You need to incorporate leaves since kitchen wastes are quite wet. A layer of leaves to start and then a layer of kitchen waste followed by a layer of leaves at least 3 to 4 times as much by volume. Since you are not planning to turn this you will need a lot of leaves to prevent the pile from becoming anaerobic. Usually the smell will not be a factor until you turn the pile.

Once this pile becomes awkward, start an other one. You could seal in the old pile with a covering of soil. In fact, a little soil layer now and then will not hurt. Put the soil on the kitchen scraps.

Mother Nature doesn't keep up with ratios, either;
she uses what she has, where she has it.

cowgirl's right;
all you need to do is mix some carbon with the scraps to keep them from smelling.

I use autumn leaves (or shredded paper in the summer if I run out of autumn leaves) in the kitchen bucket to balance the wet scraps, & then I just dump the whole thing into the compost heap.

You could buy or make a food digester - Google "food digester" for different types. You throw in the scraps, including bones, fats and other hard to compost stuff. Fruit and vegetable scraps are mostly water. This drains away and evaporates, and the soil organisms take care of most of the rest. The basket will need emptying eventually - our 'green cone', which cost about $90, needed emptying about once a year when we lived in the city and it was our main composting bin.

Another option is trench composting, where you bury the scraps in a trench about 1 foot deep covered with soil. The animals may or may not dig it up.

For your purposes, a variation of pit composting may work for you, Sink a bottomless covered metal container into the soil to dump scraps into. When it fills up some, move it to a new spot and cover the now mostly decomposed waste with soil. Simple, free . . . animal-proof maybe?

Here's the deluxe home made version of a digester (same as Mary Ann's pit composter?) described by Metaxa some time ago.

Get a barrel, garbage pail or some sort of cylindrical thing and dig a hole in your utility area a bit larger and deeper than the vessel. Punch many holes into the bottom and sides of the vessel. Many.
Put drain rock in the bottom of the hole sufficient to hold the barrel at or just above ground level. Now back fill the circumference with drain rock.
Now you have a barrel buried into the ground, surrounded by drain rock. Make a heavy cover, lid for it. I use 3/4 plywood with pieces of 2x4 screwed to the bottom such that the 2x4 sits inside the circumference of the pail and the ply now can't skid off the pail if you tread on it or run the wheelbarrow over it.
Attach a handle of some sort so you can lift the lid. Mine is high enough that I can get my rake, hoe, manure fork, whatever under it and flip it up w/o having to bend down.
Inoculate the bottom with a handful of working compost.

You know those leaves you blow into the forest...blow some of them into a pile and that's your source of leaves. In fact, that's your future compost pile. Just bury your kitchen scraps into that pile of leaves and you should be good to go.

I have a very similar situation as yours. I compost as much kitchen scraps as possible along with some paper, cardboard, coffe grounds, leaves, grass etc. I have not had any problems that I can detect from animals living off my kitchen scraps. I've had more issues when I fed the birds during the winter. I suddenly had 3 squirres nests and more mice hanging around. I agree with what others are saying. If I were you I would just make a pile somewhere convienent but not right next to your house. Keep it away a little if possible. Just dump your kitchen scraps making a pile. It would be best to add some leaves, paper or cardboard once in awhile. Have fun. I would just try it and find out for yourself what works for you and what doesn't.

Thanks everyone-

So it sounds as though a tumbler is not for me.

I guess I need to make a compost pile, but I will have to put a fence of some sort around it to keep the dog out, and then just throw the scraps on that along with leaves, which we have plenty of.

Pit composting sounds intriguing as well. What kind of a metal container do most people use, and how big?

Thanks for all the help.

Or....you can build a worm bin and feed all those kitchen scraps to the worms! Worm compost is about the best compost there is - extremely nutrient rich and quite valuable. Ever price it at the garden center?

Worm composting is very easy to do and there are tons of online sources to help you get started. Worm bins are small, easily transportable and they do not attract scavengers or the dog.

Here is a link that might be useful: worm composting - getting started

Yes you can make a worm bin out of 2 plastic bins and put SMALL holes in it. It's online, but that requires maintenance.

