I will primarily be growing vegetables - some tolerant of slightly alkaline soils, others that prefer somewhat acidic soils. I will also be growing herbs and flowers.

Most vegetables prefer a more acidic soil than what we've got here on the Front Range. I don't actually know of any that don't.

Keep all your existing soil. I cannot imagine how much time, money, and backache goes into gardens where people remove all their existing soil and replace it (where do they put it anyways?) Literally all soils can be "fixed" by amending it. It's not the fast method, but it is, in my opinion the best.

If you are dealing with the heavy clay that many people around here are, sand is a poor ingredient. First of all, unless you are doing a very small area, such as a single raised bed, or "spot treating" only the planting hole, the amount of sand you need to improve clay is astronomical. Too little sand and you will actually make your situation worse by essentially creating cement. For vegetables, sand offers nothing of value anyways, so I would steer clear. You can add topsoil, which includes loam rather than only sand, but you already have the mineral "base" component of the soil with your clay so it would be superfluous and you can create a nice clay loam that works just fine for vegetable gardening through......

Compost and any other organic matter. I use a lot of the bagged stuff, and have never had a problem with it. Like you i could never make enough for an entire garden and I gave up since i was always buying most of it anyway. My main additive is the composted steer manure they sell at HD for less than $2/bag (1 cu ft). My second most common additive is bagged compost, whichever is the best value.

Why is it you are concerned about the bagged compost?

I see Skybird and I were posting at the same time, haha. I also see we both said pretty much the same thing.

Another thing I will add is that I mulch with straw and I turn all of that into the soil in either fall or spring. Also throw a bunch of shredded leaves on top of the bed in fall which get tilled in in the spring.

Great Minds think alike, Zach!

;-D

Skybird

Thanks guys for the responses!! That is a lot of great information!

Skybird, do you know if this is this Boss mix you are talking about? http://bosscompost.com/compost.shtml

I was actually just looking at their site this afternoon and looked like one of the best around and one of their retailers is a few blocks away from me. I am in Arvada. I was looking at the Black Tea compost. It looks to be free of manures which, while traditionally making very good compost, nowadays tend to have a high salt content which could end up doing more harm than good if I add a significant amount, and could be hard to remedy once added if that were to be a problem. I believe this is because of the modern diet for livestock being different but I am certainly not an expert on the subject so I'd like to hear other opinions on this.

Zach, That is my main concern with just buying any compost. However, if it has always served you well that is good to know! My other concern is residual amounts of pesticides, herbicides etc not being destroyed during the composting process, as well as any pathogens in sewer sludge etc. I have used black gold compost in the past and it seemed fine although it is primarily peat moss so it is a fairly expensive option for the amount of compost actually in the bag.

The tips for the leaves as well as mixing the straw mulch into the soil are excellent! I was already planning on doing so with some leaves that are mulching my garlics currently (planted in a raised be that was here when I moved in). I just wish my yard got more leaves! Do either of you have suggestions on a good source of straw to mulch with?

As far as mixing the compost in unfinished, I definitely see the benefit in terms of attracting worms. My one concern would be adding pathogens to the soil. One book I read on composting said to let compost finish, and then cure it for 3-6 months depending on if any manures went into it (3 months if not, 6 if so) before adding to soil. Since I do not compost any manures or other animal parts this is probably not a very real concern but I am curious what others think.

I will definitely try to make it to the swap, I even have some seedlings I can bring!

Also, I will definitely steer clear of adding any sand, thanks :)

BARB! HELP!

Matthew, I'm not really sure exactly what it is that Barb uses! Last spring she bought me a new pine to replace one that died in my front yard two years ago, and she kept it at her place over winter--and brought it over here on Saturday, and we planted it together. She also brought some of her "Boss Mix" along to mix in when we were planting Baby Tree! I knew she used something called that, but had never actually seen what was in the bag before! But what I saw when she was mixing it into the backfill soil looked pretty good to me--which is why I brought it up!

