Took a few iterations of trial and error, but can cleanly fit a full cubic yard of compost into my Subaru Forester. How are other people getting bulk compost who don’t have a car with towing capacity or truck?
It’s only $22 for this cubic yard if I pick it up myself. There is a delivery option, but the minimum is 7.5 cubic yards plus a delivery fee. My system is not ideal, but it works. Excited to go spread this in my vegetable beds!
by IM_DRAGON_MY_BALLz
38 Comments
This is inspiring! I have a newer car so I’m afraid to do this, but I want to get into the compost game at some point!
I don’t buy bulk compost but managed to fit a 6′ spruce in my car. I was so proud haha.
1 yard of soil can be ~2000 lbs. Your forester is only rated for up to 1400 unless youre driving an older model. Just FYSA, this will destroy your suspension if you over load the vehicle.
i found out i was able to fit a new uncut door in my car and 2 Christmas trees hahah. its amazing finding out what your vehicle is actually capable of! what youve done is exactly what i would do. we do have a small farm truck now that we use though.
I went a couple of times to a horst stable, and forked manure into rubbermaid totes on my lunch hour, then dropped them off at home and went back to work.
Also managed to, for about a year, get the vending machine guy where I used to work to give me all the coffee grounds from the big coffee vending machine, simply by having clean rubbermaid containers with lids always waiting. It was easier for him actually to dump it, cover it, and leave it for me rather than having to lug it to a dumpster.
Good for you! You go.
holy fuck you know they deliver right? you can usually get up to 10y delivered for 80$ at most places
Great way to ruin your car trying to save a few dollars.
Nah, I’d stick with delivery. But I want to see pics of how low this was riding with all of that in the back. Can’t be good for the car.
Man I’m glad I have a truck.
Renting a pickup from U-Haul is cheaper than buying a new car.
You’re going to have to spend that money you saved on delivery on new shocks.
Typically bulk product suppliers use a skid loader to dump compost or mulch into a pickup truck bed but that obviously wouldn’t work with your car. So how did you get the compost into your car?
How much would it have cost you to have gotten a trailer hitch for the Forester? This does not look like an optimal solution. We have our mulch and compost delivered but have gone with a service that will deliver orders smaller than 7.5 cu yd of material. That said, I think you would be suprised how quickly you can go through 7.5 cu yd of mulch.
Shocking
Our local greenhouse that sells landscaping supplies by the cubic yard will let you borrow 5 gallon buckets from them (with a deposit) to transport supplies if you don’t have a truck/trailer. I lined my van (with seats down) with tarp and put 16 buckets (which I think was 1/2 cubic yard) in my van to transport supplies many times.
Eventually I got a tow hitch put on my van and would rent a u-haul open utility trailer, then I finally bought a used utility trailer on Facebook Marketplace.
Yeah I had a hitch installed on my forester so I wouldn’t have to do this. No mess, no fuss. Tows like a dream even with 1.5 yards at a time.
Post this in the Subaru sub!
r/AskAShittyMechanic
RIP Transmission
https://preview.redd.it/mkfh09hlpnrg1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d415458acda89fbeddf9fa4e810cbc8740490f5b
Much easier, and cleaner to use the right tool for the job. And honestly a yard of compost is a little heavier than I should technically haul in my half ton, so you probably aren’t doing your suspension any favours
Brilliant idea.
I swear the last uber driver I had did this with his car before he picked me up. 3 stars
I would kill for this quality of compost.
My local place sells the wettest mushroom compost imaginable. I either have to let it dry for days, and break apart clumps the size of my head, or throw lumps on my yard. $60 per yard though, idk if that’s cheap or not
My local dump gives away free compost from the year befores grass and leaf drop off sites over town.
My city landfill lets me load up like this and they have scales when u enter/leave so u know your weight.
My car has a capacity of 1900kg. Last time I went it was soggy stuff so I only filled about 1/3 of the back area and I only weighed in at 1700kg.
If I load up to max in the summer with dry compost I get just around 1900kg
I love everything about this and you just gave me an idea for my poor abused Kia soul that I force to cosplay as a farm vehicle 😂😂😂
Bruh that’s not what the boot is for 😂😂😂
Fuck what everyone says, you do you and get it done
Do they put this stuff on carfox? Took me three months to get the smell of cat pee out of my last used vehicle.
Hopefully OP drove with the windows cracked, not just the axles
People commenting on this do not know the weight difference between topsoil and compost.
Dude, install a hitch already
How do you even load that amount of compost into the car? One shovel at a time?
Subaru Forestfloor.
I have loaded my little beater Mazda hatchback full of chips and mulch exactly like this and horse manure in garbage bags. It’s having its second life as an improvised pickup. I can’t put a cubic yard in it, but I can put a lot.
Everyone crapping on this dude for potentially overloading their vehicle.
I don’t recommend it.
BUT. Good news. Japanese brands frequently overbuild their vehicles. I’d sooner max out a Japanese vehicle than I would a Ford.
At least rent a pickup truck from Home Depot for $20
These are my favorite kind of Reddit posts where someone is SO EXCITED only to have like 95% of the comments be like “wtf” 😅😅😅
I rent a uhaul trailer. It’s like $20 for a day. I just try to plan a few errands that need it on the same day.
My car has a pretty low towing capacity, but it can manage about 1000 lbs plus the trailer weight which is plenty.