Making compost

I always knew that when we moved into our house I wanted to compost bin for my garden. I never really knew about composting before I started to garden then I went to an earth day event and they talked about composting...I guess I never thought about what happened to my banana peel after I threw it in the trash. My parents never really "reused" our kitchen scraps either we usually just feed them to the squirrels and birds. After that Earth day event I was sold and I really wanted my kids to learn and actively take part in the composting process.
I really went back and forth on the kind of compost bin I wanted. There are a tremendous number of options for storing compost....you could go binless by building a compost pile in a sunny spot in the yard, or one might build bins from their materials such as recycled shipping pallets, or two-by-fours and plywood but it's not recommended to use pressure treated wood as the chemicals will get into your compost...and then there are the tumblers. After lots of research and learning about composing I finally decided on a tumbling bin...I like the benefits that the drum compost tumbler has to offer including quick turn around from start to finish (about 3-4 weeks in great conditions) Plus I like that it will cut way back on flys, where the compost pile you may have a pest problem because everything is so open.
So I looked at the tumbler compost bins to buy and they could get very pricey, then one day while visiting my husband at work I noticed that he had some big barrels near the dumpster, I asked him about them and he said that they used to use them as weights for the tents that they rented out but they just stake them in the ground and have no use for them anymore. So I had him bring one home for my tumbler project. First he dug two holes in the ground about two-three feet deep then he poured in concrete in the holes and sank in two pieces of wood, after that was cured he drilled rows of holes in the barrel ( this is to aerate the compost) then he drilled another hole in the center of the barrel for the medal pipe and he then mounted it onto the two pieces of wood. Here is the finished product... ( the kids love spinning it and trowing in their food...I think they eat apple now just so they can throw in the core.lol
go from this...


to this...(all in a day)


Accualy it's not fully done yet, I want the kids to paint flowers and a garden scene on it too...I started by spray painting it..bacause that blue was just so "WOW". We're also going to use another one of these barrels for a water barrel I'm going to cut the cover and add screening to it so it will just collect water, and I going to use another one for a potato barrel....I love other peoples trash ;-)

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