In March 2022 I built two stacked brick towers as long term compost bins for all the woody yard waste I didn’t want to deal with, material that felt like too much effort for my regular compost, mostly materials from neighbours.

Cedar clippings, huge bags of laurel hedge trimmings, fruit tree branches, palm leaves, Jerusalem artichoke stalks, sunflower stems, full paper yard waste bags of grass, leaves, random clippings that I tossed in whole.

I didn’t shred anything, I didn't layer, I didn't turn it. Just stacked bricks in a circle about 33 inches across, filled as I went, and whenever it got full I added another couple rows of bricks and kept going. Started in 2022 and kept adding through 2023.

The towers also doubled as a privacy screen from my neighbour, and adds some architectural interest in winter.

Anyway, I finally started taking one apart and I’m honestly shocked at how gorgeous this compost is.

I’m just pulling the bricks off row by row and scooping it out by hand into 5 gallon buckets, no sifting really needed.

So far I’ve pulled about 15 buckets of compost and have less than a bucket of sticks. And even those are mostly soft enough to crumble or snap. I’ll just throw them back into the next pile.

The texture is unreal. Super fine, fluffy, loose, and smells amazing. Lots of fungal activity from all the wood. Even the thicker stuff like bamboo has darkened and softened a lot. It’s still there, but it snaps easily now so it’s going back in for round two.

For scale, the material in this bin had settled to about 4 and a half feet tall. At 33 inches diameter that works out to roughly 800 litres, or about 210 gallons of compost. I haven't started unstacking the second bin, so I'm not sure how much that one has settled.

I’ve already topped one garden bed with a few inches of it (no dig, tomatoes going in there this year) and it looks incredible.

This was almost a zero effort system. I just dumped stuff in and ignored it. No turning, no chopping, no balancing greens and browns beyond whatever happened naturally. I really throught it would still be super rough and not broken down.

Even stacking the bricks was low effort, as I stacked as I went. Ditto for harvesting, I've harvested some, and I'm just unstacking slowly as I go. If I wanted to stop where I am, I could easily plant squash or tomatoes in the base of the tower, using it as a raised bed for a season.

When I finish emptying this one I’m just going to restack the bricks and start again. I used the base ring from a Dalek style composter as a guide to get the circle right, then just built up from there.

I really didn't expect such fine compost, I feel like I won the lottery, just as I was stressing about my hot compost taking too long and not having compost for spring planting. What a nice surprise.

These shredders are awesome !

So satisfying making tree confetti and it take branches up to 45mm diameter !

Pro tip, detach the safety key from the bucket that it comes with, plug it back in and leave it in there. Set it up on top of you heap and voila, non stop shredding until it buries itself.

Making dirt is a weird hobby.

I built this double barrel wooden compost tumbler last October and have been filling it ever since.

9 months of food scraps, garden clippings, wheel barrows of fallen leaves, and entire lawn mower bag of grass clippings, who knows how many cardboard boxes and paper packing materials… all in ONE barrel!

I’ve never emptied it or moved on to the second barrel. No matter how much I add, it always seems to break down to be less than half a barrel (one barrel is 30 gallons capacity).

I’m sharing because I’m simply blown away by how much material it is going to take to fill these barrels. They are seemingly bottomless!

Just wanted to share my idea for a compost bin made from fallen branches. I was tired of constantly cleaning up branches and having limited space to dispose of them. So one day I just started weaving them together into a circle leaf bin that will itself decompose over time.

I use mostly oak leaves as my browns but they take forever to decompose. I let them pre-compost here for 6-12 months before making a hot pile in the geo bins.

I am designing a woodland style garden in our backyard so this will fit right into the aesthetic.

*Still unfinished - will be adding a second door and a hinged roof.

My first woodworking project, albeit a little crude. Was bored before my uni semester started so I decided to borrow dad’s miter saw and make a more sophisticated compost bin. The base is made out of fired brick leftovers from our house’s facade. I spent an entire summer cutting whole bricks and these middle pieces filled up several pallets so I’m trying to use them wherever I can lol. Any questions or suggestions are welcome!

for context this compost has been going for over four months, and this an update. I posted about this a month ago here: previous post.

I have been feeding the compost all kinds of organic waste material such as vegetable scraps, tea leaves, eggs, fish bones and chicken/meat bones.

At this point the compost has really gotten full, I’ll probably soon stop filling this compost and allow the maggots to eat everything out. Until then i have another compost pit I will use.

p.s. the maggots or black solder fly larvae

Man, for people who spend a lot of time in the sun some of you throw some shaaaaade haha.

