Who Knew There Were Uses For Used Tampons and Toenail Clippings?

Gardening is very dangerous.  And painful.  Just this morning, for example, I got a sliver in my foot walking to the compost bin.  It's still in there.  The Hubbs says it's just a stain on the bottom of my feet because I refuse to put on shoes to go out back for a quick trip to the compost bin. But I can feel it.  I'm like the Princess and the Pea.  It's in there.  I'll put on my glasses and dig it out later.  But I just felt I should forewarn you about the perils of gardening before I talk you about how awesome my compost bin is.
It's mostly awesome because it was free.  And secondarily awesome because our neighbors on both sides offer up their compost-y items to keep it composting and diverse. But it's most awesome (to me, at least) because I built it myself. With no help from The Hubbs or anyone (well, The Hubbs did drive to where we got the materials, so in that way, he did help).  This composting thing is a piece of cake and you should do it too.  Especially if you're like us and on a septic system (as my friend Jody says, I live on top of a port-o-potty) and you don't have a garbage disposal.  

Compost bins are notoriously loners, so you'll want to put yours at the edge of your yard so it can have its alone time.

Here's how simple it is to make one (if I can do this, anyone can).  You need four used pallets.  The kind of pallets that folks like Home Depot and Lowes are throwing out all the time.  You can just go take them.  That's what we did.  We drove up to Home Depot and drove around back and loaded up four kinda beat up pallets and headed home.  
You'll need some screws with the pointy ends, a drill with a drill bit that fits the srcewheads and you may want a couple of hinges and a latch.  I wish I'd thought of the hinges and latch thing before I built mine.  That way you can make a "door" out of one of the pallets so you can get into the bin easier to toss your compost every few weeks and/or take compost out to spread onto your veggies and plants.  Much easier than leaning over the side of the bin trying to do either.  Duh.  I'm totally building a door on the next one at the new house.

It's ok if your pallets aren't perfect.  Unless you have The Red Dog, who likes to stick his paws into the compost bin and pull decaying yummy stuff out.

Ok, here's how you do it.  Piece of cake.
Step 1: Go get your pallets and your other materials and charge your drill.
Step 2: Take your pallets to a level spot in your yard, preferably out back, where no one will have to look at your compost bin.  
Step 3: Stand up two of your pallets on their longer sides in the shape of an L, so that one of them is just inside the edge of the other (you'll see what I mean from the photos)

This is looking from the top down.  The screws are angled in and are pretty much wherever I could get wood to line up on both pallets.

Step 4: Screw one pallet to another by placing your screws at an angle (again, look at the photos for an example).  Do this at the top and bottom edges.  
Step 5: Add another pallet to one of the open ends to make a U shape now and follow the same instructions for  that side as in Step 4.

See how the screws are long enough to reach through both pallets and at an angle?  It doesn't have to be pretty.  It just has to stay together.

Step 6: Slide your last pallet in to complete the square.  You may want this to be your front piece of the square and if you've chosen to use hinges (so that you can open the "door" to your compost bin), you'll want to screw the hinges to two ends of one side on the outside of your square at the top and bottom (the hinge will make an L and allow you to open the "door" in one direction to the outside).  On the other side, you'll screw the latch - one end of the latch to one pallet and the other side of the latch to the adjoining pallet.  Best to measure that out and maybe even hold the latch up intact to the area where you want to screw it, so you can draw circles through the screw holes onto the pallet so you know everything will line up right once it's done.

And there you go.  You have a compost bin.  Now you just have to fill it with stuff.  And because I'm always so helpful, here's a link on what to start off with and a list of stuff you can and can't put in a compost pile.  We had this very list hanging up on the cabinet by our sink for a while until everyone in our house got used to what could and couldn't go into the compost pile.  Number 22 = makes sense.  Numbers 57 and 76 = Yuck!  We pretty much stick to uncooked veggies and fruits, yard waste and untreated paper products at our house.  But, if you want to throw in a used tampon or two, we won't judge you.  At least not where you can see us.  
You may even want to keep a small bucket under your sink so you aren't having to run out to the compost bin after every single meal.  We bought this one but here's another good option.  You can even get biodegradable bags to use in your indoor bucket and they just break down in your bin outside.
Go forth and create compost and feel good that you're doing good things for the earth.  And you're welcome.