Questions for you:

Do you not walk out into your garden more often than every two to three days?

Is your compost pile not located in a convenient area?

We pretty much fill at least a large mixing bowl's worth once a day or every two days and they're added to the compost pile when full or deemed necessary or someone is walking outside anyway.

If you don't want it to "look icky", keep a pile of grass clippings or a bag of leaves nearby or pick weeds. Any of these can be layered on top to hide the kitchen scraps, or take a trowel, dig into your compost a bit and bury the scraps. Taking it out is a small price to pay to create the best food your garden can get for free. But if you post this at the Soil, Compost, Mulch, forum you'll get a ton of responses.

If you truly do not like to go outside and visit your garden, you can vermicompost right under your sink. Smell free and fabulous for your garden:

Vermi-composting creates a rich compost fertilizer from food scraps. It's a process that promotes easy cleanup and is odorless.

Tools and Materials
Plastic storage container with a lid
Drill with 1/8-inch drill bit
Wooden blocks
Newspaper
Red wiggler worms (eisenia foetida)
Garden soil

Vermi-Composting How-To
1. Create a well-ventilated bin by adding air holes with a drill and bit. Drill many holes on the sides, top, and bottom of the bin.

2. Place the bin on wooden blocks in order to keep the air circulating under the bin.

3. Soak strips of newspaper in water (avoid using colored paper). Wring out paper, separate, and add to bin. Fill bin 2/3 full with bedding.

4. Sprinkle worms gently over bedding. Two thousand worms eat around 7 pounds of food each week. Leave the lid off for a few hours so that worms will burrow.

5. Add one cup of garden soil which will add bacteria, protozoa, and fungi, aiding the composting process. This also adds minerals that will help with worm digestion.

6. Bury food scraps deep into bedding. Rotate placement, encouraging worms to disperse. Feed daily or weekly. Avoid fats or meats in smaller bins. Don't place anything in the bin that is non-biodegradable or pet waste. After a few weeks, bedding and food will start turning into mash. Matter will completely break down in 3 to 6 months.

7. To harvest: Push compost to one side of bin. Fill other side with fresh bedding. Bury food into new bedding. Worms will migrate to new food.

8. Use the compost to top-dress potted plants, incorporate into seed-starting mix, and sprinkle on seed beds. Soak 2 tablespoons in 1 quart of water to create a fertilizer spray that won't burn root systems.

Here is a link that might be useful: Video on how to Vermicompost

I use a compost crock that has a carbon filter in the lid to keep it from getting too stinky.

But it's a lot smaller than 5 gallons, so you might have to empty it more than once a week.

Here is a link that might be useful: Kitchen Compost Crock

I keep mine on a paper towel or in a bag depending on the volume, and headout to the compost pile after everything is cooking. I have debated ordering a fancy little compost can. I would still probably empty it daily.

I have a separate little garbage can for compost. I line it with biodegradable Bio Bags. I'll leave it in the kitchen for up to a week, especially in the winter, or if I'm not dealing with fruits (leaves and coffee grounds only). In the summer I change it more often, or those fruit flies get out of hand. I probably ought to pick up a lid at some point.

i go to the compost heap just about every day but in the winter time I would occasionally go every two or three days..and I use whatever is handy...usually a couple of coffee cans with lids or if it is like the last few days when I am doing lots of prep, I just use a big old bowl and toss in everything and then go straight to the pile..I tried using a bucket type affair in the kitchen pantry but what that did was make me lazy about taking it out...now with the mess sitting on the counter, I go and toss it the way I should..

I put the compost in whatever's handy while inside the house, usually a dirty bowl or just sitting on the counter. Then it goes on the back porch into a pail that came with the Garden Gourmet compost tower. It's a 2 gallon pail with a snapping lid. It sits there until it gets full or I think about taking it out - usually every couple days. Then it goes back to the compost bins (about 40' from the back porch) and gets dumped on top. Sometimes I mix the new stuff in, but more often I just leave it on top. If the pail is yucky (it often is), then I'll set it on its side and let it dry out. Or I'll give it a rinse with the hose.

I don't take kitchen refuse and put it directly on the garden. I always put it on the compost heap and mix it in. It composts for anywhere from a few months to most of a year before I use it in spring. If you're putting your kitchen waste directly on the garden, then I can understand the yucky appearance.

I keep mine in the fridge or, if I'm away from the garden for a long time, in plastic bags in the freezer.

