Second phase compost heap

I was going to join scb's closet cure and I have actually started on the office closet, but so far I've only removed stuff from the closet and now I'm a bit baffled on what I will actually even store there. So it's a work in process, I'll show you something about it later. Today's post  is something else totally.

I've been composting the garden waste for only one year now. I started out last fall and bought a frame from the store. It seemed then to be really difficult to find a frame that would look both good and be cheap. I was real suprised that even the flimsiest ones were real expensive, I mean from 40 euro (54 USD) and up. But I did buy one anyway, quess I was bit lazy back then.

We have an oak tree in our backyard and the leaves don't compost very easily so I needed a second phase compost frame for the last year's compost material. This year I did not want to buy one, instead I bought timber. I had the wood precut to right lenght, since we still only own a hand saw.

I wanted a frame that can be easily put together and collapsed, then it's whole lot easier to work with the compost material inside the frame. The wood was allready pretreated to hold up against decomposting. I also liked the colour of the wood, it will blend more easily to the background.

I marked where I needed to saw and marked the depth on the saw itself, that way I did not have to measure and draw markings on all pieces.

Then I used a chisel to create a groove to the wood. From some pieces the whole back part chiped off, which was a bit difficult, and I did glue some back, but it's not that big deal.

 

Once they were all done and my arm was aching from the sawing I just piled them on top of each other.

It was a bit difficult to pile it straight, but that was only because the ground itself wasn't leveled, also the frame I bought a year ago is not very straight so it's no point making the new frame any more straight.

Then I moved the old compost material to the new smaller frame and turned the compost at the same time. That was a full workout.