Can I make my own compost on a small scale w/o foul odors? food scraps etc to make good plant mulch?

Question

I'm an apt. dweller, but in my attempt to go MORE green + my city's stupid ban on the garbage disposal... have wondered it it is possible to make my own compost bin on the back porch.. but on a very SMALL scale. If successful, I know it would be good and FREE food for my plants. Any good resources on how to do this ... are welcome. We're tlkg a porch that is like 10ftx10ft .... I just don't want any foul odors nor do I want to provide an invite for critters that need to stay outdoors... like ants or roaches

Answer 1

i compost too but i think your first answer here is great!

I was wondering how to avoid the flys we have! No smell...but flys do come by often. We do have large earth worms and a large compost w/ lid and we turn ourselves.  

I was thinking foldger size coffee cans recycled into mini composters: but you'd have to rotate them have a few...

my plants do love our compost! It's so worth it!

Answer 2

A properly designed compost pile shouldn't have any oders.   In with your food scraps (no meat or the flys will come) add grass and leaves.   I'm not sure how it would smell on a very small scale, but urine (from animals for us) contains lots of nitrogen which helps the compost decay quickly.   Maybe a little bit of high nitrogen fertilizer added once in awhile would work?

Answer 3

A proper compost shouldn't smell. As long as you don't put in meat products. Check out this website for more info on creating a compost and what you can and can't compost:

http://eartheasy.com/grow_compost.htm

Answer 4

You have two excellent options.  You can very easily create a compost bin on your porch.  As long as you keep the contents to uncooked vegetable matter with a bit of "brown matter" such as leaves or even shredded newspaper, it will be fine.  Keep it somewhat moist and rotate it so that the air is in it.  Fancy enclosures that rotate, multiple bins, etc. are fun but not necessary.  As long as you don't put grease or animal products in you will not have to worry about foul odor.  We have composted now for over ten years and only had one year when it rained so hard that my pile seemed like a sign of the apocalypse.  Don't let it get saturated and slimy because the development of anerobic bacteria is a definite smell-fest.  The other option is verimiculture.  I never did that but I read about it.  In vermiculture, worms eat your compost and the left over casings are supposed to be fabulous fertilizer.  You need to be able to deal though with worms.  You reportedly do this indoors. Look at Vermicompost in Wikipedia for a description.  I found designs for compost bins on the internet googling for free woodwork plans.  One more thing, the "accelerators" that are advertized for compost seem superfluous to me... the bacteria seem endemic and I guess that should have been obvious to me because of the automatic composting I experience occasionally in my refrigerator.  Best- GDP

Answer 5

Get ya a bag of lime powder.  Put it on the top and turn over, it will kill any spoors, and most odors.

Don't do a lot at once.