The compost pile is a mix of "browns" (usually dried grass clippings or straw; chopped dried leaves in the fall) and "greens" (like kitchen and garden scraps) -- heavier on the browns. I chop the scraps with a machete (actually a corn knife) after I add them, then mix the pile with a garden fork. A mix like that decomposes very quickly and has a nice earthy smell.

i too keep a bowl on the counter and bring it out as it fills up (or gets stinky) every day or two. i cannot imagine not adding to the compost every day, weeds, grass, kitchen scraps. i am new to it though, so i can't figure out how i will ever get to use it if i am constantly adding to it.... my compost is also very mucky and wet. i watered it at first just to moisten it, but a few weeks ago we had a real good rain and it hasn't dried out at all... it smells very swampy... everyone speaks of using their fluffy rich black compost and mine is just swampy... patience was never a quality of mine... it's only been out there a little over a month. does anyone add their composting scraps straight to the garden? how does that work out?

i can't figure out how i will ever get to use it if i am constantly adding to it.... my compost is also very mucky and wet. i watered it at first just to moisten it, but a few weeks ago we had a real good rain and it hasn't dried out at all... it smells very swampy

If this is the case, you need to add carbon materials such as dried out grass, dried leaves, etc. You also need to get in there with a pitchfork and air it out. A healthy compost pile is not slimy or smelly if there is not animal matter in it. You are lacking carbon and oxygen in your pile. Loosen everything with a pitchfork and layer it as lightly as possible so there is plenty of oxygen getting to the center of the pile.

...does anyone add their composting scraps straight to the garden? how does that work out? Sure, just toss them in. They'll break down before you know it. Worms love it. Your plants next year will love it.

I use a 5 gallon bucket with a lid kept on my sunporch. We empty it about once a week into the composter.

I use a "Texas Pail" ice cream bucket with a shopping bag for a liner. The contents generally go into the compost bin once or twice a week.

I also keep a small bowl on my kitchen counter and pop in the egg shells, coffee grounds, tea bags, fruit and vegetable discards. I carry it out to the compost pile once a day - it never has time to smell bad. My compost pile has a base of grass clippings so when I add new "garbage" from the kitchen, I rake some grass clippings over it to keep the flies away.

Worms under my kitchen sink? No....I don't think I'll try that..... :)

I also use a separate small step-lid trash can next to the regular one so it makes it easy for the kids to put in their apple cores,banana peels, etc.
It normally doesn't smell for 5 or more days and I reuse plastic grocery bags in it.

I use a garbage can with lid and line it with double brown paper bags. And usually put some used paper towels in the bottom before adding kitchen refuse so as to soak up moisture. I add more paper towels as they get used and in about 5 days or so, lift out the paper bags and carry the whole thing out to the compost pile. It's amazing to me that after 15 years or so of using this method, there is never more than a half dozen paper bags visible on top of the heap. The pile is built on a slope inside a cage of pallets and wire so the compost can be scooped out of the downhill side every spring. No turning, fancy components or whatever. When the pallets rot out, they are replaced.
I suppose I could build two piles and turn one while the other is being built up but that sounds like work.
Incidentally, I have another garbage can for recyclables (plastic, glass and cans), another for paper waste and another for real garbage that can't be recycled in any way. And a bag for returnables for deposits. With five containers, visitors never know where to put anything.

With five containers, visitors never know where to put anything.

oldroser,

How about using self adhesive paper thru your printer and making labels for each of the bins?

I have a recycled stainless steel one-gallon "cookie gift" bucket from a fancy shop that one of the neighbors put out on the curb. It has a locking lucite lid and a carrying handle. I fill it full just about daily. I have two teenagers, so, as far as I am concerned, one of them can take the compost out each day. It takes about half a minute to walk out to the bin and bury the scraps. I would prefer a plastic bucket, but eventually I know I will "come across one". In the Winter I used to keep a second larger (5 gallon) lidded diaper pail bucket on the back porch into which I would empty the daily accumulations until it was full, but eventually I did away with that. Too many interim steps.

Go over to the Soil forum. They will help you understand how you need to have more than one bin outside. You are always working on the fresh newer one, and letting the older one "rest". Better yet, three piles at different stages.

I'm pretty lazy...my garden is right outside the kitchen, so my compost bin (a rubbermaid tote box) is right under the window - all I have to do is open the window and drop the stuff!

Javamilk, that's the best idea I've heard yet!

I bought a pretty compost crock for my kitchen counter. It has a filter for the lid, and I line it with biobags. Since it's just me, there's usually not a lot of stuff. I toss the whole bag into the compost bin when it gets full or when it's been a while. I don't have a problem with it smelling.

Then I pull some weeds or rake up some grass clippings to put over it. Otherwise the squirrels get into it. They stole some apples and some avocadoes out of it once.

My parents bury the bio-bags right in the garden. Mom leaves an area un-mulched & un-planted, once Dad has that area filled with bags, the mulch gets moved from another area that needs composting, and they have a new place for the bio-bags.

We kill a gallon of milk every other day. I use scissors to cut part of the top off of an empty gallon jug, leaving the handle portion intact. I just stuff things in it and empty it every night or so. I rinse the jug and store in our recycle bin. I either pull it out of the recycle bin when I have more stuff, or make another, which ever is more convenient at the time. By making now ones every so often, things stay fresh. The good thing is the jug gets recyled after being reused.

I put mine in a crock and carry it our every couple of days.
A word of caution from the Florida board- Don't bury compost directly in you garden if nematodes are a problem in your area. Apparently it draws them to the rotting matter.

Thanks veggrljo - I discovered that I have a bad nematode problem that devastated most of my garden after I'd already been burying kitchen scraps directly in for awhile. Now I know!

I like javamilk's solution to the compost problem, too -- just dump it out the kitchen window into the compost bin below! LOL!