You'll find more info on this over on the Soil & Compost forum but basically "Composted Manure" is 80%+ manure (usually from feeder lots) that has been stockpiled and aged for 30-60 days. Manured Compost is approx. 80% composted organic materials such as straw, leaves, paper, grass clippings, paper, cardboard, wood chips, etc. to which some aged manure has been added. Given the greater availability of organic materials to make compost out of it is usually cheaper. And, I contend, usually better given the diversity of materials and nutrients it contains. Mushroom compost is also not as readily available given it is from mushroom growing operations only and yes it is the lowest nutrient value of the 3. What is best? That all depends on the quality of the stuff to begin with - there is good and bad out there. And it depends on what your primary goal is - soil tilth and drainage improvement or nutrients? All 3 or any of the 3 are beneficial to a garden. Composted manure is usually the highest in N-P-K but does little to improve soil. While manured compost usually contains good levels of N-P-K plus many of the micro-nutrients and minerals and provides excellent soil improvement. Mush compost is lowest in nutrients but an excellent soil conditioner. There are exceptions to this of course and in general farm or homemade will be better than any of the bagged stuff but if the bags are all that are available and I had to choose just 1 of them then I'd go with the Manured Compost. Hope this helps. Dave

What a great question -- you made me look it up. I read somewhere (not sure if true) that mushroom compost is usually basic (and for that reason, not to be used on my blueberries). That would be one difference. Mushroom compost is a by-product of mushroom farming. I think it does not have as much nitrogen as manure compost (since the mushrooms used most of it already) and there's a warning that the salts in pure mushroom compost may burn seedlings. Depending on the supplier, it may also have pesticide residues?! Ok, now I'm wondering WHY I put 2 bags of it on the veggie bed instead of using cheaper chicken manure compost. Phooey! :(

Thanks...Well, ended up doing my own experiment after all my inquiries and research because I didn't have nearly enough ingredients to do the layers needed. I appreciate the input and clarifications though. :) I planted the front of my house where we had old overgrown shrubs removed (but stumps were left underground - what fun to work with). Of course I did all this planting up to about a week ago and then decided to lasagna style around the plantings (no walkway/paths - another fun challenge). So, I ended up doing wet newspaper layers around plants and over entire garden area, very sparse layer of old, dried out crabapple leaves, layer of compost with earthworms, layer of starbucks coffee grounds, layer of agway composted manure and then a layer of agway natural cedar mulch. This is all on a slope that I basically destroyed over the course of the summer by pre-weeding and causing newbie 101 gardening mistake of erosion waiting to happen. I only plan to add one more plant to this area and will just see how the soil underneath looks next year. I plan to water the area I lasagna'd so it won't dry out as it's on the south facing side of our house and gets lots of hot sun. Another thing I did was plant whatever my mom and I liked and now get to try to water what likes water and leave others to dry out partially (lavender). So, I planted: mugo pine-mops, 2 sets of monarda, lavender, blue fescue, silver mound-artemesia, hardy hibiscus, cheddar pinks, 2 whooly creeping thyme that are already on their way out, and today will add the dragonhead we just had to get after going to a talk at unconoonuk mt nursery the other weekend and loving the look of the plant. It will be interesting to see what makes it for the season/winter and into next year. If I don't over water them it will be amazing as I am one of those types and my mom is an underwaterer. Actually I'm working on the just-right watering type of gardener. This summer just had to be a scorcher with humidity to make it even more confusing. :) Sorry for the babble! :)

First off I'm not a gardener. Were your existing large bins filled as batch or continuous? If batch, I am going to expect a 50-60% reduction in volume by the time it's finished. If continuous, not so much reduction as some has already taken place. Is your garden for vegetables? I've heard that veggies are more demanding of nutrients and stuff. Do you till a lot? As it is your bins have a volume of 16 CY or so if filled. Shrinkage could take that down to as low as 8 CY or so but more likely into the 12 CY range. To cover a garden of your size with 1 inch of finished compost you would need just over 13 CY of finished compost. One inch doesn't sound like a lot but it should be sufficient if the compost has decent numbers and the garden soil wasn't dead to begin with. And with 5 of 7 years having compost added I would suspect your garden is in pretty decent shape. I don't think even 2 inches would cause any harm but it might be more than you require. Your compost ingredients sound fine to me with the caveat that the HM came from healthy animals. Lloyd