Thank you Mary for taking pity on my neglected thread! I need to learn more about composting for the garden in general. Thus far I have avoided it because it seems like a lot of work! I would need to strip my layer of mulch (which would go into my synthetic grass and be a pain to recollect), add the compost, then add my mulch layer again. It would be best for the health of my soil, I'm just not sure I'm up to it this season. I'm committing to myself to do it next year!

Thank you for the kind offer for compost. If it's still open, I'll reach out next year when I'm ready to give the garden soil some love.

Contrary to the marketing material from the compost barrel manufacturers, there is no quick compost method. It takes about 9 to 12 months to get the kitchen scraps to break down. So buy the barrel now and start adding scraps. Eventually, when the barrel becomes too difficult to flip, you will need a second one. Hence one 'resting' one and the 'working' one.

I keep a one quart sealed stainless flip-top container on the counter. Aha, I found the exact one. I think I got mine at The Container Store but this is an Amazon link.

Stainless counter-top container

When I'm feeling industrious I go to Starbucks and grab a (heavy) bag of used grounds, add them with dry, dead leaves to the barrel and this heats things up. The trick is finding the leaves so this only happens in fall when the leaves drop. It's not a lot of work really but I don't have your mulch issues to deal with but instead of laying it on the synthetic grass, just put down a big tarp (Harbor Freight) to hold the mulch while you work the garden. That's how I 'harvest' the compost out of the barrel. Lay down a tarp, remove lid from compost barrel, upend the barrel, shovel the compost into wheel barrow, trudge off to the garden. Yeah, it's some work but good exercise and good for the plants.

Here's a link to a great book on composting basics, it's available at Amazon (what isn't??):

The Complete Compost Gardening Guide

Keep me posted, always happy to add my 2 pennies to the discussion. Especially about compost.

All this talk about compost, the concept of composting is only relevant if your family eats enough produce to make the task worthwhile. Here at the McKitchen, I cook most meals from scratch, we eat no red meat and lots of veggies......washed, stored correctly and chopped just before cooking to add to recipes. If that's not your family's routine, don't bother starting. JMO. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That's a lot of great information Mary, thank you! I like the idea of the big tarp, can't believe I didn't think of that.

;-)