Mar 23

Written by: Tina
3/23/2009 9:59 AM 

For years, I've been saying I need to make a compost heap. I balked at the expense of purchasing one of the big plastic bins, so I kept putting off purchasing one of those. I saw instructions on how to make a bin using discarded pallets, but our cars are too small to lug those home. I saw instructions on how to make one out of chicken wire wrapped around a few posts, but I wondered how in the world I could get down in there to stir it around.

Last year, we even tried just throwing a bunch of kitchen waste in the backyard in a pile. Well, we weren't too successful using that method. It ended up spread around too much rather than being heaped. It was kind of stinky and drew flies. We abandoned that experiment fairly quickly.

Yesterday I was reading the Square Foot Gardening book and I came across a teeny tiny blurb about using an old garbage can as a compost bin. Why in the world you don't see more about doing that is beyond me. It is just perfect - minimal construction (the more I have to do to make it work, the less likely it is to get done), it's super cheap, it's enclosed so critters will be less likely to get into it.

Since the city switched over to standardized garbage cans for pickup, we've been using our two old cans for yard waste. I simply took the round plastic can and poked a bunch of holes in it. I tried using a hammer and a nail, but the holes were too small. A pair of old, but sharp scissors did the trick. I used the tip of one of the scissor ends to drill into the plastic - basically I just stuck it in and twisted it around until the hole was the size I wanted. Then I started filling it up with leaf litter and kitchen waste. It's nice and damp inside.

Best of all is that the lid fits pretty tightly so I can go outside every day and tumble it around a bit to mix things up. How cool is that? I'll update and let you know how it turns out. :)

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