Compost bin

Beardsley farm is dedicated to sustainability and renewing our resources. One way we accomplish increased sustainability is by collecting compost from a variety of places around Knoxville. Each week, we collect approximately 25 to 30 five-gallon buckets from The Golden Roast Espresso Café, Tomato Head and La Costa restaurants and the Love Kitchen food pantry. Recently, however, we were feeling overwhelmed with kitchen scraps. We had three existing compost bins, none of which were satisfactory to work with.

One day we were so fed up that we threw our buckets down and used our noggins. We decided to use our grant money to build the most ideal and functional compost bin EVER.

For materials we used composite lumber and carpenters’ cloth (a sturdy metal grid with squares approximately ½ inch in size), as opposed to our old compost bins that use wooden pallets or two by fours and larger metal mesh. Despite its higher cost, the composite lumber is preferable to the wood or pallets because it resists rotting and is practically indestructible.

The entire compost bin is composed of three compartments, each 4’ by 4’. The sides of each bin are lined with the carpenters’ cloth and securely fashioned to the lumber with screws and washers. The carpenters’ cloth allows for increased airflow through the compost bin, which promotes healthy decomposition of the compost. The fronts of each compartment consist of several 4” slats sitting on top of each other. These boards easily slide in and out of a track along the inside edge of the bins, which allows us to gradually fill and empty the bins without disturbing the whole pile.

So far, we have been thoroughly impressed with our craftsmanship! The compost pile is heating up to a temperature of 150 degrees, which means it is decomposing quickly and killing off pathogens and weed seeds that we do not want introduced to the garden.