Can you guess what this is?
Are you sure?
Really?
NOPE, you’re wrong. It’s a compost sifter! See?
I’m not a ‘separate pile’ composter where I keep my decomposing organic matter in discreet stages so it’s ready all at once. I keep dumping in the egg shells and celery ends, until the day I’m tossing it all in the garden.
So, what do I do when the big chunks haven’t decomposed? I sit this baby on top of my second bin or wheel barrow and shovel piles on the top. Shake-shake, bang-bang, and all the good stuff falls through!
TL built this gorgeous sifter from hardware cloth. Maybe she’ll show you how someday, or maybe you’ll by this 
Ivory
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AWESOME! that solves two problems for me–what to do with the baby gate, and how to sift my compost. (i’m like you, i keep tossing things in every day). THANK YOU!
That is a great idea. Thanks for sharing!
Valerie
http://valerieaheck.blogspot.com/
And here I was thinking I’d have to wait forever for my compost…not sure I can take my baby gates down just yet though..hhmm I will give it some thought though..I’m sure I can come up with something!!
Thanks!!
We were “pile and sift” composters for years (and we used a hardware cloth sifter, too), and this worked pretty well, but we’re lazy composters and never turned the pile. We’d just dig it out once a year. It seemed like a lot of wasted time and energy to dig it out. So, we thought we wanted to have a “fancy-smancy” composter and bought the one you linked to.
And guess what? Our “pile and sift” method worked much better (faster) with a higher quality compost AND it was actually easier than dealing with the big monstrocity. I’m thinking a nice, neat cinderblock compost pile would actually work much better, but after we spent so much money on the fancy one, I think my husband might put *me* in the composter if I suggested using $2 cinderblock instead
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That’s funny. I thought that was a drying rack for wool. That’s what they are at my house.
@Thea Baby gates are quite useful to the imaginative homemaker, eh?
@Wendy You are my new best friend. I am SO GLAD to know that the cinder block–pile and sift method is superior. HA! I had no idea I was so efficient!!!
@Tanya Just think about anything you own with holes. I used a round of chicken wire my first year. Shovel it in horizontally and shake.
@rowena Me too…me too.
@Valerie Heck So glad! Thank you for telling me!
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