Hi- I was not asking if I should use mushroom compost. I could drive to Wisconsin, where there is an organic mushroom farm, and they charge $1 a bag for their compost, but the bags are prefilled, and are not huge, and plus the farm is 60 miles from where I live. At the community garden that I am at, one of the gardeners made a few trips to River Valley Mushrooms and got some mushrooms and mushroom compost, and the compost was wonderful he said. I live in a condo, and so I do not have lots of room in my community garden to have a huge compost pile, and so I am forced to supplement. The city used to provide free leaf mulch, but they got complaints about odors from some of the people who lived near the composting site, and so they got rid of the composting site about five years ago.

Call around to the large independent garden centers to ask when their fresh supply of citrus comes in. That's seldom prior to March, possibly April.

Dear Jen, Most places will deliver. I also live in Lake O. and usually go to a place off 99 across from Loen's nursery (can't recall the name), or to S&H Logging company near the roundabout on Stafford Road just off 205. I don't know how to determine the best compost, but I have had no issues with materials from these companies, and I usually get the yard waste compost. S and H has a good selection of amendments as well, such as sandy loam.

Welcome to the forum! Almost anything could be true, but it's unlikely that the fire ant rumor is correct. First, the company would be having problems if their growing medium was full of fire ants. Secondly, their legal liability could be very high if such a thing was true. The Federal Fire Ant Quarantine would definitely apply to Monterey's compost. I'd go back to the source of the rumor and see what you can find, but I really doubt it will pan out.