Building a compost bin from pallets

Hello! This is my first ever post!

My partner and I currently live in an apartment with a large back garden (shared) and we've convinced the neighbours to allow us/join us on a veggie garden adventure. Our dream/plan is to eventually find land, build, grow, of course.

For now - I've managed to get a hole of some reclaimed pallets and am going to build a compost bin later this week. I have a few queries:

- I've read that you should sit the bin on a few bricks or something, to increase ventilation - however, have also read that you might want the bin sitting right on soil so that wormies can get in - thoughts?
- I had planned to line the bin with chicken wire - will this work well enough to prevent rodents getting in about? Should I line with something else also? (? something that will allow worms through...?)
- Any suggestions for a simple cover/roof for the bin - ideally something that may be easily reclaimed or repurposed.

Thank you so much in advance, we're very excited to get this going!

Paula

Hey there!

1st, hopefully the rest of your apartments will approve, things like that can cause a stir and be "unsightly" to others and get complaints so be ready :)

2nd, often those places have landscaping companies that use weed whackers and chemical sprays, so setting up some kind of perimeter, or signage could help keep things how you want them.

3rd, great idea on pallets...that's what I've used! Try to make sure they weren't used for hauling toxic waste, and pallets are also marked with the material they were made with and sometimes they are even treated with chemicals, too! Most pallets that stay within the US are just heat treated pine, and will have a HT on there - safe to use.

4th, I like mine right on the ground, but pounding in wood stakes to support the actual pallets off the ground a bit will aid in preserving the bottoms from rotting out. The small gap at the bottom can be made up with rocks, bricks, gravel, etc...something that doesn't hold moisture and ruin the pallets prematurely, hopefully that makes sense. Of course the compost itself will eventually rot the whole contraption out but I had 4 years going on mine before I moved, and took it down.

5th, I like the idea of wrapping it with chicken wire, I have not, and yes things get in and dig around sometimes but not the end of the world to me. At the apartments though you'll want to keep it tidy and if people end up having 1/2 eaten rotten food items showing up here and there out their window that would get you compost bin shut down I'd assume.

6th, for the cover - anything...a tarp, old sheet of tin roofing salvaged from abandoned property, topper to a rusty fire-pit someone has put to the trash, etc...you'll probably want to add some screws to the top of the wood pallets and drill a few holes in whatever top you find to secure it with some rubber bungees or something so wind won't take it away!

From my experience - Racoons are the most destructive animals I've had get into mine, so I think the sides/top are most important to secure and I wouldn't worry about the bottom. One thing I did have happen, and ended up moving my bin at my old house, was that the neighbors Arborvitae tree roots began to consume and overtake my bin from underneath! Dug in one day and hit a mass of roots above the normal ground level!!! lol

Paula said, "I had planned to line the bin with chicken wire - will this work well enough to prevent rodents getting in about? Should I line with something else also? (? something that will allow worms through...?)

Cole has given some good advice and suggestions.

Chicken wire will not keep mice out of the compost something like a wire fencing with small square holes might work.

Like the idea of setting the bin on bricks as this will help the wood from rotting though that will also let in mice unless the wire fencing is buried into the ground.

Best wishes for you composting adventure.

I would think pallets nailed or tied together and lined with chicken wire would work quite well. I did something similar, but instead of pallets I built it out of old deck boards, cut to 3'...basically made a box, and then removed every other board from the sides for ventilation. The front was removable for easy stirring/emptying. My biggest mistake was not having a lid...it got way too wet. I'm planning on building a bigger box this summer, for composting the bedding from the chicken coop - I'm thinking two pallets nailed together on each side, with posts at the corners to hold it in place - I need to sit down and calculate the needed volume, though.

Joseph Jenkins (the humanure guy) uses pallets wired together and lined with straw (instead of the chicken wire) to hold the material in. It holds everything in, adds carbon, and prevents leaching (which for him is a much bigger concern than it is for just composting kitchen scraps).

