In March 2022 I built two stacked brick towers as long term compost bins for all the woody yard waste I didn’t want to deal with, material that felt like too much effort for my regular compost, mostly materials from neighbours.
Cedar clippings, huge bags of laurel hedge trimmings, fruit tree branches, palm leaves, Jerusalem artichoke stalks, sunflower stems, full paper yard waste bags of grass, leaves, random clippings that I tossed in whole.
I didn’t shred anything, I didn't layer, I didn't turn it. Just stacked bricks in a circle about 33 inches across, filled as I went, and whenever it got full I added another couple rows of bricks and kept going. Started in 2022 and kept adding through 2023.
The towers also doubled as a privacy screen from my neighbour, and adds some architectural interest in winter.
Anyway, I finally started taking one apart and I’m honestly shocked at how gorgeous this compost is.
I’m just pulling the bricks off row by row and scooping it out by hand into 5 gallon buckets, no sifting really needed.
So far I’ve pulled about 15 buckets of compost and have less than a bucket of sticks. And even those are mostly soft enough to crumble or snap. I’ll just throw them back into the next pile.
The texture is unreal. Super fine, fluffy, loose, and smells amazing. Lots of fungal activity from all the wood. Even the thicker stuff like bamboo has darkened and softened a lot. It’s still there, but it snaps easily now so it’s going back in for round two.
For scale, the material in this bin had settled to about 4 and a half feet tall. At 33 inches diameter that works out to roughly 800 litres, or about 210 gallons of compost. I haven't started unstacking the second bin, so I'm not sure how much that one has settled.
I’ve already topped one garden bed with a few inches of it (no dig, tomatoes going in there this year) and it looks incredible.
This was almost a zero effort system. I just dumped stuff in and ignored it. No turning, no chopping, no balancing greens and browns beyond whatever happened naturally. I really throught it would still be super rough and not broken down.
Even stacking the bricks was low effort, as I stacked as I went. Ditto for harvesting, I've harvested some, and I'm just unstacking slowly as I go. If I wanted to stop where I am, I could easily plant squash or tomatoes in the base of the tower, using it as a raised bed for a season.
When I finish emptying this one I’m just going to restack the bricks and start again. I used the base ring from a Dalek style composter as a guide to get the circle right, then just built up from there.
I really didn't expect such fine compost, I feel like I won the lottery, just as I was stressing about my hot compost taking too long and not having compost for spring planting. What a nice surprise.
by Clover_Point
9 Comments
Compost really is that easy honestly. You can make it as easy as you want. I’m not sure I’d like your design but if it works for you that’s all that matters. The Final result looks great though!
Prob holds heat and lets air in pretty good
Well damn! I know what I’m doing with my unused bricks!
Awesome idea to use up spare bricks you have laying around.
My best compost always came from these sorts of piles. I didn’t even bother containing my last one since the yard was private enough I didn’t gaf lol
It’s so satisfying!
Do you think you will assess your next compost tower after a shorter interval, like 6-12 months? Curious how fast this breaks down
Wish I had unused bricks laying around because I would do this in a heart beat
How do you turn it?
That is gorgeous! Not that there’s anything wrong with a compost pile on the ground or surrounded by pallets but this looks real nice.