When we moved to our new home, I imagined a beautiful vegetable garden enriched with compost for the biggest, healthiest vegetables. Any kind of soil you have can always be improved by adding organic matter. I figured if I got a compost bin in the summer, I could have enough compost for a small vegetable garden by next spring (it typically takes 6-12 months to make compost, if you work at it). Also, I liked the idea of finding a use for all those fruits and vegetables that go to waste when we don't eat them up fast enough. Well, we finally got around to building our compost bin a few weeks ago. I don't know how much compost we'll actually make in 6 months (especially since decomposition slows in cold weather), but we'll give it our best try.
Since we don't really own woodworking tools, I decided our best option was a nice, easy chicken wire bin. All we had to buy was a roll of chicken wire, 2 long, thin pieces of wood for posts (they cut them in half for us at Home Depot), and some wire. I think it cost us $20-30 all together. It's not the most beautiful bin ever, but it's functional. It took less than an hour to build with my husband and I working on it together. Since I think the last thing I built was a soapbox derby car with my dad when I was 10, I'm pretty proud of it. I found the directions at the
University of Missouri Extension website.
A good compost pile should be half "brown matter" (like dry leaves and small sticks) and half "green matter" (like grass cuttings and vegetable scraps). I have plenty of leaves in my yard, but I'm a little low on green matter, so we're building our compost pile slowly.
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