Last year, I started composting. Grass clippings, kitchen food waste, leaves and unbleached shredded cardboard were fed to a pile at the back of my yard. The pile’s hunger was insatiable. Before the weather got too cold, I decided to build some compost bins. Moving the piles into a three-bin system over the winter should help break down the material into soil for my raised garden beds. Although I recently stained an unfinished a picnic table set, this is the first wood project I’ve built from the ground up.

Although I’ve had several projects in mind, I’ve avoided buying tools needed for woodworking. I thought back to the childhood TV show Pete & Pete, and how Pete was apprehensive about taking shop class; working with power tools that could easily mutilate or dismember him¹. For the compost bins, I finally purchased a miter saw.

Harbor Freight is known for low prices, with somewhat variable product quality. Despite apprehensions, their Hercules branded miter saw has generally positive reviews². This one worked fairly well for cutting the lumber I needed for these compost bins.

I looked at several tutorials and blogs for building compost bins, eventually basing my design on a video by Grow Your Heirlooms, which he created in 2018³. In the video he uses the following supply list:

Not all of the lumber was available on my first supply run, and I wanted to start building out the walls and get a feel for the project before I purchased everything. I ended up doing three supply runs, purchasing the following:

The walls for each section of the compost bin are composed of chicken wire stapled and sandwiched between cut boards.

I used a hand truck to move the dividers to where I wanted to setup my compost bins. I then fastened the outer walls of the bins using the 2x4x12 boards.

Some of the backing boards were a little lopsided, but it’s my first project and it’s just a compost bin set. So I wasn’t too concerned.

I nailed in the dividers first, and then stapled chicken wire to the back of the bins. The wire was sandwiched between boards I fastened to the fame.

Another mistake I made was measuring the location for the center dividers. I measured from the very outside piece of lumber and divided the segments into thirds. The center bin was a different length than the two outer bins. I should have measured from the centers of the walls instead. Thankfully, I made the front slats last, allowing me to cut them to the correct lengths.

I had been collecting composting material all year (grass clippings, leaves, plant trimmings, food waste, etc.) and just kept dumping them into this massive pile.

All the wood I used was untreated, to avoid getting pressure treating compounds leeching into the compost. From what I’ve read, these bins will tend to compost themselves eventually, after a few years. I put them together at the end of summer, and here they are now, going into the spring.

A good amount of the material has broken down, but I probably should have turned it at least once during the winter, and added more water as well. It’s already starting to show some wear. Hopefully I’ll get a couple of good years out of these bins before they start decomposing into the compost.