I know for sure she's bought it at O'Tooles 'cause I was with her one time when she got some, and she's mentioned that it has mycorrhizae in it, which can be especially useful for trees, which is mostly what she plants, so I googled it and came up with this on O'Toole's site! I think maybe this is what she had, but until she sees this and confirms it, I'm not sure!

http://www.otoolesgardencenters.com/BOSS.html

When I first moved in here I didn't have any "real" compost, so I was buying the "bags of stuff" from Walmart, etc., and I guess it may have helped some, but I sure couldn't tell much difference till I started adding half-finished compost and completely undecomposed leaves! I compost the lazy way! Throw it on a pile and let it rot! I don't put anything but plant material on the pile, and I don't put any weeds that could even possibly have seeds on them, or weed roots (thistle/dandelion/bindweed) that can "regenerate" from just small root pieces. Since I don't turn my pile (or do it extremely rarely, and NEVER more than once a year!) it doesn't get HOT, so weed seeds would not be destroyed. I don't have dogs, but wouldn't add the poop even if I did--and when the neighbor cats poop in my yard it either goes "back over the fence," or in the dumpster! I have gotten some "well aged" horse manure from Barb in the past, and I could have added that to the compost pile, but I preferred to use it by directly mixing it into the backfill soil when planting perennials. As long as it's "well aged," horse/cow manure won't hurt anything--and it's good for the soil, but you DO need to be sure it's aged long enough to--again--destroy any weed seeds! (I don't put tomato foliage on my pile either since tomatoes are prone to so many diseases--or things like squash, which is usually COVERED with mildew by the end of summer!)

I don't have any deciduous trees, so I get all the bags of leaves from the neighbor across the street--who has a LOT of trees in and overhanging her backyard. Maple leaves decompose VERY quickly and won't mat down in the soil, but cottonwood/aspen leaves mat together and can take forever to decompose! Mixing the maple with other leaves that break down more slowly is the perfect combination! My neighbor also has a long-needle pine, and while the needles break down very slowly because of the tannins, the pine needles can also add a little bit of acidity, so I'm glad to get those too! Again, mixing them up with the leaves helps them break down more quickly. In fall I recommend you drive around your neighborhood and find what you can find! I've scored 50+ bags from just my one neighbor, and if you have a vehicle to pick bags up in, I'm guessin' you can find as many as you want!

When I "finally" got enough compost from my pile to actually use, I started using the "finished product" the first couple years, and then I noticed that the "finished" compost didn't have any worms in it anymore! They had all migrated to the unfinished stuff! With my clay, I LOVE transplanting worms along with the compost, so that's when I started using the half-finished stuff! Sometimes now when I'm planting in an especially bad place, I'll actually dig into the pile and pull out just a bunch of worms to "transplant" with my perennial! Definitely build your compost pile directly on the soil! That way the worms will migrate up out of the soil into the pile--where they'll procreate ad infinitum!

It's amazing to me how, with just the things I cut down in my yard--deadheading and cutting perennials down, and with my kitchen scraps (from ONE person), and then the "adopted leaves," how much compost I can get in a year! Once you get the pile started it just keeps building and building and..... It's really quite amazing how much you can come up with if you're serious about getting all the kitchen scraps out there! (I just keep a "produce bag" by the kitchen sink and take it out to the pile when it gets full, or when there's something "juicy" in it that might leak all over the place! I usually take it out a couple times a week!)

So, without seeds, and without any "disease prone" plant material, I don't have any problem at all using the compost when it's only half finished. (And people who "lasagna garden" are planting in completely undecomposed "stuff!")

I agree with you that you should be careful about not getting anything that could have "salts" in it into your soil. I don't know how you can ever be sure when you're buying bagged products, but I agree that if there's a possibility of that, better safe than sorry. With my access to so many leaves now, and my good Home Grown Compost, I don't buy commercial stuff anymore--and I'm glad I don't need to. Having said all that, tho, do take what you find online with a grain of salt! (Pun intended!) Everybody has an opinion, and sometimes there are people who know The Answer--for everyone else! We try to avoid "knowing what's best for everybody" here on RMG, and you'll find we're usually more likely to say: try some things and see what's working for YOU! Everybody's yard, soil, micro-climate, and other things, is/are different, so, while we'll make recommendations, what works for us might not be what you find to work the best for you. (Part of all that is from what you said about composting! There are people who KNOW the ONE AND ONLY way to do it--and that might be the one and only way for THEM to do it, but don't assume it's the "right way" for everybody. The Let It Rot system works very well for me!)

Here are a few pics of how I do it!

