No shortcomings, although I prefer a hardware cloth circle for ease of flipping.

I use 5 pallets, open at the front, in an E configuration. I seldom ever turn it. Once a week will kill you.

Every response you got is good but what floral said about turning is my fav. Turning helps but depending on what's being composted, once weekly might be good for some but for other materials every 6 months might benefit 90% what weekly does. Why don't you tell us what you plan to compost, how much you will have at one given time and how often more will be coming your way.

Thanks for all the responses

i plan to compost

veggies and fruits ( kitchen waste)

egg shells

grass clippings

small amount of cardboards

coffee wastes

few woody cuttings

joypdx - Sounds like a great idea. Get started with a minimum of cost (should be able to find pallets free) and see if you like it and want to continue with it. You can always build more and learn from your experience.

As for turning it once a week, I think the benefit would depend on your ratio of greens to browns and how much the pile would heat up. In my old age I've gone to cold composting. For years I turned my piles religiously but I also used a lot of high nitrogen material and heated up quick. I could have a good amount composted in one year. Now it takes a minimum of three years to get what I consider good compost.

Just do whatever funds and energy works for you...

Unless you also compost garden waste such as annual weeds and old plants it doesn't sound as if you'll have enough material to fill pallet bins quickly. In which case hot composting isn't going to happen. That needs a big volume.

Floral Uk I believe you are correct. i avoid the weeds

joy, what's happens to the leaves in your neihborhood? Do people put them curbside?

Ann, , I leave them where they fall. They disintegrate by new year. My current bin is too small and made of plastic.

Joy I believe what Ann is asking is whether you see bags of leaves on curb you can grab for your bin.

Oh Sorry .

No. I have never seen any bag of leaves on curb. The neighborhood yard wastes are taken by the city service.

Oh my gosh, how dreadful. I recall a gentleman that once experienced a hauntingly similar situation. While he kept an eye on street ,city sanitation slinked along alley at rear of homes removing disposables unnoticed. As I recall he eventually put his pride aside to ask for their schedule and they told him.

" The neighborhood yard wastes are taken by the city service. "

The same thing happens here. As do leaves gathered from along the curbside or in parks, etc. They get taken to a municipal composting operation and the resulting product is bagged or sold in bulk. It's all good!

It could be a west coast thing. 😉

Joy, flipping every week might be counterproductive. I have a theory that too frequent flipping when it's cool out, cools off the mass. You're going to love pile-flipping, though! Do it at dusk when the neighbors are driving by, so they can admire the steam. No point hiding your light under a bushel basket, I always say to myself.

The cities around here also snuff up our curbside leaves and disappear them, but, in the early 90s, I found a leaf/yard waste dump twenty miles from here and I got one Official Person's permission to go there, and take as much as I want from it. I never mentioned it again to anyone else in charge; I nod at the man at the gate, who has come to know that I only take, never bring, and I'm very careful not to notice a sign they put up a couple decades ago that says "Brewer Residents Only". I'm probably grandfathered now anyway.

I bet there are lots of places that let people visit their leaf/pumpkin dumps if a person were to ask. You're going to need a truck, though (unless you don't mind trashing your car).

You don't have to buy a truck if you don't want to. You can just use your compost pile to self-manage your own household/yard waste. I can't imagine what I would do with my avocado pits, eggshells, and apple peelings if I didn't have a pile for them in the yard.

Congratulations on your new set-up. (Don't use chicken wire. It' sucks for bins.)

Thank you for the responses, they are excellent.

one question can cold composting without turning create any anaerobic condition that delays composting ?

thanks

It shouldn't be a problem if you layer your contributions somewhat. I try to not use too thick layers of grass clippings or other "greens", which can mat and go anaerobic. I break the layer up with leaves, straw, and old bills with my social security numbers on them.

You're off to a good start. Get a bin built or start a pile on the ground. That's all you need to begin. There's nothing wrong with just a pile on the ground. It's the easiest way to do it. Most people either don't like the looks or worry about their dogs getting into it. Don't worry about how much you produce at first. Maybe think of composting siimply as a way to manage your household and yard waste, and watch how the process works. Then, someday, you can get compulsive, get that truck, find your nearest leaf dump, or fish monger or Starbucks, and try to outperform me or ol' dirt. snort Good luck with that!!

There's nothing wrong with cold composting. It's just slower---and not that much slower. I can make a decent product in a year's time piling stuff up and walking away. You can use your product as a mulch at any time in the process if you like the aesthetics of it. It's better more "finished" if you're going to incorporate it into the soil. I use all my compost as mulch now. I love the way it looks as a mulch---the only more attractive mulch to my eyes is a leaf mould mulch.

I'm excited for you!

Oh, if you like turning a pile---and I do---you can turn a cold pile, too. I think it helps. It may not cook it up and you may not get any steam to impress passerbys with, but it still helps to mix the ingredients up.

Thank you.

The only reason I am considering the palletes neigbor may not like the looks. :) I dont think they will mind too much. Other reason being wind can scatter compost. Can egg shells attact mice ?

A pile can be covered with a small brown tarp. It is far less visible than a pallet bay. Keep a pitchfork nearby and when you add new kitchen waste, cover it with non food material. This will discourage animals. The only way to totally eliminate animals is with a solid plastic tumbler - and even a smart raccoon may get into that!

here in portland, oregon we get wind storms in winter . I need to keep stones over the wooden cover for my small plastic compost bin . Not sure tarp will stay

I have never seen a mouse in my compost, but I bet they check it out when I'm not looking.

