You can build a pallet compost bin in minutes – for free – and start composting today:

As we machete our way through our new land (I recorded a tour of the property you can watch here, if you missed it), we’ve cut down a ton of brush, vines, sick banana plants and tree limbs.

Instead of burning everything, I’m making compost piles and stacking it up to rot so we have fuel for our future gardens.

I first considered getting some fencing and making circular bins for material like my friend John Moody writes about in his new book The Frugal Homesteader.

It’s a great book, incidentally, and so packed with ideas that every homesteader/gardener/farmer should own a copy for inspiration.

Thing is, I don’t have any fencing or concrete wire or anything laying around anymore. When we sold our place in the states, we sold or gave away almost everything we owned, from tools to supplies, to my huge library.

When I went out and priced some new fence wire, I decided – heck with it. I’m going with the tried and true resource for cheapskates: free pallets! (Which is another thing that John Moody loves, so I was obviously still on the right track.)

I could only carry six pallets in my little van so that’s what I did.

In my latest video you can watch me build a super-simple two-bin compost pile with those six pallets. As I get more, I will add more bins.

It doesn’t get much easier than that. It looks good, too, and a bin like this should fit easily in anyone’s back yard – even yours!

You don’t have to worry about getting the carbon/nitrogen ratios correct or any of that jazz. All the brush and leaves you throw in your bins will break down over time. Even stick piles eventually rot into rich, brown humus – though as you can see in the video, I’m pulling the sticks out and setting them aside. I need something to cook marshmallows over, right?