This is my compost pile--right after I DID actually turn it one time, and then topped it off with some leaves when I got done! In the pic you can see that I attached some sheets of galvanized metal to my fence to keep from "composting the fence!" (It's AMAZING--to me--how fast the "stuff" on a compost pile "goes down!")

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/uTD-kBozpQ1Nq9DSaT9HeHndrQtGzFch99qcQRlCadc?feat=directlink

In this is one I grow worms all winter--with the help of my neighbor's leaf bags!

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/JwaV7SmkhsSviML9Y0kiRp2t1AHzxCWZWBDFt_M--1w?feat=directlink

This is what my tomato area looks like right after working the "whole" leaves into it in spring! It's about 24" higher than the soil surface when I finish--and there's a little more info in the caption.

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ALoE8ijKwx1OXMTFJP4kpaOsFsZzTAHAFNHJDxYIuCM?feat=directlink

And this is the proof that my Whole Leaf System works! This pic also shows how I now mulch with more leaves! Before I switched to leaves as a mulch I used the grass clipping from cutting the grass--but there were never enough, and they dehydrated very quickly and didn't help a whole lot! I now intentionally tear holes in the leaf bags so they get some water in them and start to decompose a little bit in the bags over winter, and then I take them out in "sheets" and put them on top of the soil after planting the veggies, and it's a nice thick layer that lasts for a long time, and it almost has a spongy quality that REALLY helps hold the moisture in the soil. This system is working VERY well for me!

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/brTK9Ud5vgJMcrq7ZoSK-52t1AHzxCWZWBDFt_M--1w?feat=directlink

If you hang out around here you'll learn how long-winded I am! Almost always!

Finis for tonite,

Skybird

Sorry, didn't get on the internet last night!

Matthew, the link Skybird posted is the B.O.S.S. I use, from O'Toole's. It's sphagnum peat moss mixed with EKO compost. I really can't tell if it is the same as the B.O.S.S. from the other website. I'll see what I can find out. The reason it might not be is the use of EKO compost. I don't find anything on the B.O.S.S. site that's affiliated with EKO. With trademark's I don't know how they could both be using the same name! O'Toole's isn't listed as a retailer on the the other site, so I don't know.

I know someone on RMG said they didn't care for it, can't remember who that was or what their issue with it was or which of the 2 products it was. I like the mix.

I also use composted steer manure. I'd steer clear of sand. As skybird said, if you don't get the mix right, you've made bricks.

Barb

Thanks for all the tips! So much good advice, you all are awesome!

I already have a big bag of peat moss so I might get the EKO compost and mycorrhiaze separately. Should be roughly the same.

That is a ton of leaves!!! That is awesome you collect your neighbors leaves! I thought about doing so last fall and was too worried about getting weird looks but now I wish I had! Your garden looks awesome, those are some huge eggplants!! Sounds like excellent mulch, I've had problems with leaf mulch blowing away but I'd imagine letting it decompose a little would solve the problem.

I actually have quite a lot of unfinished compost but most of it is probably not close enough to being finished to add judging by the looks of it. I also added my tomato foliage, although they were disease free to my knowledge, again, better safe than sorry. I didn't get my composter set up until late last fall so its been frozen most of the time. It is also not connected to the ground as I got a free one of those containers that spin around, which makes turning it really easy but has no worms in it. I am going to build another one connected to the ground this spring so that will be an excellent addition.

I'll try to get on here as much as I can. Using a computer kinda gives me a headache so I probably won't be super active but this is a tremendous resource and I am super grateful to everyone that has chimed in. Will come on when I can.

Welcome to RMG, Matthew! I'll just add my two cents - I've had great results with the EKO compost but I do go easy on the steer manure because of the same salt content concerns you have. For bulk buys I've used the BioComp that Pioneer Sand sells - I LOVE it! - but it's not always available. You can always call and ask if they have it or when they expect to, and then play 'stalker' until you get it!

If you put your leaves in a trash can and whack at them with a string trimmer, then wet them down when you place them (or just cover with a layer of soil and water that in) they'll break down quickly. I'm also a leaf thief, if you're concerned you can always knock on the door and ask whether they mind your taking them. No one has ever told me 'no'!

Keep us posted!

To be honest, I've never thought about the salts in steer manure (I've also never had a soil test done either), so I looked it up!

