You can never have enough compost, right? That stuff is garden gold! The thing is, it takes lots of time to get your compost heap from start to finish. And if you keep adding things to it, it’ll just mean that you start over again from the beginning. The key is to have a composting system that allows for two or more heaps so that they can be at different stages in the composting process.

Before we get in to the system, let’s discuss a few key elements that will ensure your composting success:

Materials

Compost should include a variety of material, both green and brown. Green materials are things like fruit and vegetable waste, grass clippings and animal manure, which are nitrogen rich and provide lots of protein for your compost. Brown materials include dead leaves, hay, straw, wood shavings and cardboard. Brown materials provide energy, meaning they are food for the microbes that will be breaking down your compost and turning it in to garden gold. Naturally, the smaller the size of your compost materials, the faster they will break down, so consider shredding boxes or paper, mowing over leaves to cut them up, and breaking garden waste in to smaller pieces.

Moisture

Your compost pile needs to be watered to stay alive. Consider keeping it in the shade so the sun won’t dry it out, and/or keep it covered with plastic. Alternatively, if you have a very wet summer, you might consider covering your system with a piece of plywood to keep it from getting too wet.

Size

The ideal size for a compost heap is about 3 cubic feet. Compost generates heat as it breaks down, which is a necessary component of the process. If your heap is smaller than 3 feet tall, wide and deep, it might not get hot enough. Going bigger than 3 cubic feet won’t hurt, though going too big will make the next part difficult, which is…

Turning

Your compost heap needs to be turned regularly. Mixing will introduce air in to the living pile and help it break down. If you want to make the process as quick as possible, turn your pile weekly. This will give it time to heat up between turns. The ideal temp to look for is 140-160 degrees Fahrenheit.

The DIY System:

Materials:
5 wood pallets
Nails or wire ties (such as electric fence wire)

Instructions:
Place two pallets on end, in a row and secure with wire ties or nails.
Place remaining three pallets on end and perpendicular to the first two, one on either end and one in the center. Secure with wire ties or nails.

And that’s it! I built my composting system against a garden fence, but you could place yours against a shed, or if it needs to be freestanding, you might consider pounding some posts to secure it to.

As you can see, I use one section of my system for a hotbed. The bottom of the hotbed is hot, un-composted manure, so next year I’ll mix and remove the compost on that side. When I removed the material from last years hotbed this Spring, the horse manure had broken down very nicely! This year I’m using chicken manure and straw, so we’ll see how it looks next Spring; it may return to the compost pile. Although my composting system is a nice place for a hotbed, I’d really like another place for a compost pile! I think I’ll build on another section to my system. And that’s part of the beauty! You can customize and make 10 sections, if you have the space and materials. Let me know if you try it out! Happy composting!