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

reyesuela, I agree with borderbarb - keep at least some of the clay soil you have, and mix it with the compost. Compost is great stuff, but plants tend to grow best in compost + mineral soil. And clay is fantastic stuff for holding on to nutrients and water; as long as it's got a healthy amount of organic material, it'll drain well too. One problem with using ALL compost in a raised bed is that as it continues to decay, the total volume of what's in the bed shrinks. There's a discussion about that here in the soil forum recently - I think it was called "disappearing soil" or something like that. My advice would be to mix the two together (soil and composted manure) half and half. You mentioned annual additions of other composted materials, and that sounds great too. This will still shrink as the compost is digested, but not quite as dramatically as if it were all compost, and if you're adding materials annually you'll keep boosting it back up. (When I say half and half, I'm imagining measuring the halves by volume; thinking about it by weight, that will make the bed way more clay than compost, though I don't know how the %s would shake out ... but clay is far heavier than compost if you subtract out the weight of the water in each.)

I have looked at the Serrano website, it sounds like a good product, I have been thinking of buying some for my parent's garden in Laguna Beach. Let us know how it works out. I have done a workshop with one of the premiere organic farmers on the Central Coast, and she uses composted manure on her tomatoes, pumpkins and squash generously and I followed her guidelines with success in my little garden. However, root vegies, such as carrots and beets, do not like such rich soil. You will learn as you go, different vegies need very different conditions to flourish,( what a celery loves tomatoes hate ( constant water )) How thoroughly composted is what you will be getting?? If it is composted all the way to black humous-y small particles like soil, you should be able to fill your boxes up with that and have at it.If it is still recognizably horsey, then a bit more caution is needed!I would think about adding some good bagged mix on top. I garden in Los Angeles, at a community garden where we have a great source of composted horse manure made with wood chips which is still fluffy and stinky , and also a more finished compost which is garden cuttings,and manure composted for longer until it is very black. Even in our garden there is NO consensus on how to use the manure and compost, almost everyone has their own theory. And the garden is full of happy vegies! Everyone doing it their own way. You will need to find what works best for you. In my plot, I did the whole double dig, mix in the compost and the manure routine, it is HARD WORK.I used a lot of manure, and the plants seemed to love it. I planted the tomatoes into holes filled with the manure, it was a jungle of tomatoes.Then in some areas I also added a top layer of good bagged planting mix.This is where I planted the root vegies. I like Happy Frog or Whitney Farms. Yes, it is expensive, but I have a small garden, and I wanted the best chance of happy vegies. It is a lot of work to turn the soil like that,and if you are doing raised beds/boxes , I don't see the point. In your case, if your lawn was free of major weeds such as nut sedge or burmuda grass, just cover it with cardboard or newspaper, and go ahead with filling up the beds. Poke through the sod with a heavy garden fork, this will open up for drainage. I would make the edge of the walls higher than 8" though, at least 12" if not higher if you can afford the lumber. If you can afford to fill the boxes with all new, purchased materials, that would be the best. Adding any of the soil from your garden is just adding problems, possible dormant weed seeds, nematodes, and soil borne disease. With out seeing the Serrano compost, I can't say for sure, but if it is like what we use, still a bit rough and rich, you can fill the beds with that, grow only the plants that love rich compost this year, which would be tomatoes, squash,peppers and flowers such as zinnias,marigolds,dahlias, sunflowers, let the worms and such do their work, and I think you will be pretty happy with it. Add bagged soil as you want or can afford, next spring plant the root vegies etc. Happy gardening

I don't think you want to plant directly in it. Are you trying to make a bed using something like the lasagna method? If that's the case, you should probably wait for at least a month before planting into it. If it's just a compost pile that you're going to spread later, then once it's done it's done. Treat it like you would other compost. When you say fresh manure, do you mean really fresh like scooped from the stable into your pile? Or do you mean it has already been sitting a few weeks after cleaning a stable waiting for someone like you to pick it up and run with it? If it's been sitting already, it should have a nice aroma when you dig into the top layers. Something like a pipe tobacco, or a maple syrupy kind of smell if that makes sense. Down deeper into the pile where it hasn't had access to air in a while, it might have a funkier smell that's not quite so pleasant. That will dissipate very quickly. I like the fresh stuff to apply directly to the veggie plots in the winter and let it age and leech into the ground until I'm ready to till it in and plant in the spring. I get it by the small dump truck load locally. Had the best corn I've ever had this summer! Must be doing something right! :-)