According to CSU extension, the salts will eventually leach out with water, and as long as you aren't dumping it in constantly all summer, I imagine a moderate spring or fall application wouldn't make a big difference in salts, as the regular watering through the growing season and the snow over the winter should do a pretty good job of "flushing" them out. All conjecture though, since, like I said, I've never tested my soil.

I think the only looks you'd get asking for peoples leaves is one of relief that you're willing to do them such a big favor free! If I didn't use them myself, I'd LOVE for someone to come clean up the 500 billion cottonwood leaves that are everywhere all year (the tree hasn't had a single leaf on it since November and I'm STILL cleaning up after it).

I run all my leaves through a sucker/shredder before I pile them up on top of the vegetable beds in fall. I also spray them down with the hose which helps them not blow away before the snow falls and holds them in place.

They don't break down at all over the winter, even the ash leaves which are much less "sturdy" than cottonwood and aspen leaves. But, by the end of summer, they are all pretty much gone. The straw can take a little bit longer than leaves.

Wow Skybird! Looks like I should be adding A LOT more leaves! Your tomatoes and eggplant make me look like Mr. Brown Thumb over here!

"Do either of you have suggestions on a good source of straw to mulch with?"

I buy my straw at Murdoch's, here on the south side of town (Santa Fe and Highlands Ranch Pkwy). The garden center across the street (Jared's) sells bales, but they get left out all year so they would be great for adding to compost or straw bale gardening (if you can lift 20,000 pounds of sopping wet straw) but not much fun to use as mulch. Murdoch's gets new bales more regularly and keeps them under cover. Used to be I could buy them at Valley Feed in downtown Littleton for a heck of a lot cheaper, but they sadly went out of business not long after Murdoch's showed up. No idea where you would buy them in Arvada, though.

Hey matthewbrendan, I live in Arvada too. For straw, you can check with Wardle Feed Supply near 44th and Wads. They may get some during the Summer. The other place I like to go is to take little drive out to Brighton. It seems far, but it's a nice straight shot out I-76 and a real rural / farming town. There's a feed supply store there that carries straw. No idea how much it costs.

I'm going to look into the Boss stuff because I have my own weird objection to animal compost. Thanks for that.

If you’re gonna mix your peat with EKO compost, Matthew, I
don’t think I’d waste money on getting mycorrhizae to add to it. I just kind of used that to help identify
what Barb had—when I saw that the one on the O’Toole’s site had it, I was
pretty sure it was the right one. Soil
naturally has mycorrhizae in it, and for the kinds of things you’re gonna be
growing, I don’t think adding more is gonna help anything. It’s especially useful if you’re planting
trees in a “difficult” area that could get very dry, or in a burn area where
the heat could have destroyed the natural fungus in the soil. The fungus acts like an “extension” of the
roots, so the trees or bushes can access water far away from where their actual
roots end. The things you’re gonna be
growing are gonna have small root systems, and they’re gonna be watered when
they need it, so adding mycorrhizae would just be an unnecessary expense—not to
mention that there are “different kinds,” and I don’t know if you’d even find a
recommendation for the “right” type for what you’re growing.

We had a thread around here one time about “stealing” bags
of leaves from people in fall, and I searched for it but can’t find it. I’m glad Amy chimed in! The people on the thread I can’t find pretty
much said what she did! Some people felt
comfortable just driving down the street and picking up whatever they found,
and some people said they’d be more comfortable asking, first, if it was ok to
take them. If somebody’s put something
out by the curb, I don’t know how they could object to somebody else coming
along and picking it up!

My “leaf neighbor” across the street is really well trained
by now!!! For several years I had been
going over to where they stack the bags by the side of their garage (until
trash day) and carrying/dragging them across the street (the first year I
started doing it I DID ask—about the ones they hadn’t actually put by the curb
yet), but by now they’re “delivering” them to me and putting them next to my
garage by the gate into my backyard! I’m
Olde, and I think they feel sorry for me!!!
Actually, since I’m retired now, I need exercise wherever I can get it,
so I wouldn’t mind carrying them across the street, but I still have to carry
them down my narrow walk into the yard and then all the way across the backyard
to the veggie garden, so that adds up to a fair amount of exercise anyway! When I was doing that last year my neighbor
right next door saw me doing it (there was a HUGE pile of bags by my gate!) and
offered to carry them in for me—there are definite advantages to being olde!--but
I thanked him and told him it was good exercise and I was ok doing it.

