Dan Egan with the Critter-Proof Composter he built for YMCA Camp Mason in New Jersey

We’ve reached a milestone. The first composter to be built from the instruction manual is done, and it’s looking good.

Dan Egan is the first of our testers to complete a Critter-Proof Composter. Dan is the naturalist at Camp Mason, a YMCA camp in western New Jersey.

When we sent out a call for testers, he responded, writing,

We have school children spend overnight school trips weekly and on weekends on our 600 acres bordering the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. Black bears are the largest problem with compost in NJ. We are trying to establish a composting program to reduce waste and are very interested in testing your manual to build a Critter-Proof Composter.

That was back in late March. A slow, wet spring intervened, along with the programs and other work at the Camp.

Dan sent photos along the way (you can see his rock pile and forms here), caught some inconsistencies in the text, and showed us a few places where the instructions needed more detail.

And now  it’s done. Here’s Dan’s report:

So we are making compost!

On Tuesday we mortared the stone faces, built the aeration screen and attached the doors. Right away we began our compost program of collecting proper food waste from the camp’s guests to put in the composter.

Thank you for including YMCA Camp Mason in the testing of the Critter Proof Compost. It has been wonderful building something that works with the Earth, looks great and will be around for a long time. I thought the manual was great and you have my feedback from the bits and pieces that were confusing or contradicting to the photo instructions.

Speaking for myself, someone taking on this project with little carpentry OR concrete experience, I had a great time learning more, especially from minor mistakes here and there.

I plan on borrowing the forms we made for the camp composter and building one this summer in the Adirondack mountains of upstate New York on my family’s lake which will be even better.

One thing I noticed when I was building and cutting the doors was that I had bought aluminum too thin (the only sheeting at Home Depot) so sometime next week I will look to buy some new 1/8″ aluminum to replace the doors.

Other than that I think the compost will work great and I’m already looking forward to building a second one better than the first.

We couldn’t ask for a better result.

Dan’s thoughtful suggestions will be incorporated into the last draft of the manual, which we hope to have available by the end of the month, if not sooner.

To make sure you hear as soon as the instruction manual is ready, be sure to join our mailing list. Just fill in your first name and email address in the green box in the upper right hand corner.  We respect your privacy and will never sell, share or trade our email list.

The rock pile collected for the Critter-Proof Composter at YMCA Camp Mason, in Hardwick, N.J.

Thank you to everyone who responded to our call for people to test-drive the manual for the Critter-Proof Composter.

We have picked five testers, all wanting to build for different reasons, all in different stages of completion.

So far, rocks have been collected, forms have been built, concrete has been poured. April has not been a cooperative month for concrete work so far, but we’re optimistic that within two weeks we’ll have finished bins to report on.

Steve Tuey is a contractor, based near Rossland, B.C., who wants to add the composter to his product line this summer. Laurie and I were thrilled to get his initial response to the manual: “Very nice work.  This must have taken a bit of time to create. Really professional.”

So far he’s been able to build the forms inside, and reports:  “all the plans to this point work fine. It took two guys working steady with tools prescribed for nine hours.”

Erin McPhee lives in White Rock, B.C., 40 miles south of Vancouver. She would like to compost but doesn’t want to bring back the rodent problem that existed when her family first moved into their house. She knew about the composter in part because her sister Heather lives in Wildwood and has one of Laurie’s original composters, As Erin says, Heather “raves about it.”

Erin’s at the stage of preparing ground and gathering rocks. Her husband Doug will be building the forms.

The bonus? Because she’s an hour’s drive away, I’ll be able to visit and see how it goes.

James Zeman, in Central Texas, only has raccoons to contend with, but he wants a good-looking composter, and loves the look of this one.

Diana Taylor lives near the Vermont New Hampshire border. She wants to build a stone house, and is looking for a smaller project to learn on. Diana is waiting for better weather to begin.

Dan Egan, a Naturalist at Camp Mason, a YMCA camp in western New Jersey, was looking for ways to reduce waste at the camp, without encouraging visits from the local black bears, “the largest problem with compost in New Jersey.”

