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Well seeing as we ahem accidentally burnt down the last compost bin, we need to build another. The last was a three bay holding bin, no lid, just a few planks round the sides at intervals.
We have a lot of compostable material, this is not just for waste the comes from your kitchen. Put it this way, the last time I pruned one flower bed, I had enough prunings to warrent creating a new compost heap bigger than most gardens create in a year.
We desperately need the compost as our soil is so poor, so anything that will help break it down sooner is great.
Here keeping the heep moist in summer is difficult, so anything that will help with that, definitely a plus.
We have loads of spare timber

Gidday

How did you burn your compost bin, hot ashes?

Even though adding compost does help improve the soil no end, I also favour letting nature do it for me and save my back. I normall just chuck the stuff straight onto the garden and the wormies and other smaller buggies will do the hard work for you.

You can also grow a cover crop and chop it into the top layer of soil and then plant into it immediately. That way you will harvest more nutrients and trace elliments through your plants.

yes, the old ashes trick it was, they had been stood in their bucket for at least a day so I thought they were safe. Almost had to get the fire brigade out as it spread to a couple of trees.

I am wanting to compost it as we need the compost for new raised beds, we don't really have soil as such, just gravel, so it has to be pretty thick to grow anything

Do you have a shredder? You could try shredding the prunings and then just spreading them on the top of the soil. As Jack says, the worms will soon take up the challenge.

Do you have chickens? Mine love scratching around in amongst the shreddings.

Zoe

I like 'beehive' compost bins.
Not the tarty, garden centre jobs, but the ones you make yourself by constructing lots of open squares (we used pallet planks) with the corner posts set to start half way up so they stick out the top (for the next square to go onto)

this makes it very easy to move/ mix the pile.
It also means you don't have to make loads all at once....when your heap gets full you make a couple more tiers.
they are great for growing (and harvesting) spuds and when moving your pile layer by layer, the bottom tier full of the best compost is the perfect no dig bed for a squash plant

I like the idea of behive type bins, I guess it probably could be done on a yearly basis using cardboard boxes.

no I don't have a shredder, we have hired one in the past, but it is a huge outlay to own one.

possum wrote:no I don't have a shredder, .

"You fight well in the old style........................but now you face................the Shredder!"