Why I ditched my store-bought compost bin for a simple pile

I spent $80 on a tumbling compost bin last spring and fought with it for 6 months... never broke down right, kept getting clogged. Then my neighbor showed me his open pile method with just a pallet frame. He had finished compost in 3 months flat, no turning required. I finally switched two months ago and the difference is night and day. The pile stays warmer and breaks down way faster without me having to crank a handle every week. Has anyone else had better luck with a simple pile over a tumbler?

3 comments

3 Comments

joel_clark378d ago

The pallet frame thing is genius, I had no idea. Actually reminds me of how my neighbor across the street builds his brush piles. He doesn't even use a frame, just tosses branches into a massive heap and lets it sit for a year. The bottom layers are always this rich black dirt while the top is still twigs. I spent like two summers trying to get a store bought bin to work and it just never got hot enough. Now I'm tempted to rip the fence off my old tumbler and just dump it all into a corner of the yard.

the_wendy8d ago

Hold up, I gotta push back on that "just dump it all into a corner" idea. A pile without a frame isn't composting, it's just a trash heap that'll Attract every rat and raccoon in the neighborhood. Store bought bins are designed to get hot for a REASON, and your neighbor's brush pile probably takes TWO years minimum to break down, not one. The bottom layers of a brush pile are more like decomposed wood chips, not the rich nutrient mix you need for a veggie garden. You'll be waiting forever for usable compost if you just let it sit there like a big leaf pile. Plus, without any air getting in, the middle will just turn into a slimy anaerobic mess that smells like rotten eggs. Stick with the frame system but tweak it, don't just give up and make a garbage dump.

gracec167d ago

nah @the_wendy you're making this sound way more dramatic than it needs to be lol. like, i get that a bare pile might not get textbook hot but "garbage dump" is a reach. my aunt has been doing the open heap thing for years and her garden is insane, she just layers browns and greens and flips it maybe twice a year. not everything has to be some engineering project. you're acting like a pallet frame is gonna summon rats but half the people i know use them and their yards are fine. calm down a lil.