Pallet Composter
Background: I have been composting since fall 2009. I began when I moved out of the dorms into my 1st apartment and had a single rubbermaid bin which I poked holes in the lid and filled the bottom with hamster bedding and red worms (get the red wiggler bait worms from like a gas station or CVS because they are a lot cheaper than the "compost worms" which are the same exact annelids) I had to graduate to two rubbermaid bins about a year after a I started because you make a lot more compost than you realize. I learned about how and what to compost @ stopwaste.org. Basically, you can compost any yard waste (lawn clippings, leaves, etc), veggies, bread, rice, pasta, paper towels, egg shells (I just began boiling them because apparently raw shells can introduce pathogens to your colony, which I definitely believe and just didn't think of before). Don't compost: oily foods, meat, fish, dairy (and no, eggs aren't dairy...what animal lays eggs?) Why red worms? Because earthworms aka: night crawlers, like to live underground and don't fare as well in the above ground world of a compost pile. Red worms don't mind living in compost and actually thrive. I have had ex's and friends use some of my worms for bait which seems to work well. I even helped give some of my worms to a neighbor when I lived in my apartment to start her own compost pile.
Materials:
minimum 7 pallets
6 cinderblocks
I also nailed some of the pallets together and for that you need a heavy duty hammer...my lime green was not tough enough for the job, my brother informed me.
[Check craigslist. Michaels is always advertising free pallets. We got ours for free from the local nursery, Miller Farms in McKinleyville]--I'm not suggesting to steal them! That is like a felony or something...ask around! Especially ask about broken ones for other projects or if you're more ambitious than I am.
We also got lucky because they had these cools sheets of like woven wood or something so I used it to line the bottom, back, and roof.
I think that as the compost pile grows, I might need to put cinderblocks in the middle under each pallet so they don't sag and eventually possibly snap in half.
Methods
The area I wanted to put it in, not on the grass was sloped so my two roommates and I dug it out to make it flat. Then we determined how big 1 pallet was and laid down 4 cinderblocks. Lay the pallet on top. Then we did the same thing on the other side. Now, dig a bit of a trench along the back so your back wall pallets can sit in it. Put up the back pallet and shovel some dirt up against them so they stay in place. Next, we put up the sides.
I wanted this composter to have resting and an active side. This means that I add to one side (the active side) and let the worms go to the other side to rest.
I decided to make a roof on this composter because here in Humboldt County, it rains a lot and I didn't want my worms to drown or be washed away. That is also another reason that I wanted to raise my composter off the ground so that it doesn't flood because we live at the bottom of a hill.
Conclusion:
I am hoping that my worms are much happier in their compost pile now, which I made for less than $10! We, as a house, are able to compost a much greater amount and I am even going to branch out and ask friends to keep compost scraps for me to pick up probably once a week.
