On Sep 3, 7:31?am, Jim20729 wrote:
I have about an acre of garden and want to build a fairly substantial
compost bin/arrangement. Does anyone have (or know where I can obtain)
plans for such a thing?

With an acre of garden you'll have so much organic matter that you'll
pretty much need to dig a substantial pit in the ground, at least for
pre conditioning before you actually shovel it into a composter that
will produce humous (a pile of semi-rotted organic matter is not
humous).

I think you're better off buying a ready made composter. It will cost
pretty much the same in materials to make one yourself that will
actually work, most home made units don't work very well... and you're
much better off with several smaller units rather than one gigantic
one. Whatever you do do NOT get one of those tumbling composters...
in order to properly compost the materials must be in contact with the
ground. Also if you reside where there are cold winters the above
ground models will slow way down as soon as the weather turns cold and
will virtually cease to compost at all with the first frost, those
with direct contact with the ground will continue to compost quite a
while longer into cold weather. My neighbor purchased one of those
new fangled revolving drum models that cost more than $600, just a few
weeks ago he finally admitted that it doesn't work, not at all.

I bought this one about 10 years ago, it works very well and it's
still going strong (it's the only one I have seen that has a 25 year
warranty - I suspect it will last even longer and/or outlast me).

http://tinyurl.com/2l4fkg

http://www.composters.com/compost-bi...saver_17_1.php

My neighbor bought this one this past spring, he's very unhappy with
it... he will soon be even more unhappy as this will be its first
winter here in fridgid upstate NY. He purchased the large "400"
model... I often see him cranking away for like ten minutes at a time,
at least it will build big biceps. I don't ever do anything with mine
except toss stuff into the top and pull out sweet smelling jet black
humous from the bottom, I don't even bother to stir anymore, the one I
have really cooks.

http://tinyurl.com/2p7dvx

http://www.composters.com/compost-tu...eries_33_2.php