How to make a compost bin in under 15 minutes.

My garden was the pits this year. You won’t realize how much food scraps you actually have until you do this! Grab these EASY instructions on how to make a compost bin.

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Our house was bombarded with so many flies a few years ago. We thought it may be our homemade compost bin, so we dumped it in our garden and hoped the flies would go away. Well, they didn’t go away until we had our deck taken out and our patio put in.

This weekend I decided to redo my compost bin.  Our garden was the pits this year so hopefully I’ll be able to add in next spring and my garden will have better results. The time that we composted, it was great. We had tons of worms and rich soil.

How to make a compost bin

It’s really easy to start your own bin and VERY inexpensive. I started out with a Rubbermaid container with a lid. This is the exact one I used.  My husband drilled about 15 holes in the bottom for drainage. I gave away some old baby clothes to a neighbor so I happened to have an empty one on hand! 🙂

Next, I layered leaves, grass clippings, weeds, newspaper, cardboard, leaves and dryer lint until the bin was about half full. I watered it down so it was moist.

Keeping up with it is pretty easy. You can continue to add the leaves, weeds, newspapers but now it’s great for fruit and vegetable food scraps.  The materials that you start out with will start breaking down fast.  You’ll need to keep adding items to keep it going.  

I found a stick in the woods that I have been using to stir it around every few days.  I’ve continued to add water to keep it moist. (Update:  It has been very rainy lately, so I’ve actually had to add some dry leaves and newspapers to it.)

I’m keeping my bin in my garden. It’s near the water hose.  I also like that worms can come and go from my garden to the bin.

Items NOT to put in your bin:

• meat
• bread
• dairy
• pasta
• crackers

Remember- If it comes from the earth, it can go in your bin.  The first day I added banana peels, apple cores, crushed egg shells, cauliflower stems from dinner and some dead flowers I picked from my pots.

I got a similar countertop compost bin for Christmas and I LOVE it!  I can fill it up with my scraps.  It has a filter on the top to keep the smell away!  It’s cute and keeps the fruit flies away in the warmer months.  Once it’s full I go dump it in the bin outside!

Let me know how yours goes and ask me any questions you may have in getting yours started.