Seems like a large plastic garbage can with holes drilled in to the sides and bottom (and top) would be a good idea for you. I haven't done it myself but there have been many on this forum who have reported good results.

If you don't have a weedeater and don't want to shred before putting material in the garbage can, then that is okay but just means it takes longer. If your pile doesn't have enough "browns", consider a paper shredder and shredding some of your junk mail to keep the odor if any down.

Do a search of this soil forum for "garbage can" and I bet you will find some results of others reporting what they have done with this method.

Good luck.

I can't offer you much in regards to garbage can or plastic bin composting, but when you say "small city yard" - how small is small? In what area do you trench compost your garbage? Tucked away in a corner or behind some shrubbery, would you have the space to make an on-ground pile? Could be easily constructed with chicken wire or some scrap lumber/old pallet, etc. I think I've read here that 3'x3'x3' is a good size to produce a nice supply of compost. Googling for images of compost bins shows all kinds of set-ups, commercial and homemade; many of which would blend right in to the back ground and not eat up a lot of your space. Piling it up on the sidewalk would present a barrier to worms getting in and doing their part in the process. I know it's easy for me to say... and you know what kind of space you have to devote to composting.

I compost in a cold climate and don't tend to it once the snow flies. I'm not too scientific about the whole process because it seems to work regardless. I don't shred leaves before adding them to the pile; they break down just fine if all the compostable ingredients are layered and sprinkled with water before the next layer is added. I'll save out a few bags of leaves to start a second new pile in the spring - after sitting all winter either in the garage or outside but somewhat sheltered, the leaves may have compressed somewhat but are pretty much intact and are quite a ways away from composting themselves in the bags. Seems that adding water to the bag would just turn them into a slimey mess. Or is that leaf mold?

My method only gets me one large load of compost a season but by August of each year, it's beautiful stuff.

matriarchy: Duluth said it all well. Only you know how much space you can devote.

In reality a small bin wouldn't take up a whole lot more "floor space" than your stack of milk crates. If you were adding your kitchen waste and other greens to the material pictured above, you might be surprised at how quickly the volume will reduce. A bin or small pile on the ground will at least have that stuff composting now instead of just sitting there.

I use 3 old 32 gallon garbage cans with holes drilled to store fall leaves for next year. I don't wet them, so except for the very top, bottom and edges they are dry and unchanged the next year, ready to compost.

Do you have a lawnmower? You could run over leaves with it to mulch them.

Karen

Leaves don't need to be shredded though that does speed the process.
You mentioned blocks you could stack up to make a bin. That would be fine. I would probably say put the bin on dirt instead of on the concrete but it is up to you. Actually, you really don't even need a bin, just pile everything up in an out of the way corner would work. If the pile is too "green" and starts to smell of ammonia then get more leaves, straw, shredded paper/cardboard, sawdust to add and cover. If it is more like a pile of leaves that just sits there and does nothing, some grass clippings may be in order or other high nitrogen additions. If all else fails and the pile is too "brown" to heat up and all "green" stuff is used up, send the boys out to dig a hole in the pile and pee in it then recover to keep the smells down.

I live in a hazardous wildfire area, where compost piles ignite easily, so I don't have a compost pile. I do compost by a method that I unwittingly discovered.
I put dried grasses/leaves/pine needles under about 12" of dirt. I plant my vegetables on top, by harvest time, the mulch materials are mostly decomposed.
I turn the soil with a shovel, and have beautiful loam.

Thanks for the ideas, everyone - below are answers and responses:

Duluth, I have a small urban rowhouse yard - the tillable area is about 8 feet wide and 40 feet long, excluding a sidewalk running the length from back door to alley gate. A portion of that is in turf grass for mulch, a portion in clover for the bees/nitrogen, and the rest in perennials, herbs, and veg.

I have been avoiding a "real" compost pile because I didn't want to lose any usable area, but I think I need to build one in a back corner, as soon as the BES die back. I will use the bricks to make a loose wall to keep it tidy. I want the worms to get involved.

I think I am sorta doing what you do, tigpie.

I dig holes wherever I can and bury garbage, shredded paper, and crispy sidewalk-dried weeds. If I have a lot, I dig a bigger hole; if I have a little, I tuck it in between plants. I put at least 6" of dirt over it to keep the feral cats from digging it up. I can't go much deeper than about 12"" or I hit solid clay.

I just smoothed out one patch I've been trenching all summer, and planted a fall crop of greens. I'll have an opportunity to bury stuff one more time after I harvest that before the ground freezes hard. Another spot is going to be a garlic patch later this fall. I am running out of places to dig. Most of the exposed dirt has a recent batch under it.

I guess I *need* a real compost pile to be able to handle our family output of kitchen and paper waste - and the fall clean-up stuff, and leaves begged from neighbors. I could also be getting coffee grounds from the nearby convenience store.

I don't have a lawn mower. I actually hand-cut my 6x6 "lawn" with a grass shears, and dry the grass on the sidewalk before using it to mulch. There are two trees in my neighborhood with "small leaves" - I was thinking of asking those neighbors if I can rake their leaves. THat would make me a pretty selective leaf composter, but it might save me from the shredding problem.

Tclynx, I have girls, and I don't think I can get them to pee in the yard - but I get the idea. :-)

Thanks for the thoughts, everyone!

