Stepping up the compost pile

We've been building a small compost pile in the back woods for some time now. It's been slow-going as I had only been adding the "greens" kitchen scraps mostly in the form of kitchen scraps. So it's been more like feeding the woodland creatures than it has been like building a compost pile. This summer we started taking it more seriously and I started adding the "browns" as well and the pile of scraps is finally starting to look like real compost.

One of my vacation projects was to build some real compost bins for our slow-cook compost piles. Of course I chose to enlist the help of Max to do some serious building. I dragged my circular saw out to the backyard and sliced up some old pallets I had collected for just this kind of project. Max brought his hammer and the nails, and we pounded together a nice double-wide compost bin with a removable front wall. The next day Lauren and I went to hardware store and picked up some some hook & eye latches to secure the front wall and she helped me screw them in place.

Here's a picture of Lauren modeling the finished product. As you can see we have transferred the existing pile into one bin and moved the garden-scraps container into the other. Next spring I'm going to sift out some serious compost for the garden. :-) I'll have to post a picture of the sliding compost sifter I built when the time comes to use it. Until then, the piles have a comfy place to cook!