We grew up with a system that seemed to work well with not too much effort. Two 3 ft diameter cylinders of fence wire, sitting on bare dirt. We'd fill one up one year, turn it over into the other one where it would sit for the next year, and then turn it onto the garden. (I'm using the term "we" very loosely, this was my dad's realm.) My dad was good about layering grass clippings, fall leaves, kitchen scraps, and ash from the fireplace. One year the compost pile even ignited itself it got so hot!
Doug had a wooden slat compost bin built in along the back fence that has been collecting everything from the kitchen for years. But turning it is a pain, and there's no place to turn it to, and thus, the bottom is beautiful compost, and the top never gets wet enough or warm enough to turn into anything.
So I was too tempted by the promise of easy turning, and I bought a compost tumbler. My plan will be to continue to stockpile materials in the wooden bin and keep some open piles of grass clippings or leaves as we have them, and then put a good mix together in the tumbler which will get turned every couple days. This way we won't end up with mostly finished compost that still has last night's potato peels raw.
After some research (especially this excellent article in Mother Earth News), we settled on the Lifetime 80 gallon barrel composter. ($165 on Amazon and eligible for prime shipping.)
So we'll see. It's still cold, so I don't expect miracles, but I'll load it today and post pictures of the compost when it's ready.
Say, that's some cute compost already!
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