Welcome!

All those things are wonderful additions to the compost pile/heap/bin.

A 55-gallon barrel is a good start.

It sounds to me like you'll need more, but you can experiment with it, play with it, see how much material you can add within a certain amount of time, how fast it composts in your climate, how much of it you use.

Best luck & have fun!

a 55 gallon drum was just a thought. I was considering building a tumbler but I could just go with a heap/pile if I would need more.
any other suggestions?

All of that material can be composted. There is no need for a container, although that 55 gallon drum could be nade to work provided provision is made to get enough air movement through it. The biggest problem with containers such as that drum is lack of air infiltration.

An 18'x32' garden is a good size--you'll need lots of compost! They say you can't have too much. You'll be suprised how little material all that stuff breaks down into. Start collecting leaves, straw bales, etc., as much as you can.

A pile, if you can, is preferable to a container IMO and like merry said - you will find that it is difficult to make enough. ;) All of what you list is considered "greens" (proteins) so you will need lots of carbons to balance the pile and make it work.

Be sure to check out all the FAQ's here linked at the top of the page for all the basic "How-to" info and lists of possible ingredients.

Welcome to composting! ;)

Dave

I have composted in 50 gallon trash cans full of holes before. It can be done but that doesn't mean you should unless you have no other good choice.

I am much happier with a large open bin. Essentially 4 posts sunk in the ground and fencing material on three sides. we add wood boards up the open front as the pile gets bigger. We need lots of organic material to garden here in the moist part of zone 9 and the soil is so sandy that is sucks down organic matter like it drains water (quickly).
I like the size of 5' on a side and up to 5' tall. Many people say that the smallest good size for a bin is 3' on a side and 3' tall (a cubic yard.) I personally know that a smaller volume will hot compost quite well with the right components but a larger pile is easier to manage.
Keep in mind, we continous compost, no turning. We build the pile for 8 months to a year and then let it age for 8 months to a year. The pile we set to age last month was 5' cubed when we "put it to rest" (stopped adding to it) and in only a month is has shrunk to about 3 1/2' high. It will probably be far less than a yard of finished compost by the time it all breaks down.

I definitely don't recomend building a tumbler unless you have a great supply of very non-stinky stuff that you can batch compost. If you want to compost kitchen scraps, go with a pile or open bin of some sort. Don't spend much money on it since most materials deteriorate over time and compost will happen without you spending a cent or even much effort. If you do wish to spend money on something for composting, this is the first thing I suggest, A Backyard Compost Thermometer. Second thing if you don't already have it, a good garden fork. I especially like a hay fork for moving chips, leaves, mushroom compost, manure, chunky compost, and it is strong enough for our sandy soil.

Here is a link that might be useful: Backyard Compost Thermometers

I've never had a tumbler type composter; have always just piled stuff up in an out of the way area - an open bin cobbled together with scrap lumber, and about 10'x4'x3' in size. I have an abundance of materials - leaves from mature trees, grass clippings I cart away from our city compost site, large gardens and all the seasonal trimmings and fall cutdowns, shredded newspaper, coffee grounds, fruit/vegetable scraps.

The weather here is not conducive to poking around in compost through the winter, but it's doing its thing without human intervention anyway.

I thought I read that pumpkins are really good compostable material. If your vines produced fruit - after Halloween or after the pies, throw the broken up pumpkins in.

Pumpkins are great. The seeds are likely to sprout though.
Actually, just about anything that can get yucky is great for compost IMO.