MsMatriarch--

Now just a durned second. I can't help but like the idea of your milk crates because they are neat and verticle which is perfect for small spaces whereas with a "loose" brick container the water and compost would probably ooze gunk between a bunch of out-of-alignment bricks. Similarly, the garbage bag idea just sounds messy and unattractive to me.

This may sound dumb (but I'm a blonde and am used to it) but why not cover the milk crates with some inoffensive-looking contact paper ---which would keep your pile a bit more moist (and btw you should add water occasionally if you want the stuff to cook down more quickly)--and furthermore you could then rotate them as they composted down and put the emptiest on top. Furthermore, you could keep one crate by your kitchen door for those daily dumpings of coffee grounds and vegetable scraps and, unfortunately, junk mail.

Hmmm? Let me know what you think.

Best to PA, Lucinda

I know what you mean, Miss Lucinda. I liked the vertical tidiness of the crates all summer.

I tried putting kitchen waste in the crates, but it attracted flies and yellow jackets like crazy. The crates are not big enough to "bury it in the middle of the pile" like other folks do with garbage. It's fine for egg shells and tea bags, but not for rotting watermelon rinds.

That's how I started burying garbage - it got the garbage out of sight and smell. It was easy to keep the paper shredder bin out back and throw in handfuls of paper. But three months later, I am out of room to dig holes.

The brick bin isn't ideal. But I thought it would be tidier than just a pile in a corner, which would be visible through the chain-link fence.

Another thing I am considering - worm composting. I could feed the garbage to the worms, and keep using crates for yard waste. I could bury the accumulated crate contents under the veggie patch in November, ala tigpie, and it would decompose through next summer.

Tomorrow I am going to unstack the crates and dump out the bottom one, to assess how reduced it might be. Then I might have a better idea of what I want to do.

The garbage can idea that elphaba mentioned is also still an option.

The milk crates may seem like a good idea but they are rather small for any active composting to really happen in them.

The trash can works for me. I 'turn' it by sticking a long metal thing I found on my power drill. You could also poke in a stake and wiggle it around if you get the urge to turn.

I also use some giant plastic containers and turn them upside down.

Vermicomposting sounds like a perfect solution to me.

I would like to try vermicomposting, too, but no way my husband would tolerate my bringing worms into the house! A worm bin have to be inside to be protected from extreme cold or heat, doesn't it? Am I correct that it can't be outside in northern winters and 100 degree summers?
I apologize, matriarchy, for taking your thread off subject.

Karen

Worm bins can survive outdoors in heat and cold, they need to be protected from direct sunlight and big enough that the center doesn't freeze though so that might be too big for this situation.

There are some pretty elegant little indoor worm farms if you are really interested do some searching. You might be able to convince him if it looks sleak enough.

tclynx: It's not the bin that he would find objectional, it's worms in the house.

Currently he's going nuts trying to figure out where all the bugs are getting into the house. All kinds of insects. Since he's so intelligent, high IQ, it amazes me that it hasn't occurred to him that they're coming in on all the seeds I have drying in the dining room. At least so far the assassin bugs are staying put on the salvia, not flying around.

Karen

No problem, Karen. I am also seriously looking at vermiculture, and have a man that is squeamish about bugs and worms. He doesn't even like butterflies: "They just have nice wings to distract you from the nasty bug body."

He was none too keen about collecting garbage in the kitchen to bury in the yard, either, but he has seen that it is working out nicely. He helped make the tomato sauce from the harvest.

I've spent the summer watching bugs and birds with the kids, and he's overheard us talking about all the beneficial bugs. He even came out and watched the mud daubers make mud balls with us. I think we have all gotten less skittish about bees and worms and bugs. Once you've watched a carpenter bee wake up from a nectar hang-over, they just aren't very scary.

I think my guy can live with worms in the basement laundry room - it's not like he goes in there! (He does have some redeeming qualities, lest I make him out to be too terrible.) He has also seen the dramatic difference in the amount of trash we put at the curb for pick-up. We have been recycling more diligently, burying garbage, and composting most yard waste. We usually don't even have one full trash can to put out for the week - for a family of four.

I am probably going to make my own worm farm out of doubled plastic tote bins. I saw easy plans. I don't think I will have any trouble getting the kids to feed to worms and keep an eye on them. My 10-yo studies anything that crawls past her. We'll have fun watching how fast worms can eat stuff.

Funny, 5 years ago, I thought worm farms were "too tree-hugger." Until last year, I just stuck things in the ground and hoped they would live. Now I'm a full-fledged garden nut with gloves and clippers in the glove compartment of the car for "emergencies."

The Cornell Composting site show 2 liter bottle composters and trash can composting. I have the average 1960's size yard, and my one compost pile turned into seven piles at present.

There are so many choices to select from; my one warning would be not to spend a lot of money on something that may not be the most suitable choice. My mesh bins are cheap, easy, and can be moved.

I used to have a similar sized yard when I lived in a townhouse. We put a ring of chicken wire between the house and the air conditioner and put our kitchen scraps and yard waste into it. It did actually compost. Never noticed any extra bugs.

Some advice for you is don't put anything into garbage bags wet (gets UCKY), and that if you don't add kitchen scraps to your yard waste collection, the weed seeds are not going to be destroyed. So if you can find a spot to have an actual compost pile I would recommend that, it can be small and almost anywhere. If there are a few bugs flying around it, really, so what?

Marcia