New Compost Bin
Good afternoon! So, you typed in something to do with compost bins into your search engine, and you stumbled across this post on about the 15th page of search results! Well, welcome to my allotment diary wittering. This post is about constructing a new compost bay for free. Earlier this year, we took on the half plot next to ours which has meant we have a load more room to use. One of the best uses of space anyone with an allotment can make is for a compost bay. Up until now, we have had a single compost bay of around 1 meter cubed. It has kind of worked fine, but it has always be awkward to turn the compost over, often needing me to get in the bay and just dig down, or, not to bother at all.
A recent listing on marketplace told of someone with a bunch of pallets they were trying to get rid of ASAP. A quick enquiry, and I was soon in possession of 5 pallets of reasonably good quality. Importantly, these pallets were also untreated with any sort of paint or chemical and thus safe to use for making compost. These new pallets, and some plastic sheet I already have around the plot was all I needed to make the current one bay compost system into a 2 bay system.
Many people I have read about or followed have said that a 3 bay set up is the minimum you should aim for, but I don't quite think that's fair. Unless of course you have the space and materials to make all those bays, and of course, the raw materials to put in the bays to start off with. I don't create a huge amount of waste that can be composted on the plot. Certainly not enough to fill more than one bay. More often, I either chop and drop and let it rot down in the beds over winter, or it gets bagged up and taken away out of an abundance of caution when considering blight, club root or other such disease. All I need is a 2 bay side by side arrangement so when it comes to turning the pile, I can simply fork it from one bay into the other, mixing it up, adding anything else I want to as I do it and allowing air to get into the mix as well. I hope having a second bay and making it easier to turn the heap over will allow more heat to be generated and break down the nasties even more and obviously, making the whole composting process quicker.
On a misty Monday morning, with rain in the forecast and a cool northerly wind starting to blow, I set about arranging the pallets into place.
Creating a simple "U" shape with the pallets, I screwed them together at the corners and shuffled them into their final positions making sure that I left room for access behind the bay and along side by the shed. I didn't want the new bay to be too wide, so I turned the rear pallet up onto its end, adding height to the shape instead of width.
Rotating the rear pallet 90 degrees though meant that the side pallets were too short. To address this, I cut the 4th pallet into 3 sections, using 2 of them to add height to the sides of the bay, again screwing them into place. As the pallet wood is untreated, it will rot down pretty quickly when the composting material is loaded into the bay. To give it a bit of protection and longevity, I then pinned some black polythene around the internal walls of the new bay.
The pallets are pretty heavy, and with the amount of screws I put in place, the structure of the bay is quite solid now. I had kept the last pallet (which is lighter than the others used in the build) to create the front of the bay. It means that I should be able to lift it out of the way easily when it comes to either using the content, or when filling it up. I used some last remaining strips of black plastic to line the front to finish it off.
The last piece of the puzzle is to figure out how I can attach the front pallet of the bay, but in a semi-permanent fashion. I don't want to screw it in place, but just have it held there so it can easily be moved. I think I have two options for this bit. I have a ton of old rope at home, so I could simply just tie it into place. Alternatively, I also have some hooks which I could mount on the ends of the side pallets. When they are in place, the front pallet could just be lifted on and off those hooks as and when I need to open the bay up.
About an hour and a half of shuffling around, screwing pallets together, pinning plastic sheeting into place (and not managing to hit my fingers with the hammer for a change) I now have a second compost bay ready for use. Unfortunately, the day job now gets in the way of daylight hours for weekdays, so other than on booked days off from work, I'm restricted to weekend only activities on the allotment. The next big job on the plot will be to make use of this new bay, and turn the contents of the right back into the new one, where it will probably stay until the spring when I will turn it once again.
Until next time fellow growers, be good!
