Part II

This blog represents part 2 of my 834 part series of "Rob's do it yourself/make junk in your backyard/garden so it looks nicer" series. If you remember back to part 1 of this series, I made an Arbor for under 130 bones. You'll be happy to know that the arbor managed to survive a brutal Augusta winter complete with sub-60 degree temperatures and no fewer than 10 inches of rain. It has been rough, but my handi-manship skills have proved themselves once again.

In this series I will demonstrate how to create a compost pile for less than 2 bucks. Of course you could build a compost pile for free by simply piling up your lawnmower waste or leaf waste and let it sit there for a year. Or, if you want to turn those same materials into black gold in a much shorter amount of time you build a compost box.

First: get some wood. Of course you could go out and buy expensive wood from home depot, or you could do what I did and jack some palates from local businesses/construction sites (I recommend asking first, but to each his own). While you are coasting from construction site to construction site, if they have any of those fence post thingers (I really don't know what they are, but they are long metal things that are really sturdy and I saw them at all the construction sites I went to - you are gonna need 4 of those, preferably 5 feet long each - see picture below) Cost: free.

Next, jack your neighbors leaves that he bagged up so nicely for the trash man. He may give you a strange look when you pull up to his driveway after dark and start throwing all his leaf bags in the back of your truck, so be prepared for that. Next, call around to local stables and ask if you can have their horse crap. Surprisingly, everyone I called got back with me the next day and told me "h3ll, you can have all the horse sh!t you want" (I'm taking artistic license on that one).

Now, take the backs off three of the palates. next, attach the palates in a way to make a three sided box without a top, bottom, or one side (I found nails work well). Next, drive in those long metal things near the two open sides to sturdy the box - see picture above (you're gonna pile a lot of crap and leaves into this and don't want it falling open). Next, drive the two remaining metal things into the open end in such a way as to be able to slide the remaining palate right into place to form the last wall to the box. If none of this makes sense, look at the pictures. I recommend cutting the palate that you are gonna slide in half so you can start filling it up then slide on half the palate, fill up some more and then finally slide on the rest of the palate to keep everything stable.

Now that you have a eyesore that the neighbors will be talking about for years to come, it is time to fill it up. layer a bag of leaves with about 4 or 5 shovels full of horse manure and then repeat the process until you reach the top of the box, being sure to hose things down as you go along (apparently microbes need water to break all that junk down). Also, the reason this thing cost me a couple bucks was because the Internet recommended that I add lime to my pile - so I layered that in. Finally, after it is piled up, wet and limed, cover with some trash bags or a tarp and let it sit for a week or two. After that, you need to turn the pile to allow air in. Of course if you don't want to turn the pile, do what I do: take one of those long, heavy steel things and drive it into the pile in a couple different places to allow air in.

Well, this about wraps it up for part 2 of my 834 part series of "Rob's do it yourself/make junk in your backyard/garden so it looks nicer" series. I hope you have enjoyed these pearls of wisdom. Remember, whenever you are undertaking a project like this to be creative and cheap - your neighbors will appreciate your ingenuity.