirk did a really meticulous job filling these lasagna-style, layering green grass clippings with brown, dried leaves and some soil. Those layers should help it all break down more quickly. We decided to let the bins sit directly on the ground instead of using another pallet as the base. It might have been better for air circulation if we had made a slatted bottom, but we wanted to make the pallets go farther. Besides, this way worms have better access to the good stuff.

As you can see, we're not quite finished filling all these bins. The one on the left is still empty, but we have plenty more leaves to use. Also, to the far right you can see that we haven't broken down the old, wire compost pile. We might be able to transfer some of that to the new bin, but it's more likely that we'll wait until spring to sift out the good compost to use in the garden, then put up more new bins in the place of the old pile, so we'll end up with five or 6 bins in a line along the fence. Pallets really are an ideal way to build the compost bins, because they are already slatted for air circulation. And since they are pretty easy to pick up for free on Craigslist or Freecycle, you can't ask for a more eco-friendly project!