How do you start a compost pile?

OK, we have been talking in the coffee ground thread and got on the subject of composting. Please don't yell at me, but I don't compost. I do spread my coffee grounds. I tried just throwing kitchen scraps over the hill but our dog kept bring them back to the house, half eaten (yuck)....I live in the woods so a few years ago I stopped buying mulch and just blow the leaves into the beds and they become my mulch (that saves soooooooo much work) I have a lot of hosta, I do not compost yard waste, but have a few places where I can throw yard waste over the hill and don't have to worry about putting it in a land fill. t There are just 2 of us and I don't think we have that much kitchen waste.

Besides composting I am also wondering about those worm bins.....

Shady

Vermicomposting is a whole noughter can of worms (bad, bad, I know, but couldn't resist) DH scrounged pallets from his job an built those for me, we've had them up since early April. Just keep adding too them, I've taken some coarse off the bottom of the one closest to the fence to add to the lasanga bed I'm experimenting with. I have an rose bed with established roses in it, 3 teas, I rugosa. Their about 20 years old and starting to get a bit tired. So I figured I'd give the lasanga method a try on there. They have perked up, but I'll know better in the spring when they bloom.
I was bragging to the others, last week DH scrounged about 20 bags of leaves and I managed to get the guys up the road to drop off over 30 bags on Friday. WOOHOO, black gold in the making. We'll use some of those in the bins themselves, some to do some sheet composting on a new bed I want this spring and I'm holding out part of the oak leaves to grow taters under. Gotta love it, all most everything that went in there was free. Try googling for information on vermicomposting, regular composting, lasanga gardening and sheet composting. All are very similar in many ways, but each can be fine tuned to suit your needs. Bottom line, with compost you get great soil and healthy plants.

For your leaves, I also live with woodland around me, I just hammered in 3/4 good sturdy tall stakes and stapled or nailed chicken wire around the stakes to the size I needed, then dumped all the leaves into this cage for the leaves to rot down into the best leaf mould ever, because I dont chop the leaves up with the mower, they take about 2 years to get to the quality of material I like best, but for kitchen scraps and all other household waist, you dont need a large compost heap. also you will be surprised at just how much you do have, news papers torn or shredded up, as with lightweight cardboard, veg and fruit trimmings, garden weeds without the roots and seed heads, tea leaves and coffee grounds, eggshells, old compost from your plant pots, anything that is not man made can be composted, so have a look in your garbage bin at the end of the week and you will see what you have sent off to the land fill instead of composting, it becomes obsessive and you get great muck for your garden, Good luck. WeeNel.

vermicomposting, has always interested me. The more I think about it the more I think this is the route I should go.
I already dispose of yard waste in my yard and just really need to come up with a solution to kitchen waste.
I have to think more about this.