Congrats Rutgers1. You should always water it as you build. You are short on browns. Go to your community site and bring home a bunch of leaf mold to mix with you home brew. Water as you go. You need nothing else. If you have a 3x3 pile, it should heat up in no time. good luck.
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Any chance of posting a picture of that wire bin?

Lloyd

pt03...Sure thing, I will post a photo if I think of it tomorrow or the next day.

I kind of figured that I was low on browns. I put in every dried leaf I could find, which then led me to spend the rest of the time ripping up newspaper.

I saw a book where they discussed a method whereby you skewer your pile with PVC pipes with holes drilled in them. I tried it, figuring that perhaps it will send some more air into the middle of the pile. Has anyone tried this?

If your compost pile is less that a 6 x 6 foot pile air infiltration will not be a problem unless you introduce too much water. Water will displace air and even some kind of vent in the compost pile will not do anything to cure the too much water problem.
So your 3 x 3 compost pile will not need you to spend more money to make a vent.

Hi! I'm new here and just built my first compost bin as well, so it's nice to see I'm not the only newbie.

I built mine using chicken wire and some 4x4 posts, which was a lot of work (no power tools). I think the wire thing would have been easier - you had the right idea.

I've started mine with basically the weeds that I've pulled from my garden and yard and the trimmings off my hedge shrubberys. It's been so dry here that I haven't mowed the yard yet to get clippings, but I anticipate that to happen pretty soon, once I get the lawnmower working. I've only had the house and yard for a month, so it's slow getting things started. I did add a little shredded cardboard, but not really enough to be worth mentioning.

Any advice for my pile as well?

This is a re-print from another post -
"3.14 times the width of the ring will tell you how much fence you need. So 3.14 x 3ft=9.42ft of fence to make a ring 3ft wide. Or 3.14 x 4ft = 12.59ft

I would not go any higher than 3ft. You will be surprised just how much you can fit into a 3x3ft bin.

Or just make a pile on the ground."

You simply place the wire rings on the ground. No posts are required. So you will have a round ring of wire fence with no corners to trap compost material. Wire fence is open so air flows freely. Basically, it just keeps the leaves from blowing around. Plus if you have just piled on the ground, you know the top is tapered, like a pyramid, holding less material. This fills that void.

Make as many as you like or when full open up to move and build another pile. The 1st pile will be free standing. If you made tabs to hold wire fence together this is real easy.

Not real pretty but not ugly either. If you are worried about pretty make it like Rutger did above.

HTH,
Gumby_CT

I read that post, too, actually.

I'm sorry, I should have been more clear about my question. I'm actually wondering about the content of the pile. I've been tossing loads of weeds in there, as well as trimmed branches (small twigs with leaves, really) from my hedges. I was wondering about the greens/browns ratio since I don't know where to classify weeds or twigs with green leaves.

Thanks for the reply.

If your weeds are green and moist, they are greens. If they are dry and crispy, they are browns. Twigs will take time to compost; you'll be screening them out and putting them back for a number of cycles before they rot down completely. Running them through a chipper speeds the process up tremendously.

Here is my bin:

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The materials cost about $40 at Home Depot. I am embarrassed to admit it, but it was my 7 year old son who told me that I could arrange their fencing in a square with little problem. It literally took about 5 minutes to set up.

As you can see, I didn't do a great job mixing the greens and browns. I was a bit too excited to get it set up, so there tends to be some distinct lines. Oh well, I will improve upon it next time..........I just went out there and the thing is pretty hot. I lifted one of the PVC pipes towards the bottom and got shot with a very hot stream of air.

Nice bin! I'll try to get a pic of mine later in the week (haven't moved into the new house yet - I just go there to garden ).

I'm jealous. Yours looks nicer, cost less, and was apprently much easier to set up than mine! Great job!

Don't expect much heat to build up, or quick compost.

It does not appear the leaves were shredded or reduced in size. The grass seems to be bunched up. Rather than you shredding paper, go to the paper recycling dumpster and take some very finely shredded paper from a security-type shredder.
Mix up the stuff while sprinkling with water, and if you have a $15 compost therm., watch the guage go up.

robert......I agree that I didn't mix things well enough. It was mainly due to the fact that I was so excited to dump things in, as well as the fact that I was doing it with my 7 year old son, who also wasn't very patient.

I have been reading a bit about people who shred things with a shredder of some sort prior to putting them in a compost bin. While I don't think that is a bad thing, and while I can see why that would result in faster composting, part of me wonders if that is counterproductive since we are trying to do something good for the environment and shredding things - whether it is paper or branches - necessitates the use of machinery. I figure mine will take a long time to compost, but at least I got it going. I can't wait to learn more from the people here and give it another shot next year.

rutgers1,

Wow! Your compost bin is gorgeous! I too have been dying to start composting, but we live in an area that requires something "pretty." I wanted to buy the "Biostack" from Smith and Hawken or another one from Gardeners Supply, but kept putting it off because it looked too much like a black trash can.

Can you tell me what you had to buy from HD and what section you found it in. I'm not too familiar with those types of stores! Thanks in advance for any help you can give me!

Angela
P.S. we have a lot of raccoons, turkeys, opossum and all sorts of varmits here. do you or anyone else think that this type of bin woudl work for me?

In the garden section (an aisle away from the fertilizer), there is an aisle where they have garden fencing. Most of it is small stuff that you would use to perhaps keep out a rabbit or really just for decoration. This was the one fence that actually had some substance to it. Each length of it is sold separately, and you also have to buy the poles that connect them.

Putting it together is the easy part. You just line up the holes on two lengths of fencing, insert the pole, and then push the pole into the ground. There is a little "arrow" shaped thing at the bottom of the pole that makes it stay in the ground better. That is it!

My seven bins are make of 1/4" mesh hardware cloth. Cheap, easy to move, and not much falls thru the sides. Also they do not stand out in the yard.

My first bin was a black plastic bin. My second was a green tumbler. Both were more work than my easy-to-turn 24" or 30" mesh bins with a diameter of 4' or so.

Two types which I had considered building:
1) The stackable bin
2) The garden bench compost bin.

Too much work, and not cheap to build, either.