There are some pretty ingenious ideas in this article about DIY compost bins. I’ve actually done several of these and am still using them. I use a DIY compost bucket in the kitchen, made from an old butter tub. At our old house I made my compost bin from salvaged pallets. I used old coat hanger wire to tie the pallets together and my garden just LOVED the compost from that bin. When I moved to my apartment I used large black garbage cans, first one, then two, and thankfully we moved into our tiny house before the third garbage bin became too heavy to move. In fact, when we moved, the movers we hired looked at us funny when we told them we wanted to take the garbage bins full of “dirt” with us. The lead mover tried to argue but I explained that those bins were several years worth of household compost and I wasn’t leaving them behind. He eventually conceded and I made sure to tip them well for having to deal with those very heavy bins. Did I mention that they were sitting on my second floor apartment balcony? I have to give those guys credit, after their initial hesitation they met the challenge head-on and we got those bins to our new home without incident. Hiring movers was the best decision we made about moving – there’s no way we could have done that ourselves.
Once settled into the new home, I did break down and buy a compost tumbler. It’s been great at speeding up the composting process. There’s so much heat radiating from the compost, I know it’s cooking nicely. In fact, I read an article once on making a “DIY compost water heater” – I’ll link that article here when I find it. But the compost gets so hot – I think this would actually be doable! That’s a possible DIY project for the future.
Oh! I almost forgot! Someone gave me a worm composting bin recently, they said “I knew you were into all that composting stuff and figured you’d make better use of this than me.” Now I just have to figure out how to set it up!
One last gem – if you’re a coffee drinker like me – please please please save your coffee grounds! Or ask at your local coffee shop for their used grounds. Your garden will LOVE you!
https://vr.staging.stswebhosting.com/homestead/45-diy-compost-bins-to-make-for-your-homestead/