We live in the Lot et Garonne which is in South West of France, a rural, agricultural environment filled with Bastide villages (Fortified for protection) such as Villereal, Monflanquin, Monpazier and Castilliones to name but a few.
Living in such an environment gives you a desire to grow your own produce and live more of a natural existence, which brings me around to my latest project which has been to make a composting bin for our garden and vegetable patch.
I didn't want just any old box and visited the local garden centres to see what they had to offer and also to get a feel for prices.
Plastic seems to be the vogue for the majority of compost bins on the market nowadays, but I consider these ugly and out of place in a garden, so I decided upon a bin that would both enhance and be a feature in our garden.
I wanted the project to be quick mainly because our exsisting bin was full to over flowing, but additionally I wasn't prepared to machine the timber to match the sizes of the plan, so I did the opposite and changed the plan to match the timber sizes.
The planks were 30mm thick and this photo shows the dimensions of the panels of the staging.
The photos show how simple the whole process is. it was really a matter of getting the angles of the slope correct to ensure that the stages fit over the one below and can easily be removed when the compost is ready for the garden.
The construction of the lid was also simple once the gable ends were made. (triangular shaped ends). I simply fixed battens onto the inside
leading edges and 2 bracing pieces were situated so as to rest the lid across the top stage.
On the outside of the lid I used a thinner rough sawn timber to clad and covered the joins with even thinner strips to give the lid a pleasing look and of course to keep rain water from the edges of the joins.
So there we have it, a fantastic garden feature that works in harmony with nature to produce approximately 250 litres of compost and all easily accessible as the stages can be built up and removed individually.
Click on the images for greater detail.
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