Can I just use a big plastic bin and throw food scraps and other stuff in it. Stir it every now and then? what should i NOT put in it,,meat? Do i have to cover it? Can I have it out there during the winter?
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If you have a secluded spot of ground that is level, you don’t need a container to compost. Whatever you use, the compostable ingredients need air incorporated into the mix so that the bacteria can containue to degrade the raw materials. If you put it in a plastic bin, it will get so heavy that afterwhile you won’t want to turn it and it will start to smell really bad. If you have a small square of concrete or wood to lay the ingredients on, it will be much easier to turn it frequently. Start at the bottom with cardboard or branch trimmings from trees and layer it with green leaves, garbage, etc. Add other dry ingredients on top of this, newspaper, small branches, etc. When you put all that you have to compost into the pile, water it well. Turn it every couple of weeks and add more as you need to. After about 6 months you should have compost.
That’s a good answer already. I’m just going to add a few things to that. Now the open ground method is fine and it does work, but it does have some drawbacks. One is that it’s a bit messy, and animals (pets especially) get easy access to food scraps. Open ground also tends to spread out and you can loose good compost and/or it gets spread too thin at the edges and won’t break down. I much prefer the post and fence method. It’s VERY easy to set up and doesn’t have to be anything fancy, like the ones you see in catalogues. Depending on how big you want it you may need more or less of this number of fence posts. I used five posts, one on each corner and one in the middle of the back to help support the fence. These aren’t anything fancy, I believe they were originally used for snow fences (three sided sort of stakes that look like a T when you look down at the top.) Anyway the bin is about 3 ft by 5 ft and the fence itself is about 3 1/2 to 4 ft tall. I’m sorry I don’t remember how many feet of fence I used, but I’m sure you can figure it out. After pounding the posts in place I attached the fence to the first post and from there I just wrapped the fence around the outside of the rest. And make sure to attach the fence at each post. I did all 4 sides but left the end of one side on the front open so I could swing the fence out open so that turning the compost and getting it out would be easier.
As far as what to put in it, anything that will break down except meat ( you were right). So grass clippings (I have a separate one for those because of weeds) small twigs, big branches are a problem because they take a bit longer to break down and make it hard to dig out or turn the compost. And if the pile starts to smell you need to add carbon (sawdust, wood shavings plain corragated cardboard etc).
Here you go.
http://www.greenfingers.com/articledisplay.asp?id=335