Good compost should smell like good, rich earth. If there is a detectable odor of manure it has not been well composted.

I disagree with TT that nothing you buy in a bag is good stuff. You get what you pay for, generally. The cheap stuff tends to have more soil in it and less organic matter and nutrients.

To answer your question, yes, if it smells like manure or other rotten odors it's not completely composted. You could air it out and let it sit for awhile and it would be fine. Or dig it into the soil and let it finish as it's incorporated. There is a risk of burning plants with that approach though. A few weeks will probably get it finished.

IIRC mushroom compost is sterilized (steamed) organic matter but not necessarily finished compost when used for growing the mushrooms. Several posters here have remarked that their mushroom compost was steaming, stinky or otherwise 'not done', so it had to be further aged.

Hi,

In a perfect world, I would have my own compost bin and it would make enough for the entire garden and the lawn. In the real world, I don't have space for a bin, don't have time, and my wife don't want one in the yard.

$100 wine is better than $2 wine, but most of us probably drink $10 wine for dinner and save $100 for special occasion, so there is a price point where something is good enough. I am not looking for the perfect compost, but something good enough to put into the garden.

There appears to be no standards in the US for compost. In the UK, I notice that gardening magazines actually test the stuff and post reviews. I am stuck with trying to judge using just my senses. So far, I determine that compost should at least be light like compost and not smell like manure. In addition, I may need compost now, so I will have to make the best of what's available until I find a better source.

I may tried getting some sample of bulk compost and send it in for analysis. It's expensive though.

Paul

Mackel's Consumer Compost Checklist-

Anything that is primarily 1.manure, 2.pine bark, or 3.mushroom waste, or contais any 4.peat moss, is an inferior product, falsely labelled, and a waste of money most of the time. All of these ingredients have potentially negative qualities on plant growth, are uniqitous, and cheap.

Spend your money wisely, the finest commercial compost in DFW I've found, for example, contains none of these things, it's made from leaves, grass, and tree trimmings.

That's the finest product that you won't waste your money on, I'd pay double for it but the only way to get a good deal on primo compost is to buy it by the yard.

Mackel

Lloyd's compost

Manure - nope
Pine Bark - nope
Mushroom waste - nope
Peat moss - not unless it comes in on a root ball, I don't add any.
Leaves, grass clippings, garden trimmings - Yup

Heated to 150+ for several weeks and turned several times during the heat phase, cured for another complete summer so two years from start to finish. Screened to 5/8ths of an inch (finer on request).

Lloyd

Anything that is primarily 1.manure, 2.pine bark, or 3.mushroom waste, or contais any 4.peat moss, is an inferior product, falsely labelled, and a waste of money most of the time.

Must be nice to be so adamantly right all the time and know everything :-)

'Compost' only describes the end result of a process and is only as good as the process itself. Anything once living (or any part of anything once living) can be composted and if done correctly and thoroughly, will make an excellent end product. Manures, bark, wood chips, any plant parts, conifer needles, leaves, weeds, kitchen waste, bread, cardboard, humanure, junk mail, grass clippings, dead animals, your unpleasant neighbor......you name it, it can be composted. In fact, the wider the range of ingredients included, the better the resultant compost will be. I'm not sure I'd bother to include peat unless it was just sitting around - it's well-decomposed already and has minimal ability to support or nurture microbial life.

There is a wide range in quality with commercially prepared compost. Personally, like any other purchased soil product, I'd like to see what I'm getting so often bulk is preferrable to bagged. Municipal composting operations that use home yard waste as a primary ingredient source often produce a very decent product by virtue of the size and temperature of their production methods. And many of these are under rather stringent guidelines on what and how they produce as well as offer finished product for testing. In fact, many commercial composting operations produce a far superior product than the average homeowner who lacks the range of ingredients, doesn't have the space or is unable to generate the necessary temps for the necessary period to generate some really good finished compost.

How to tell the good stuff from the not very good? Scent - should smell rich and earthy. Color - a dark brownish black (they don't refer to it as "black gold" for nothing!). Sight - few, if any, recognizable objects, although some larger barky, woody pieces are just fine.

4."added" peatmoss 5.cottonurr 6.anything with only one ingredient in it

Mackel

Snarky gg, don't you know that it was me all along?

Mackel

{{gwi:290374}}
{{gwi:290375}}
This is what I use,paulsiu, wish you where closer, you could try this. Mostly coffee waste, good thread, lot of good points,I have nothing to add.

Maybe in the UK, you could buy good bagged compost? In the US the quality of the bagged stuff has been going downhill for years. Even the so called compost they sell at Whole Foods which is supposed to be real composted food, turned out a be a bag filled with sawdust and a few pieces of brown wood of indeterminate origin, and a small bag costs $9.99. I think the bag holds about two quarts.

'If I made you feel second best,
Girl I'm sorry I was blind...'

Here is a link that might be useful: Give Me One More Chance, GG...

Really good compost does not keep very well in a bag. Compost that is hand labored over in small batches, would clearly be top of the line, but they don't sell anything like that bagged. If one could find someone making compost and buy directly from them, but there are still problems that could come up. Diseases may get passed to you in the compost. They would probably have to sterilize the compost with steam before selling it.

I found the best compost has some sheared wood as a raw material, and the leaves are also good. Kitchen scraps like fruits also make great compost, and coffee grounds and tea leaves. There are lots of things that can be composted but those would be my top choices if I could make a dream batch of compost. The compost will be black and a bit chunky, but neither too chunky nor too fine in texture, and smell like rich earth and not like manure. This would be dream compost, but you can only make it, not buy it.

Good compost will be dark brown in color, if it contains a lot of moisture it may appear to be black, and will smell like good, rich earth. None of the initial ingrediants should be readily identifiable.

Actually, the magic of composting happens right outside my yard. Every fall, right outside my yard, leaves fall on to the ground. By spring, all of the leaves are magically gone, consumed by nature.

Most of the bagged compost I get appear to be black because it often get left in the rain. When I open it, it's wet. It usually smells like earth (may be because it's contains soil :-p).

Paul

I am lucky to have a local nursery that makes good compost. I can get them to fill the back of my pickup for $40. I need to ask them how the compost is made and where does it come from.

My lawn is large enough for me to gather enough grass clippings to make about 4 yards of compost a year. The advantage of making your own is that you know what is going into it. Unfortunately, many lawn products that are used to kill weeds are somewhat persistent. The residue can last in compost for quite a while. If a compost operation is getting grass clippings from a golf course that regularly sprays broadleaf weed killer on their turf, it will end up in the compost and it will have an impact on your plants. Do a google search on the subject. Lately it has become a bigger and bigger problem because so many municipalities are using composting as a way to divert yard waste from landfills.

Lloyd's compost sounds like good stuff. After two years, most herbicides will be much diminished.

Amazon has a good composter and compost http://www.amazon.com/

I doubt most gardeners would buy compost online as it would cost more to ship it than the compost itself would cost. Much better to make your own and buy locally if you can't make enough.

You should find a local company or nursery that sell compost. Also try googling for municipal mulch piles around your area where you can pick up mulch for free.

If you can't get good info from the seller, you should buy a small amount and test it in a container first to see how your plants does. From my experience, not a good idea to drop a huge amount of money on mixes or compost until you're assured.