Homemade Compost Bin (recycled materials too!)

I feel very accomplished.  We had a huge to-do list that we wanted to finish by the end of this past weekend.  "Dee" and I buckled down and did all but three things.  I say we did a really good job!

One of our to-do projects was to build a compost bin.  We completed one side of it (pics below).  We will add another bin in a week or two so that we have one bin for new green compost, and one for the compost that's been rotting away and turning into soil.  The green pile we are piling up now (with weeds, kitchen scraps, leaves, etc), we will end up using in summer 2012.  That way we always have compost.

Here's the progress we made.  Granted, these pictures don't really show all the hard work involved.  We reused pallets, pulled them apart, and re-built them to have planks close together.  That way when we turn our compost, it won't be falling through the cracks and getting lost behind the bin.

Us in progress putting together the planks.  We're working on the ones on the ground.

The one propped up against the tree is what we started with (some were spaced farther apart that that one).  The one laying on the ground is our finished product, after taking off planks and putting them back on.  Then, of course, we had to saw off the tops because the planks were too long.

This is the space we cleared for our compost bin.

Here are our two compost piles- one is "green" from this year, and one is "brown" and already well on it's way to being composted for the garden next year.

I'm guessing these are bean sprouts from some beans that got  moldy before we consumed them all.  I think that's pretty cool!

Our grand finale masterpiece!!  It doesn't seem like much work but it really was!  We will add another bin to the side of this one, and I'll post a pic of the adjoining bins later.