I use a composter (bought at discount from the rcyling center $35 and I dug a hole and inserted
leaves, kitchen scraps, brown paper bag shreds, some cardboard pieces, grass clippings and my lid is cardboard. Not any problems with animal life getting it. They are not starving enough in my neighborhood to forage my compost when there are peanuts, nuts, corn and fruit from someone who is maintaining them.

My dearly departed Lab left a pit type compost alone for the most part. It was about 16 inches deep, covered with a quarter sheet of plywood hinged to a 2x4 box, and I tied a cord to the handle so I could open the lid and dump stuff into it straight from the deck. Once it got going it really cooked, too. Best way to share compost space with a dog I've ever tried, especially compost that gets occasional infusions of shrimp hulls. See the 3rd photo in the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: my website

Dogs can handle compost. Yes, they'll throw up once in a while, but so would you if you ate spoiled cabbage and lobster shells. Dogs needs to exercise the better judgment that comes from experience.

Fox, raccoons, etc? How lucky you are to live where there's wildlife. I may have an occasional visitor to my piles, but I hardly notice it. The visits occur during the night, so I'm not able to enjoy them.

You've already got a compost pile going---the leaves you blow into the lucky woods. A lot of people ravage their woods for compost and remove valuable lady slipper/native plant duff. Not you. You've been feeding your woods all these falls.

Composting isn't a fad. It's a way of life. I can tell you're going to be a big time composter. Congratulations! You're going to love it.

A composter with a lid and some leaves as a base would be a good start for composting kitchen scraps. We compost everything from ALL kitchen scraps, bones, shrimp and crab shells to old phone books, dead animals and even dog dung with extra leaves. After a year with very little or no turning, a dark rich loam odorless loam is produced. If you want to get rid of it quickly, just throw the loam compost in the woods after it is aged. An easier solution would be to spread it on the lawn.

I built a under sink composting bin in my kitchen that uses worms. It works great and never smells, I have had it about 5 months now and it is going great.
Took my wife a bit to get used to having worms under the sink, but now she is a big fan. You might want to try using worms and a simple bin, the worms will eat anything organic from the kitchen except for meat and milk. Cheers

Tube

Here is a link that might be useful: Under Sink Condo Worm Composting Instructions

All that you really need do is bury those kitchen scraps somewhere. Since you are not interested in composting there is no reason to mess around with all the other suggestions, just dig a pit and bury your kitchen waste.

Our compost bin has for years been just 4 pallets which I originally tied together with binder twine. More recently DH has nailed it together. All we did until last year was dump all kitchen scraps with no layering or doing anything except removing the top layer to give it more time and digging out the black compost at the bottom. We only did that once a year in this cold climate. No muss, no fuss, no smells, and no expense. We live on a large acreage with deer, chipmunk, squirrels, mice, fox, coyote, cougars, and bears and only twice in 12 years has a bear been in the pile. He threw the pallets helter-skelter but otherwise no problem. I don't think bears are really attracted to the pile as they are around all the time and would be in it more often if they were. The other animals have never seemed to notice it except for the squirrels and a few birds but they don't eat much. ;-)

When we lived in the city on a 60 x 100 foot lot we buried the kitchen scraps between the rows of the garden. Made lovely black soil out of the crummy heavy clay we started with. Again no muss, no fuss, no expense, and even less work than the bin system. I call that system "feeding the worms" and they do all the work.

Since discovering this forum I'm trying for faster and more compost so am doing other things as well but all winter all we do is chuck the stuff in the bin. Once all the snow thaws I'll turn it, add more used coffee grounds and some wood shavings and use if for top dressing - kind of compost/mulch.

IMO better to compost lazily than not at all.

The answer to this question is simple, start a vermicompost bin. They are simple to set up, odor free, and I keep my in the garage, with no pests or odors. The resulting vermicompost created will be a big plus around the garden and lawn. Vermicompost is created faster and contains more nutrients than traditional compost piles. I set one up using this website, http://www.vcompost.com

Here is a link that might be useful: Vermicompost Guide

Orgarden - You are incredible. All your posts since you recently registered give the same message. STOP mongering these forums promoting your commercial enterprise website.