Thanks julianna_il! I got a compound mitre saw for Christmas and was anxious to do something with it. I spent a few hours cutting and cutting and cutting. Yeah, it is treated wood since it was used to construct a balcony deck in this new house on the block. The builder carelessly used the empty lots from my house as a dumping site. I can't complain really since the materials were free. I know some recommend against treated wood for a compost bin, but it is better than the alternative (no compost bin at all). I've not used any compost from the bin yet and have had it decomposing little bits of things since April.

Whatever you prefer can work fine. Some bins are hard to use. I never had stellar results with my old bin. I used it for probably 15 years. It was a black plastic box type thing with a door at the bottom. Hard to flip, aerate, etc. I produced one small batch per year. I have 2 Biostacks now and am very happy with these. They make it much easier to flip, overall user frindly and versatile I think. I make a lot more compost now than I used to. I'd probably be happy with an open pile too, but my husband objects to a pile of rotting "garbage" in our suburban yard. Bins contribute to harmony at home. Karen

ok I will be in carlisle Tuesday. I will be coming in off the pike. I have to go to carlisle barracks sometime during the week so I figure Tuesday is a good day to get bins and all. If this is a bad day for you let me know. I can play with the timing to be there most anytime of day. Step daughter is even gonna chaufeur me. Just send me the directions and i'll be composting away before the sun sets Tuesday

Not sure if this is helpful, but I thought I'd share my accidental experience: I set up a sort of lasagna bed late this spring where I removed about an 8 in. wide strip of sod down the middle of the long narrow bed (it runs along my walk). On either side of the removed strip, I layered newspapers or cardboard and then piled up material, including some composted horse manure and some four way mix that I built up along the center strip. The layers on either side were just made up of whatever I could find to build it up 7-8 inches above the newspaper the keep the grass from busting through and build the soil up for next year. The idea was to make sure the beans for this summer had something that was already good and ready to go in the middle so that they could grow well and root down sufficiently deep. I think that I incidentally also filled the bed full of e.f. eggs/small worms from the horse poo. I had sorted out most of the big clumps of worms from the manure for my worm bins. I didn't notice the wiggler presence in the bed til yesterday when I was pulling out my spent bush beans (Which actually did quite well in this setup-- The zucchini that I grew with the same lazy method went nuts!). As I pulled out the beans and disturbed the first couple inches of nearly composted lasagna layers, the numbers of worms shocked me! There was more than I've seen in any of my garden areas. It was a very pleasant surprise! I also have a small worm trench set up next to that bed, so there is a small chance that worms may have also come from that, but I kind of doubt it. I'm interested to see what happens over the winter. Best wishes!