If you do decide to go scavenging for leaves, kind of “feel”
the bags before you load them up so you can be pretty sure the whole bag really
is filled with leaves and not a bunch of other yard debris. And if you can find some where somebody has a
maple tree, I HIGHLY recommend maple leaves for all sorts of things. They’re great for mixing in with the
“tougher” leaves to help them decompose faster, and they make GREAT
insulation! One year I left my root
crops in the ground all winter—until I wanted some, and I dumped several bags
of maple leaves on top of them and then put an old sheet over the leaves to
keep them from blowing away. The soil
stayed thawed so I could dig some whenever I wanted to! And if they stay dry, they stay “fluffy,” so
they don’t lose their insulating power!
If I had used cottonwood/poplar leaves, they would have all matted down
and probably rotted the veggies. And I
planted my first batch of potatoes a couple weeks ago, and when I finished I
put a big bag of maple leaves on top of them to keep them insulated until it’s
time for them to start to grow! I LOVE
maple leaves!

If you do decide to collect bags, I also highly recommend
using some of them to put on top of your soil over winter so the worms can keep
eating—and procreating—under the protection of the “insulation” all winter. Doesn’t need to be maple for that—any leaf
bags will work! When I lift a bag up to
look I am always astounded by how many worms—of ALL sizes—are out there and
active all winter!

A couple other things I thought of about compost piles!

I don‘t put tomatoes on the pile either! Tomato seeds stay viable for a long time, and
when I did put them on the pile the first couple years, I wound up with tomato
seedlings coming up anywhere and everywhere I had used some of the compost (A
HOT pile—one that’s turned frequently—would prevent that, but I plan to stay
lazy!)

And, thinking of a HOT compost pile! If you do turn it frequently it’ll get too
hot for the worms to survive in it, so that’s another good reason (or
rationalization!) to do it the lazy way and just throw it all on a pile and let
it rot!

When I’m cutting down or deadheading perennials, I take the
time to cut long stems and any kind of “big pieces” into smaller pieces before
adding them to the pile! The more cut
surfaces there are, the more quickly the “stuff” will decompose. The woodier they are, the smaller I cut
them. That’s another thing I learned the
first couple years! I’d be digging thru
the pile to get out some useable stuff, and I’d come up with handfuls of long
stems/pieces and were nowhere near ready to use. By cutting stuff up, it all decomposes at
roughly the same rate.

I don’t put egg shells on the pile anymore! I only did that the very first year, and I
discovered that even if they were broken up into small pieces, they simply
didn’t decompose! I usually go digging
in the compost pile with bare hands, and every time I got into some egg shells
I was cutting my hands on the sharp edges!
No more egg shells! Also, even if
they did decompose, the shells are calcium—and we all agree that our soil is alkaline
“enough” out here!

I don’t put pumpkin or squash seeds in my pile anymore! They NEVER decompose! I’ve never figured out how that works, but
they don’t! Again, I put them in the
first couple years, and when I was using the compost I’d find the whole seeds
in it, so I pushed them down deeper into the soil where I was planting
something, thinking they’d “finish” decomposing there—but, years later, when
I’m digging by one of those plants, I still keep coming up with whole pumpkin
seeds! It’s incredible! For a while I was “tearing them up” when I
found them and burying them again!
Doesn’t work! I’d still wind up
digging them back up looking the same as they did when I “tore them up!!!” Pumpkin/squash seeds go in the dumpster!

I can’t help with the straw—I’m too lazy to go looking for
it, and don’t want an extra expense, which is why I went to the leaves for the
mulch. But I would caution you to be
careful if you buy some to be sure it’s weed seed free! Clean “straw” shouldn’t be a problem at all,
but if you get tempted to buy “hay,” be really careful. When I was at Paulino’s we’d sell bales of
hay in fall, and when we used some in a display with gallon perennials sitting
on the bales one year, in about a week we wound up with a “Hay Bale Chia
Pet!” As soon as we started watering the
perennials sitting on the bales, they started to GROW! If that had been put down in a garden, it
would have been a disaster! I don’t
really know this, but I’ve heard that if you get hay you’re supposed to look
for “third cutting,” which is supposedly cut late enough in the season that the
weeds have all given up by then! But,
again, I’ve just heard that and will deny I ever said it if you ever have a
problem with third cutting hay you bought!

