Building a Composter

We got a composter last Christmas from Kelsey’s parents, and we absolutely loved it. We loved it so much, in fact, that we broke it from overuse.

We decided that we needed a new composter, for a variety of reasons:

1. The composter we had broke, and new kitchen scraps were causing it to attract more bugs than normal and smell a bit. We like our neighbors, so we didn’t want to stink them out.
2. Because we turn our compost, the little doors on the bottom of the composter weren’t practical for getting out ready-to-use compost, so we needed to have a system that would let us have an active and passive bin – one to continue to add material to, and one to let finish breaking down for use in spring planting.
3. The old one wasn’t big enough, since we were putting everything in it – non-animal kitchen scraps, dryer lint, used tissues, shredded office paper, leaves, grass trimmings, twigs, weeds, and anything else compostable.

I have been reading How to Make and Use Compost: The Ultimate Guide by Nicky Scott, and he describes a variety of different types of composters that are used for different purposes. I liked the New Zealand Box composter, because it best met the needs I listed above, and could be made from nothing but untreated wood, screws, hinges, and handles, all of which are readily available at our local hardware store for not a lot of money. There weren’t any plans included, so I sat down with a pen and paper and drew some up – modifying the design in the book to better meet our needs. The book’s design, for instance, doesn’t have lids – so I added some for convenience. My dad, who helped me construct it, added a base to help keep the front sections from bowing out.

The box contains two bins – one for active and one for passive compost. The lids operate independently of one another, so you can open one without opening the other. There is a gap between the boards that go around the sides and in the middle, so air can get in. The bottom is open so worms can get in. The front is made out of removable slats, so you can access the compost out of one of the bins at a time without having to shovel downward. The overall dimensions are 3’x3’x6′, so each bin is 3’x3’x3′. My dad and I had a blast making it, and it only cost me about $150 in materials, which is substantially less than what you would expect to pay for a similar prefab composter. The only tools we needed were two drills, a circular saw, a jigsaw, a hammer, a square, two clamps, and some saw horses.