Building a compost

For some time I have piled all my weeds, leaves, dead bananaplants and leftover organic kitchen waste in a big heap, and even though it has slowly decomposed at the bottom - and provided som nice compost, I have been thinking that it could be done a little more controlled and effective.

To keep it simple I decided to make it from coconut palm leaves, wood and a little plastic and metal wire to tie it together. Even though it will not last forever, it is allmost free and when it's done, it can be thrown into a new compost, when the plastic and metal is removed.

After measuring out 16 wooden poles was hammered into the soil, and everything was tied together at the top with the hard center from old dry coconut palm leaves.

One side is filled up with palm leaves and cleaned at the ends. To keep the palm leaves in place, I had to add some ekstra support made from the hard center of palm leaves.

Both sides are filled and one end is closed. I'll keep the other end open to use for removal of fresh compost.

And then it is filled up with the top layer from my old compost heap. On top of that a layer of compost, then a good watering and on top of that a few buckets of sand and then old bananaplant stems and leaves.

I haven't seen any of the locals out here making compost. Usually all weeds are cut down - or sprayed with chemicals - and burned when dry. My wife thinks I'm crazy piling up this amount of organic material, and says it will become a snake og rats nest. I just can't watch all this potential compost get wasted, and our red clay soil would benefit much from it - so for now I just have to compost.