What is the question? Throw it on a pile and forget it. Too many greens may make it a slimy, anaerobic ooze, but it will break down. Keep it downwind if greens will be your major input.

tj

Be aware that if you put food scraps out in a pile, it will attract rodents of all sizes.

If you have 5 acres there's absolutely no sensible reason not to compost. It's a no brainer. My entire plot is about 15 feet by 25 feet and easily accommodates a compost bin behind a shrub. Like annpat, taking the 'sink tidy' out to the compost was an integral part of my childhood. My own kids knew they would incur a severe ticking off if I ever found a banana skin or apple core in the rubbish bin. The idea of having old food and mouldering kitchen scraps indoors in a bin for a week between rubbish collections is horrible compared with getting rid of it straight away outdoors.

No rodents here either. The local fox is kept out by a wire mesh lid.

There are different ways of keeping rodents and whatnot out. In general if food scraps are dumped in the centre of a large pile of leaves, sawdust or similar dry, and lightly covered, it will reduce smells enough to make it less attractive (at least). You can use chicken wire or boards or whatever to contain. Just pile leaves roughly more around the edges. If you have any natural 'low spots' or holes in ground, using this can make it last longer.

My own main bin works mostly this way but with cardboard as the main addition to food scraps. I have other composting going on Esp for yard stuff but the main kitchen one is leave it and forget it until it's full. Because compost keeps shrinking it is remarkable how long this can last. Mine freezes in winter and I think it's almost full by end of winter and then it shrinks rapidly again in warm weather. Overall it seems like it's always half full.

Another vote for Never Saw a Rodent. The closest I got were a pair of field mice who nested in the bottom over the winter, and a harmless snake that curled up to take advantage of the warmth. Some of my neighbors have had rats, but none ever bothered my bin.

As the pile grows, add to one end of it and let the rest cure into compost. When you can stick a shovel in and it's dark stuff with an earthy odor and nothing recognizable, call your gardening friends or neighbors to come get it. They might even bring you vegetables. :-]

Judithsara, do you have anything at all growing in your yard other than Grass? Shrubs? Perennials? Do you buy mulch? If so you can mulch with compost rather than just leaving it in a heap somewhere.

While I think the impulse to suggest ways to use compost is great, tjethe goal of not landfilling stuff is really great on on its own. And the answer to that question is really simple: pile it up or bury it and forget about it. Cover it with something like leaves if it helps and you have them. If you ever want to or need to do something about that pile, deal with it then. If you have enough space you can leave a pile like that for a very long time and avoid a lot of landfill. And at the end you will have pretty good compost if you find a use for it.

Yes, of course its important to keep material out of landfill. But if the OP is spending money on mulch the compost could be a cost saving. It can still be a matter of pile it up and let it rot. That's how I make mine.

I believe it is really hard what you are willing to do

Not sure what you are trying to say there, justinpeterson. Piling stuff up and forgetting about it is not hard by any stretch of the imagination. Is that what you mean?

I just bury the stuff where I think it is needed. granted, even with a 44X44 feet garden, eventually all your soil becomes black dirt, your flowerbeds become black dirt, at that point you just keep adding. good times to bury all you have are at the end of the growing season (november), when you harvest garlic, onions and potatoes (summer to late summer), and harvest of overwintering carrots (february). that way you excavate only once. I don't need to do anything else because I got little helpers who will work for food only.

Judithsara, you can just make a pile of your stuff---just as simple as dumping your kitchen bucket on the ground---or you can enclose the area. My favorite way to enclose my compost is with a circle of hardware cloth---the smaller the mesh, the better. You do not need to stake it, unless you get flimsy chicken wire; just make your coil and place it where you want it. You can close the circle ends with wire or those plastic zip ties.

Then, toss in your banana peel, your coffee grounds, your grapefruit half, your cucumber ends, your egg shells, your old wool sweater with the moth holes, your pineapple top, your wilted lettuce, your weeds, your leaves, your junk mail, etc., and walk away. If the pile starts to smell, and that bothers you, toss something on top---newspaper, straw, leaves.

The bin or pile never has to be harvested---unless you want to. Unless the area is tiny, it should shrink enough annually to never get full.

flora, did you get my e-mail address?

I think the missing piece in the "just dump it on the ground" scenario is that you will want to add a little dry woody material to balance it out. Do you rake leaves in the fall? Pile them up next to your compost and then just throw a handful of leaves in with each bucket you dump. If that isn't available get a bale of straw and use that as a substitute for the leaves. This will keep it from getting slimy and smelly.

I put what I can in the worm bin. The rest gets buried in various spots in the garden. Rodents or something does get in the worm bin at night, but I suspect they are after the worms since I don't see many there. I put a lid on now. Never put meat items in the ground or the bin.

I have two large circles of wire fencing, 6’-8’ in diameter just to keep the piles tidy. When one is full, I move to the other. By the time it is full, the first has room. I add all yard and garden refuse, any food scraps from the kitchen, including meat, fish, and cheese scraps, though I bury those if the pile isn’t frozen. You can also add shredded paper and cardboard, though I don’t since my town recycles those. If you don’t want to look at it, place it in the woods or behind a shrub or outbuilding. Just know that the closer it is to the source of the material going into it, the more likely it is to get used, especially in winter or other inclement weather. I have a sealed compost bucket in the kitchen that is emptied every few days before it starts to smell, and use snowshoes to stomp a path to my compost in winter. I don’t generally have critters in my compost other than the voles that are everywhere and the crows and blue jays that sometimes visit in winter for food scraps.

Yes, that's exactly how it works here, except that I turn and harvest mine. I'm one of the rare people who enjoys turning a compost pile. I like to wait until I hear a car coming, so I can gouge my fork into the center of the pile, setting off a blast of steam. I'm a terrible show off.

And I regularly compost meat or fish and there are at least 50 chickens buried in my garden. I'm unaware of any problems from doing so.

Redworms make great employees under these circumstances. They don't bark and keep you up at night. They don't whine if they're not fed on time. They actually enjoy benevolent neglect, so you're in business.

Throw what you want on the pile, and water it once in a while. You don't have to, but I also toss a handful of corn meal on the pile for luxury reasons. It'll help your worms to multiply, and they'll empty the pile a little sooner.

One nice thing about composting with worms for these reasons, is that unlike hot composting, you won't end up with a huge pile of compost every 3 months. You'll toss stuff on the pile, and they'll eat it all, and it won't look like the pile has grown at all for a long time. It might take a year or two to even notice the pile is growing.

Your worm population will grow to whatever numbers you need to do the job and level off after that.