Dumb dumb question about 3 compost bin system

Right, thinking of making a 3 bin system out of pallets, back getting confused the more I read..... there seems, like most things in life, to be more than one way to do things.

 Method #1: Say you are in your third year, which would mean bin 3 is lovely compost, bin 2 full of last years offering and covered, bin 1 is the one you are currently filling, so the following year you would starting filling bin 3.

Method #2: Start filling bin 1, after 6 months say, shovel it all over to bin 2,  another six months shovel it all over to bin 3.

Method one seems easier  but i presume method 2 makes compost quicker  have experienced composters found any preferences/tips/advantages.

many thanks

So you just fill 1, cover and move along, sounds the easiest way to me.  Out of interest (ive got another post asking about pallet compost bins), have you literally got 3/4 pallets together to make a bin, have you used any chicken wire, straw, plastic etc?

That sounds like the way I do it Snowy. Works for me! 

If you move/"turn" the compost from bin-to-bin the act of re-aerating it and mixing composting/un-composted material will kickstart the process again, that will increase the temperature (by encouraging bacteria to multiple, it is they that generate heat).  This will give you (done well!!) a Hot Composting process which will kill pathogens / weed seeds & roots, it will give you compost in a shorter period of time, sometimes a much shorter time, and it will give you a better, finer, product.  But ... ... it requires that you have the right mix of materials, and enough of it, to keep the heap going, or to build it [i.e. with enough material] in the first place.  A 1M cube is an idea size - enough material to generate the heat, but not so big that the centre is starved of air - huge commercial heaps are much bigger, but mechanically turned regularly.

Alternatively you can just chuck the material in your bin (or an unstructured heap) and leave it for a year.  It will compost using cold compost methods, although at times parts of it will get hot (when there is the right mix, and a decent amount, of material).  The compost is likely to be rougher - bits of stem still recognisable - but it is still useful on the garden.

I don't have the time or inclination to do the Hot Compost method - I did when I was younger, I have a very large garden now and everything just gets chucked in a huge pile, I start a new pile in the Spring and the use the old one in the Autumn.  I replace the greenhouse "soil" with a 50:50 mix of my rough compost and well rotted manure, and when THAT comes out of the greenhouse the following year it is beautiful fine potting compost used for things like over wintering Dahlias and Cannas in pots and earthing up Spuds in containers.

The cold compost method won't kill weed seeds, so important to pull up weed before they flower & set seed, and not to put any roots of pernicious weeds like Bindweed or Ground Elder in the heap (I put them in a large container of water for two weeks, and then I dilute the liquid and use it as a liquid feed and chuck the smelly rotting residue (of now-dead roots) on the compost heap.

It's been interesting reading this as I have 3 daleks and I keep filling the first 2 up and every time I come back to fill up there is more room so something has to be happening in the bottom of the daleks. The one started last year had reduced to 50% volume over this year and I have now filled the 2nd to the top yet again.

So I'm at the point where I was contemplating what to do, go back and top up the 1st yet again and start filling the 3rd, But on reading this I may well dig it out and move it on to the 3rd. I can just see it being very messy as I will have to try and lift the dalek off the pile or dig it out of the top.

The alternative was to dig over my beds and spread it over the top, cover with weed membrane for the winter and let the worms do their thing and take it into the soil.

I have never put weed in the compost bins, it's all the vegetation from my produce plus some shredded paper and grass cuttings. I also have two leaf bins, in the 1st year I filled them both and then moved the material into one, last year I filled them both again, and I will again fill one with the other in readiness for this years collection.

Is it worth adding some leaf mould into the compost that is going into Bin 3, if I don't spread it over the beds?

Your thoughts and suggestions are welcome
   

It's been interesting reading this as I have 3 daleks and I keep filling the first 2 up and every time I come back to fill up there is more room so something has to be happening in the bottom of the daleks. The one started last year had reduced to 50% volume over this year and I have now filled the 2nd to the top yet again.

I would use them in rotation ... have one "filling" and when full then fill a different one (emptying it first).  As JayG said lifting off the Dalek should be doable - IME it might need shoulder-barging a few times, in different directions, to loosen it enough to then lift off.

You could cycle them round, so when a bin is full use that as the excuse/reminder to lift the top off the oldest, and the middle age one, and mix combine them into one, and then "turn" you youngest into the middle-age one.  At some point you will decide that the oldest one is "done" and treat that as a pile to be used, rather than re-incorporating it with the middle-aged one.  But that's verging on having a proper regime for making hot compost, so depends how much work you want, how desperately you want really good hot-bin compost (that's not to be sneezed at, just not all that easy to achieve IME).

The easier route is just to go with "Fill and then leave to itself", lift off the Oldest and site at a new position and start filling that (and use the stuff that came out of it).

I saw a YouTube of an award winning allotment holder. He had three bins, and when Bin A was full he emptied Bin C, turned B-to-C and then A-to-B; his bins were deliberately of different sizes, allowing for how much they would shrink during composting, so he didn't have the issue of "shall I combine the two oldest batches".  He had been doing it for years, everything was pristine and regimented, as you might expect for an award winner , so that might be something to aspire too ... but aspiring to it is all that I, personal, intend to do about it!

Is it worth adding some leaf mould into the compost that is going into Bin 3

No, I wouldn't.  Waste of good leaf mould, and its bugs (fungus) are not the same as the ones needed kick-start the compost process (bacteria).  Would be better to put fresh manure in the compost bin to accelerate it - or Pee on it each day, that will make a big difference.

Leaf Mould is best for planting trees and shrubs with, it has similar fungi (and will stimulate the growth of them) to mycorrhizal fungi and they are expensive to buy. Good as a soil conditioner too, if you can make enough of it.