Right now, Dan is closest to completion.

“Some April wet weather has been hindering progress on the composter but progress regardless is being made,” he wrote two weeks ago.

Forms under construction at Camp Mason

“Last week, we assembled the forms, and placed rocks and poured concrete for the compost adjacent to our camp’s vegetable garden. We had to tarp it for the past four days during the rains but I just began this morning taking the forms apart. It looks nice but we still have work to do mixing and mortaring the four faces, building and pouring the concrete for the top and finishing up with the doors.”

So far, so good.

What happens next?

Once we’ve had a few successful builds, I’ll collate whatever improvements our testers suggest and pass them on to Marla Britton, the design part of our team.

She’ll incorporate them into the Critterproof Composter Manual 2.0.

Then, at last, we’ll be able to offer a download of the manual for sale, and for an extra charge, a printed, bound copy.

Would you like to know as soon as it’s available?

Then add your name and email to our mailing list. (Look for the box in the upper right-hand corner of the page.) It’s easy and free, and you will receive no spam.

The Critter-Proof Composting manual is finally ready.

How to Build a Critter-Proof Composter™ is a complete guide, covering 45 pages, with more than 70 step-by-step color photos. It was professionally written, and includes 16 architectural construction drawings.

We’re almost ready to release it. But before we make our sales page go live, there’s just one more important thing we’d like to do.

We want someone who has never seen a Critter-Proof Composter™ under construction to build one from the directions in the manual.

Call us over-cautious. Maybe we are. But if there are any areas where clarity is lacking, or something could be explained better, we want to find it before we offer the manual for sale.

Just to be clear: we don’t mean testing it against bear breaches. There have been a dozen composters in the Powell River area for close to two years now, and they have had no problems. Bears are interested, yes, but once they try and fail to knock it over, and try and fail to break the top in, they move on.

A curious, and by the prints, small bear, had a look at this composter.

And we don’t need any more testing on the quality of the compost, which has been described by Critter-Proof Composter™ owners as “superb.”

We need someone with basic skills, able to build the forms and pour the concrete, to make it from a copy of the instruction manual.

And we’d like it to happen soon.

So our best bet would be someone in Southwestern B.C. or an even milder climate, where the temperature is reliably above 10 C, to give it a go.

You won’t be all alone. Once we know who you are and have sent you the manual, Laurie will be on hand to answer questions by phone or email, should any come up.

If you’re interested, send us a message in the comments below, and let’s get started.

Update on Critter-proof testing:

Thank you to everyone who responded. We have our testers, and as of May 13, the first three bins have been built. We’re  happy to report that all three bins were successfully made according to the plans, and the changes are relatively small, but still worthwhile.

The instruction book is going to the designer for the final edits next week. As soon as the changes have been made, and it’s uploaded, we’ll send out an email letting you know.

Make sure you’re on the list by subscribing – it’s the green box in the upper right-hand corner.

The bins just keep coming. There are now 12 Critter-Proof Composters doing the good work of turning kitchen waste into living earth. Almost all of them are in and around Powell River, B.C.

Early in October, we built the first Critter-Proof Bin in Greater Vancouver in the City Farmer’s Compost Demonstration Garden.

The garden keeps a sample of every widely available composter on hand, and advises anyone interested in composting on how to go about it. There’s also a garden compost hotline (604-736-2250). Those blue bins behind me are City Farmer’s old worm composting bins. It’s composting central, and we were honored to be invited to build a bin.

Mike Levenston, the garden’s executive director, took a video the day the bin was completed. You can view the full two minutes by clicking here.

If you’re in the Lower Mainland, come and check out the composter. The Garden is at 6th Avenue and Maple Street, with the entrance off the lane.

We had a great time putting the bin together – two hot and sunny days for the form work, and a final day, cool enough to wear a sweater, for finishing it off and installing the doors.

Here’s a shot of the cement mixer under City Farmer’s grape arbor. In these surroundings, even the cement mixer looks good.

And here’s the finished bin. Somehow every one of them seems to be the most beautiful one so far. This is bin number nine.  Can you spot the accidental daisy?