After you told us how much material you have access to I was about to suggest tumbler fashioned from plastic 55 gallon drum. Are you saying you've discovered a source of material that requires more space? If you are on the fence about quantity you will actually have but determined to have a bin, I have a suggestion that checks all the boxes while giving you flexibility for the future. 8"x8"x16" hollow concrete blocks look nice, can be stacked,moved,restacked, expended or shrunk as needed. The E or U shape mentioned by Floral works real well. As for vermin sticking their noses in your compost, there's two simple but effective solutions. Mine is to keep household ammonia handy in a squirt bottle. It only takes a small amount INSIDE pile to discourage anything sniffing around. Bonus is that ammonia adds nitrogen. Best of luck with whatever you deci,,,,,,,,, oh, I mentioned a second solution. It to is simple and beneficial but to make sure you get it right I'm referring you to old-dirt .

Well klem1, I think some people will find my composting a little unorthodox but it works for me. The past few years I have used an E shaped set up with 3-4 openings, made with recycled landscape pavers (free) and logs. I compost just about anything and everything, including some of those "critters" that wreck havoc in my gardens or wherever. I don't necessarily recommend my methods but like I said, works for me and I've been doing it for over 65 years.t

I'll reiterate, just get started with whatever set up you can afford and don't be afraid to throw anything organic in there...HAPPY COMPOSTING!

Jerry the first rule here is "there are no rules". That includes critters in compost which old-dirt introduced us to and seamingly taken to extreme by one of our charter members. A who-done-it mystery began taking shape months ago and hasn't been fully investigated yet. To set the stage, this happened on a far N. Eastern ocean bay where birds and folks disappeared overnight. The only remaining inhabitant is an insatiable composter who's piles begin steaming after leisurely idling along for months. I wouldn't say it caused paranoia but no one accepts invitations to clam bakes and crab boils since.

So yea, anything goes if you can handle the heat.

Wonder how my 'handle' changed from old_dirt 6a to my given name. Not really complaining but curious.

Name was changed to protect the innocent and wound up doing the opposite. ):

(I thought, "Boy! Klem is going to look cukoo to this new Jerry guy.")

Joy, these two are giving you some bad advice mixed in with the good. Of course there are rules! No, not "anything goes"! No, you don't want to throw any old organic thing in there! Oh my word! Can you imagine?! In my opinion---and I bet flora agrees---composters should do all they can to encourage composting, and should never set a bad example.

You want to be careful not to commit offenses that would give composting a bad name. You never want your compost pile to smell bad. That's the first thing nay-sayers will mention. "I'd compost, but my neighbor's compost stinks!" The best composters realize that when oderiferous greens are giving off a stench, they should be covered with leaves or other brown odor suffocants. Likewise, your countertop compost receiver should never give off offensive odors or attract pests. That sends an unfortunate message straight to the olfactory system.

Naturally, you don't want to make a negative visual impact either. Nothing in your pile should make people nauseous if they were to come upon it while walking around with their morning coffee.. I'm not saying you have to sprinkle your pile with rose petals every morning; just use some common sense.

I don't worry about most non-human visitors to my garden, but Maine does not have planarians yet, and I find them horrific, so I do take care not to contribute anything that might attract them.. Anyway, have fun.

Well said Ann. I agree :)

I did pile composting in the past. I tired of it. Now I do trench composting . No extra work, no smell, no eyesore constractions, NO MICE!!!, no need to cover from rain or wind. Everything composting by itself. Everybody are happy- soil, plants, and me.

Don't drag me into this AP! I'm an 'if it ever lived it can go in the compost' person. I even compost b...d.

bread? blood? baby food? baby head?

Any of those. They'll all rot. But AP knows what I mean.

Check this out

I like it klem1, it takes me back as a kid on the farm. We regularly put dead animals in the compost bin. Chickens were a regular with the occasional goat. All the entrails from butchered animals went in also. As you know I still put in the occasional critter . I don't worry to much about offending anyone by the smell or looks of my piles. It's a ways out back and I've been here longer than any of my neighbors.

Thx for the lnk...

Chickens ! I recall hearing about feather meal but never see any for sale. Evidently slaughter plant refuse gos into fertilizer not labeled as feather meal.

Never composted a chicken but I've composted several old feather pillows. Also dead rats, gerbils and an unfortunate robin. We live cheek by jowel with neighbours and I've never had compost that smells.

Composted some pillers huh? I tried it once and like to never got rid of Styrofoam globs in my perennial beds.

I knew a lady that composted a mink hat that lead to something interesting. The sweet little thing failed to realize the hide was tanned to preserve it. Well the hat lay there deep amongst a pile of leaves until Spring when she thought it best to turn the pile. Out popped the hat still in one piece but looking,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,you can imagine how it might look after all that time. After adding urea she left the pile undisturbed for an undetermined spell. I'm not sure if something eventually dragged the thing away or whether she ever went back to flip the pile but she never mentioned it again.

Whoever claimed composting is boring never got serious or stay with it long enough.

My compost pot sometimes smells if I wait too long to dump it out into the compost cage... but my cages don't smell. I know I get live critters checking out the cages, because they bend down the fencing doing so. So yeah, probably get the little ones in there too. I'll toss in animal along with plant stuff to the pile. And I dump in the not-useful cardboard, the yard scrappy stuff, sometimes clippings and leaves.

And then I just let it sit. For years. Just keep topping off till the cage is really full of decomposted stuff. And then at some point, the stakes and fencing some out and that area gets it's fill. It's probably the laziest way to compost outside of berm dumping.

I don't add fabric or pillows to the cages though. There's a sheet composting area out back that stuff gets layered in, between layers of cardboard.