Not affiliated with anyone in any way im just a dude shreddin.

Rember folks,

Golden showers bring May flowers.

And solid enough to park a car on top of it. 😆

I shared this build a while back on gardening but wanted to post it here since this is the better place for it.

I already made fun of myself for being extra and all that in the other post for my expensive fancy dirt collector. Not saying you can’t too but just saying.

All in all it was around $500 in materials. $350 in cedar and screws, $100 for steel mesh, 50 for other small things. Used around 23 cedar boards from HD and some 2x4s I had laying around.

Due to the space I wanted it and the materials and ease of cuts (cut everything in half), I opted for one big 4x4x4 bin. I did start a less formal pile in the woods as well as a secondary one.

On filling it, it’s taken around 1 month! I knew I would have lots of yard waste to fill it up with but it’s been fun. I mean who else gets excited to go bag grass clippings in 95 degree heat?

I’ve been using my super composter 9000 (craftsman m110) for both my greens and my browns. I blow leaves into a flat area of my woods for further mulching before adding them in. I would say it’s 95% leaves and grass clippings, 5% coffee grounds and garden/ weed waste.

It’s already hot. I haven’t turned it yet but considering options to add some air or move things around a little. Initial thoughts were maybe like a big auger or just kind of stab it around with a pitch fork.

Started off with my old potting mix from last year! Have a whole bunch of leaves I plan to shred, and now can finally start to put our kitchen scraps to good use! Thank you to my wife for the nice Valentines Day gift!

Was running out of space in my small bin so I upgraded. Hardware cloth & a latched gate to keep mice out. Really wanted something bigger I could turn more easily. My previous bin had no ground contact so hopefully I'll get some good microbes & earthworms in here now

...we don't need to talk about my carpentry skills, I already know

Edit because I type poorly. What I was attempting to ask if it looks like it's "working"? I would imagine even if so I have several months left for it to be done.

Hello. So it's made up of dead leaves, coffee grounds and grass clippings. Very early on it got hot when I added the coffee grounds I was was measuring 140 degrees. It would even steam when I turned it which was nice to see. It doesn't get hot anymore, don't know why. But to me I think it looks OK? I think it could use a few more months baking in south Texas sun but does it seem to be on right track to you all? I'll post a video and then reply with a picture.

Finally got me a compost station. Now my big pile doesn’t look so big anymore.

After being frustrated and disappointed with tumblrs and store bought composters I built my own (hopefully) rodent proof bin

I’m fairly new to this composting adventure so admittedly, this may be a little overbuilt but I had the vision of it in my head and had to go for it. Still need to add the front walls and some sort of cover before rainy season starts. I’m pretty happy with the main structure so far and had to share.

Time to mix a few of my loose piles and kitchen scraps.

Hello all, first post here. I am building a composting trommel and could use some advice. The drawing is a rough sketch of where it’s going. I’m considering the motor for this now. I’m uncertain of the rotation speed and amount of torque it will need to run a belt and pulley.

I haven’t settled on a finished length. I have some 700cc rims on the way (listed as RIM WEI 700C 622x16.7 AS23X 36 SL/NMSW SV). I’m waiting until those get here to measure the inside diameter for 1/2 hardware cloth and the width for the fender washers to hold rivets and mesh. Haven’t selected rollers yet either. Base will probably be board, screws, and brackets with wheels on one end to move it around.

I have a circa 2015 dewalt 20vXR weedeater motor and controller/battery assembly I was gonna use but the lowest rpm is around 4000 lol. The control assembly is useful and the motor would be too if I knew enough to put a gear reducer on it. I’m fairly handy so if there’s a good technical solution I love a challenge and tinkering.

I have had a lot of Soldier Bot fly larvae’s in my compost, and finally i got myself some chicken so they get the best meal!

So I just finished my first large bin, which I was referring to in a previous post of mine and wanted to share it to see what you guys had to say about it. Main source of material is going to be the hay my goats throw around their sleeping area which the chickens defecate on, so I am also curious to hear whether you peeps think I should focus on more carbon sources or more nitrogen sources.

I have noticed that the heap of old hay in the back of the forest from which I got some material had gray stuff in it, so I do believe it to be a pretty good C-N mix as it got hot enough to get burned, but as I said, curious about your thoughts.

The large sticks got accidentally pulled up from the base layer I threw in last week.