I use pallets to make mine.  
I put them directly on the ground with nothing underneath.
I don't use chicken wire or anything with mine.  Like Anne said, chicken wire has holes too big to keep mice out if they are your concern.  I personally don't worry about it.  I have found mice nesting in mine a couple times, but I don't care.  If you do care, you will probably have to use hardware cloth.  It's pretty expensive though.
I don't usually cover my bins.

Congrats to do on doing your part and composting.  If I can give you any other advice about it, it's this:  Don't over complicate it.  Nature has been doing this forever without any help at all :)  You will certainly learn things and your compost will get better and better, but the most important thing is to just get started.

That sounds excellent, gardening with neighbors.

I vote for having your pile right on the ground. And I also think hardware cloth is a good idea. Mine doesn't have any and I lose compost out the sides, in between the slats of the pallets. I bet I do have rodents in there form time to time but to honest I have never seen any. I have had a raccoon in there a couple times but it's so infrequent that I haven't done anything about it. Mine are only 3 sided so even if I did put wire on it it wouldn't be scavenger-proof.

So, my pallets are arranged in three bins like this: nnn I fill up one at a time and then turn it over into the next bin and start working on filling the first again. Then when that one is full I turn them both over into the next bin and start filling the first again. By the time I have all three filled the last bin in line is finished. To be honest I usually don't even need all three bins because I don't usually have enough to compost!

Have fun!

I agree that a multi-bin system is best because otherwise you never get any "finished" compost - because as the compost decomposes, it keeps sinking down. Places that use worm bins, use a long, shallow bin (often recycled bathtubs) and only add new stuff at one end for a couple of weeks before digging out the other end to solve that issue. I have a multi-bin system out of skids and I remanufactured one skid to be only 30" tall (~76 cm) to make it easier to load. To solve the cover issue, I cut up some old heavy-duty pond-liner into the approximate size of the top - a bit over-sized. This will lay on the surface at whatever level the compost is at which helps to keep the compost warm and damp.

I like the idea of putting a bunch of high-carbon material at the bottom - wood chips, straw, dead leaves - to soak up whatever goodness comes out of the decomposing material - it isn't just a concern of leaching pathogens as Benedict implied regarding Jenkins' practices - veggie leachate is good stuff and we want to hold onto it!

My bins are just tied together with bailing wire - the whole idea is to move them to new spots and let the last of the compost turn into a garden plot. In fact last year, I didn't remove the pallets, I  just grew zucchini and winter squash in two of them right where they sat! The picture was taken in the spring before planting

Jay Angler wrote:
I like the idea of putting a bunch of high-carbon material at the bottom - wood chips, straw, dead leaves - to soak up whatever goodness comes out of the decomposing material - it isn't just a concern of leaching pathogens as Benedict implied regarding Jenkins' practices - veggie leachate is good stuff and we want to hold onto it!

I know people are already aware, but just a gentle reminder that charcoal is excellent to use in compost for that very reason.  You end up with better compost, lots more worms, and biochar.  Hard to beat that.

Jay Angler wrote:
the whole idea is to move them to new spots and let the last of the compost turn into a garden plot. In fact last year, I didn't remove the pallets, I  just grew zucchini and winter squash in two of them right where they sat! The picture was taken in the spring before planting

I think you just solved my "where to put the chicken compost cooler" problem. Just use the idle plot in the garden to hold the compost box, and spread it out next spring. Saves me the trouble of moving the finished compost. Thank you!

Trace Oswald wrote:

I know people are already aware, but just a gentle reminder that charcoal is excellent to use in compost for that very reason.  You end up with better compost, lots more worms, and biochar.  Hard to beat that.

Yes - absolutely! I not only add it to my compost, but I often add it to my duck and chicken areas, mixed in with their bedding, which eventually gets added to the compost in layers with other things, so in a sense I get to use my biochar 3 times - in the animal runs, in the compost and then in the garden beds when the finished compost top-dresses them!

Hi Paula,

Welcome to Permies.