That’s all I happened to think of since I posted last
nite! But you’re getting some great
advice from everybody here, and it looks like you should be able to start
trying the things that make the most sense to you and eventually evolve it into
a system that works really well for you.

I REALLY didn’t intend for this to get this long tonite!

Skybird

P.S. If you have a
problem looking at your screen, you might want to try dimming it to whatever
your Comfort Level is. If I put mine on
“full bright” I wouldn’t even be able to walk into the room! I keep mine on “medium bright” during the
day, and dim it WAY down after dark. It
makes a big difference for me. Try it,
you might like it!

A word about EKO compost: I believe it's made with biosludge aka treated human sewage. Or at least that's the rumor floating around here. Some people care about that.

Good (or bad!) to know - thanks for the heads up.

I think I used EKO brand potting soil last year to pot up my transplants, it was EXTREMELY hydrophobic when dry, so much so that I ended up having to buy a bag of something else and re-potting all my plants because I could not get it to take any water at all.

I’ve never used any EKO products! In the following info I am not recommending
people use it—or recommending people avoid it!
I just got curious with the recent posts, and when I get curious I
almost always start looking! This is
simply what I found!

When I searched for it I was directed to the Richlawn site. I don’t know if they’ve always made/sold the
EKO products, but it seems they do now! This happened to be the very first page I went
to! Given my opinion of Miracle Gro
products, I had to laugh at this page!

http://www.therichlawncompany.com/1710/eko-outdoor-mix-miracle-gro-soil-comparison/

Onward and upward!
When I’m checking out products, the first thing I always want to know is
what’s in them! (That’s my #1 problem
with MG! I haven’t wasted the time to
look recently, but when I spent a lot
of time a couple years ago trying to find out “what’s in the bag,” I never did
find any specific info at all online about what you’re buying, and when I
looked at a bag at a store it only said, “may contain…” with a list of the—I
guess—possibilities!)

Here are the “official government sheets” with what’s in the
“Organic potting mix,” and the “EKO Compost,” which, when I first heard of EKO,
the compost may have been the only thing they sold. The third link is to the main “MSDS Sheets”
page, with links to all their products.

http://www.therichlawncompany.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/All-Purpose-Potting-Mix.pdf

http://www.therichlawncompany.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/Compost1.pdf

http://www.therichlawncompany.com/msds-sheets/

I was—but shouldn’t have been!—surprised when I saw that all
of their products contain chicken manure!
Here’s why! Back in the 70s I
lived on the east side of Parker Road just north of the town of Parker, and for
miles along the west side of the road it was ALL Richlawn Turf Farm
property. Miles of sod production! Everybody knew, back then, that Richlawn
raised chickens on the turf they were growing—free fertilizer, and they also
sold “Richlawn Turf Food,” which was, wait for it, chicken poop! Composted, one would think!

Over the years Richlawn morphed into ScienTurfic sod farms,
but apparently they still use the same “production methods!” I don’t know this, but it certainly appears
that there’s some “connection” between Richlawn, which now makes “bagged
products,” and ScienTurfic, who now grows the sod! At least they seem to have the chicken poop
in common!

I googled EKO Compost with “compliments or complaints,” and
came up with very little, but overall, more things leaning toward compliments
than complaints. Since people seem to be
far more likely to “voice their complaints” than to take the time to compliment
something, I found this to be interesting!

Then I googled it with “bio sludge sewage” to see what I
could see, and I don’t really know what to think at this point!

I’ll start with this!
The Chinese have been using “night soil” for millennia--raw, so clearly
the very fact of using human poop as a fertilizer is not a “dangerous” thing to
do! (And composting toilets have been
around in this country for some time now!)
BUT! Something I hadn’t thought
of that I found on one page is that the sewage system in this country has a LOT
more than just human waste in it! People
flush EVERYTHING! So, as I consider the
situation, I see “all the other stuff” as far more of a potential problem than
the actual human waste!

The other thing I find to be confusing at this point is that
the MSDS sheets are an OSHA safety requirement, so I don’t see how ANYBODY can
be producing and selling something that has ingredients that are not listed on
the MSDS sheets!

https://www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA3514.html

When doing the searches I mentioned above I was coming up
with ALL sorts of “EKO” and “ECO” things!
Even hospital systems—and just about any kind of product or company you
can think of! Sorting out things that
had to do with EKO “compost” was problematic!

