My neighbor Dieter came over and looked at my compost bins (with adjustable sides) a few months ago and then built these — a great improvement over my funky bins. He said he added the concrete around the bottom because the rats (or skunks) were getting in. The idea here is that you add the slotted boards as you build the compost pile higher. The screened mesh keeps out varmints from the top.
About Lloyd Kahn
Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands. He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the
Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include
Shelter,
Shelter II (1978),
Home Work (2004),
Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008),
Tiny Homes (2012), and
Tiny Homes on the Move (2014). Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers. You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube:
These are beautiful compost bins. I’m not too sure about having them rest on concrete slabs though. I’ve always assumed that they should be resting on earth so that the earthworms and other beneficial beasties can get in and help with the aerobic decomposition process. This has always worked for me and all my compost bins have a healthy layer of red wigglers working away for me. However, if the only creatures getting in are rats and skunks, concrete is probably the way to go.
Beautiful. Just goes to show, something so practical can be done with such skill and artistry.
I think the concrete is just around the edges.