Easiest bin is just a pile in the yard. You don't need anything fancy, nature does it this way all the time.

A trash can, can be a little more attractive than a pile of stuff. You'll need to cut or drill many holes in it so excess water can get out, and air can get in. These should be on all sides of the can.

Another method is to use fencing. Some will use a good sturdy fence and roll it into a tube shape. Others will put post in the ground and attach the fence and either give it a gate or just have an open end. Seen people use cinder blocks to build up walls for a bin area.

Hope that helps.

The only bad idea is to not compost, but a bin (container) is not necessary. One problem with a garbage can, or similar such, is that there will simply not be enough holes to allow sufficient air infiltration and most often the compost in these cans gets too wet and goes anaerobic.

For me, the easiest type of min to construct, use and manage is a wire bin. 12 feet of ½ inch hardware cloth, 3 ft high. Tie-wrap the ends together forming a cylinder. Fill it up, let it rot, if you choose to turn your compost, just untie, move the wire bin over and refill it. Pictures of my bins are available on my page linked here. Bill Hill

Cornell Composting has a short article on trash can composting which is worthwhile.

After a plastic bin and a tumbler; I settled on a round wire mesh bin. I use 18" high 1/4" mesh hardware cloth; and make a bin either 4' round diameter or 4' by 8'. The material costs about $15 per bin, (plastic bin was $65 and tumbler $350).

Holds more, can be used in winter, easy to turn, big enough to hold and dissolve problematic materials in core.

I had some pallets around, so I made bins with that. They are four feet tall and that turns out to be a good height. I keep my compost piles covered with old leaf bags. I've developed this technique over the last 7 years. My climate is dry - low humidity in the summer.

Is this a trick question? lol You can use anything as long as it's can hold about a cubic yard of material. (3ft x 3ft x 3ft)for one of my bins I uses a 55 gallon plastic drum (food grade) that I cut the top off and uses latches to keep it on and the rodents and other animals out. Drilled some holes on the side and bottom and I use a little auger on my drill to turn it (is was meant to plant bulbs I use it for that too) The hard part is when it's was done or when I moved it to a different bin it was a little bit of a pain to get it out but not that bad.

But as far as what you consider ease of management will very on what tools you already have or want to buy. Open pile is usually very easy except when it starts to get to big if you try to turn or get to the bottom things can get a little heavy to do it by hand. But you could always just do a pile and leave it alone and not turn it at all. That's the easiest but takes the longest. It's all up to you on how you want to manage it.

smokensqueal - I have an idea for you. Cut the bottom of your barrel off. If you're concerned about it being knocked over by animals or something you could put latches on it too, but at my mom's house one of her compost bins looks like a huge barrel with no top or bottom and holes in the sides. It was a commercial "composter", but you get the idea of what it looks like.. I could have made one cheaper than buying it, but luckily I got it for almost nothing on craigslist.

For you, I thought maybe if you didn't have a bottom on it, you could just lift the barrel off of the compost and that would make it easier to get out when it's done. For my mom's setup, I pull the barrel thing off, move it and shovel the stuff back in to turn it for her each week. Then the next week I move it back to its original spot and do it all over again. It makes compost pretty fast that way.

I'm going to try the 12 ft of hardware cloth for my next bin. That seems like the most logical and economical way to go for an enclosure.

I do enjoy the free standing piles too, that way when I need to turn them I just knock the pile flat and stack it back up.

Then again, my tumbler has never done me wrong.

I'm an equal opportunity composter. Any way as fine as long as I get compost from it. There's never enough compost, so I'm always trying new things.

umm.. did I just hijack? sorry.. that's annpat's job around here (or so I've heard).

gnomey, thanks. But the reason I went with a barrel because earlier this spring I found rats, yes rats not mice, in my compost bin. I ended up covering the whole thing with a mesh to keep them out but found they had holes in the ground going underneath it. I'm not sure why they came around. I followed all the recommendations of what to and what not to put in it. I stopped putting food scraps in it for about a month and they were still around. I'm not sure if the came around for the food or if they liked the warm bin. I still have the bin but mostly yard scraps go in there except for the other day when I emptied out my barrel because I finialy had some leaves to mix in with it but most the food scraps were just a mushy mess and couldn't really tell what it was so hopefully the rats don't come back. But if they liked the bin just because it was warm for them over the winter I may have to do something else to stop them.

You could use hardware cloth on the ground.

Karen

Yes you can use a wire (hardware cloth) bin directly on the ground. I think compost bins sitting on the dirt is the norm but it really doesnÂt matter one way or the other.
Bill Hill

My hubby brought home a 55 gallon plastic barrel today and we are wondering if anyone has any pictures of a homemade turning one? We saw one at the hardware store that is a drum on it's side on a stand that has a crank on it and the opening cut on the side to put stuff in.. Just wondering if anyone on here would have made a homemade one sort of along those lines that you could post pics of.

Barrel tumbler

{{gwi:310145}}

works good for me best with shreaded leaves grass scraps etc. I cut a circle out of the top gt a lag bolt at one end of the plywood for it to rotate open and closed and a latch on the other end of the plywood cut out top. if you have more questions o pictures let me know...

email me direct.

hhiii@aol.com