Having said that! I
did find an actual EKO site, and here’s some of the stuff from it! On their own site they DO mention “bio
solids”—the generally accepted politically correct term for treated
sewage! These pages are from their
“processing facility” (I guess!) in Missoula, MT. They seem to have an office in Lakewood, but
I sure can’t find any site for it!
Almost all of the info I found was from this MT location, or another
location in Maui!

The first page I’m linking is to their “compost technical
data sheet!” I’m no chemist! Not sure what else to say about this page,
but it appears to me to show that it passes the current government safety
regulations! Not positive about
that! I’m no chemist!!! (It does list heavy metals—and just about
everything else!)

http://www.ekocompost.com/certified-lab-reports.html

This is their “about” page, and is the page that “mentions”
bio solids!

http://www.ekocompost.com/about.html

And this is their home page—which shows QUITE an
operation!!! (Most of the links on their
home page go to the same “about” page!)

http://www.ekocompost.com/home.html

I don’t know if any of that is “useful” info for any of you,
but I’ve just spent about three hours looking it all up, so it seemed I might
as well “put it out there” for anybody else who might be interested!

Zach, I’m not surprised you weren’t happy with their potting
soil! I wouldn’t knowingly buy any
“potting soil” with composted chicken manure in it! But that’s just me—and, apparently—you, now
that you know! Using composted chicken
poop to help improve soil out in the garden is one thing, but using it for
potted plants just doesn’t sound like a very good idea to me! (Get yourself a bale of Sunshine #1!!!)

About EKO Compost and bio sludge—I just don’t know! But I still don’t see how that could be in
the bags they sell without putting it, somehow, on the MSDS sheets! It just seems to me they’d be setting
themselves up for one really Big Time Lawsuit if they were found to be lying to
OSHA!

This is another one of those posts where I don’t want to
“argue” with anybody! Just putting it
all out there as I found it! And, since
this it The Friendliest Little Gardening Forum in the West, please keep any and
all replies and comments FRIENDLY!
Comments are ALWAYS welcome on RMG!
Trolls are NOT!

Skybird

P.S. Matthew, now
that you have a whole buncha info and suggestions about what to do with your
soil—and compost, I hope you don’t mind me hijacking this thread with all of
this!

Thanks for the info sky bird. I'm posting gossip; you post research. One is more reliable.

There's a LOT of "stuff" "out there" on the internet, David. In my opinion one can either prove or disprove just about any theory from stuff on the internet! So when I read what you posted, I just got really, really curious--and once I get started on that sort of thing, well, I just can't stop!

Curiosity killed the cat!

I guess I should learn how to STOP a little bit better, or some day somebody's gonna find me laying dead next to my computer--with 50 different search windows open!

Skybird

Matthew - This is a long thread and I didn't read it through, but I did have to fill new raised beds two years ago and I'm an organic grower. I called NOFA - that is Northeast Organic Farming Association - and they gave me names of people who could supply me with organic soil. It was expensive, but I didn't want to end up with a bed full of all compost that would shrink down too much and I didn't want to end up with soil that could have who knows what in it. It was very expensive, but I'm happy I did that. Maybe there is a similar organization near you, that you could check. Just another option for you.

"In my opinion one can either prove or disprove just about any theory from stuff on the internet!"

Isn't that a fact. Somewhere you were talking about people who like to be experts on everything through the power of copy-paste and the internet..... The separation of opinion and fact in the internet age seems to be a very gray and fuzzy distinction.

Anyways... One time I was at wal mart and needed a small bag of potting mix. All they had left on the shelf was a bag of MG "organic" stuff which had very large amounts of "composted" chicken poop. Though I was wary, it was convenient, so I went ahead and bought it. It seemed to me that most of chicken poop had not been thoroughly composted and my unease of using it grew. But, since I had it and it was already opened, I went ahead and used it. To my surprise, it seemed to work just fine. I have never used it again, because I generally need much more than a couple quarts at a time and it might have been a fluke that having so much uncomposted chicken poop didn't fry my plants to a crisp...

In any case, I'm usually not picky when it comes to potting soil and stuff, and actually, I typically save it and reuse it year to year, adding some fresh mix to "rejuvenate" it. I think I saw bales of sunshine somewhere around here recently, I will probably get some and use that to freshen up what I've already got. Potting soil is not cheap stuff....