Although purchasing a bin for your compost pile is not what you have in mind, you still need to find a way to contain it. When it comes to building your own bin, this can be done easily and it wouldn’t cost you a lot of money. Besides being able to prevent unwelcome animals from getting free food, this will also give you more control over the size of the pile.

If the recycled lumber you’re using has been painted or stained, you need to make sure the material used was non-toxic. If you’ll be using it to grow food, then you don’t want anything toxic or poisonous to come in contact with your compost.

You will need four 4-foot sections of 2X4 and 20 3-foot sections of 1X6 boards. Using a sledgehammer, begin by hammering the 2X4 lumber pieces into the ground at the corners that will become a 3 feet squared container and be sure that there’s a space at each corner post that’s 3 feet apart. The next step will be putting five boards to every side and each end of the board needs to be secured to the corner post with nails. Be sure to leave enough room in between each board for air circulation. You can use a piece of plywood or another flat piece of material large enough to cover the top as a cover.

You can also build your own bin by using pallets that are either new or recycled. Go to a land fill site to find some wooden pallets and to form a square, you can nail or screw them together. You can even give the bin a bottom if you want, and you need to add a fifth in order to do this but it’s really not necessary.

There’s another option and it includes enclosing the pile with a wire mesh. You can either create a circle with the mesh and secure with metal ties or hammer wooden posts in a circle around the pile and secure the mesh to the wooden posts.

Help protect your identity with a great looking mailbox. A heavy duty mailbox can withstand everything that nature (and people) throw at it.