DIY Cheap Compost Bin

Twenty dollars in materials and a handful of paperclips is all you need to make a sturdy, functional compost bin that holds almost a cubic yard of material.  This will make one wire bin, about 3 feet in diameter and 4 feet high. Wire compost bins will not produce compost as quickly as solid-sided bins that allow frequent turning and they can be untidy looking. However, "cheap and easy" is my gardening motto.

You will need about 8x4 feet of space for the assembled bin to allow room to rake around it and room to remove the compost later.

Compost bin, almost full

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How to Remove Clogs from your Chipper-Shredder

Or Why Shredding Oleander is a Bad Idea

I've recommended using oleander as "shredder floss", feeding in a branch or two to clear out the small stuff that bounces around in the bottom of the brush hopper. It works great.

But when we started shredding a pile of trimmings from the neighbor's yard, the shredder stopped after a few minutes. So we turned off the shredder and did some exploratory surgery.

Shredder chute blocked by bark

Oops! Totally blocked the exit with a mass of stringy green stuff.

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