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! :(

Yeah. We just came back and they were already out. Get there bright and early!! The girl told me they start at 7:00.

Monterrey Mushrooms near Loudon TN have a group of truckers who will deliver both smaller and larger dumptruck loads.

Googling found this article which if I paraphrase what they said is: If you apply too much nitrogen the plants won't produce tomatoes till the excess nitrogen leaches out of the soil. I've had this happen before in very good garden soil. The plants grew 12 foot tall but produced a normal amount of tomatoes for a normal sized plant. Also don't remember that they were at all late. My yellow pear plant did produce a lot of tomatoes. The beefsteak production was normal. I've converted my clay lawn to gardening before. I had used peat and sand with some mushroom manure. This time I decided to use only manure for one reason because peat is $90 a cubic yard. So what I did was make the soil look nice by mixing in the MC. I dug in about two inches and then spread some more on top and chopped that in with my spade till the clay clods were broken up. I started this last fall using horse manure in my potato bed. I switched to the MC because my fatigue problem limited me to only getting one cu yard on a one day truck rental. For next years potato/tomatoes my plans are to dig in two inches of horse manure in my lawn, and then pile my leaf cleanups on that area over the winter and dig them in next spring.