Whatever you do, dont buy the least expensive compost. Its that way for a reason. Garden and Bloom compost(not soil amendement)is excellent, as is Harvest Supreme if you can find them. They should be pretty readily available.

Thanks, snibb. I'm one for generic brands, but I figured I'd stay away from the cheapest soil for that reason. ;-)

Should I avoid anything that says "soil amendment" then?

Is this acceptable? I remember seeing in yesterday... http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100207757

I haven't seen Harvest Supreme or Garden Bloom around here (just looked up pics of them)... What about Miracle Gro stuff? Any other brands, or contents I can look out for? I'm pretty much sticking to "big box" stores since I don't know where a lot of things are here, and am timid about driving to new towns still (also, the 2 nurseries I've been to are WAY overpriced for me).

Also, would any of the Sun Land or OSH composts be acceptable?

http://www.sunlandgarden.com/products-home_gardeners.php

Here is a link that might be useful: OSH soil

momma...I dont know what those products are. I can only comment on the soil amendment from Garden and Bloom's. If you look on the ingredient list for compost, you should get a pretty good idea of whats in it. A blended compost, vs. say just cow manure, would be ideal. The more the variety in compost, the better. You could go with something like cow manure, turkey manure, and maybe mushroom compost. That would be a good one. Or, maybe cow, mushroom, and turkey....it would all be good for you

would someone tell me where you can buy this Garden and Bloome Compost? I looked at their site and it looks like if you don't live in southern CA or Or you can't get it.

I am really liking the Garden & Bloome line that I have discovered this year. Surely they have been around but this is the first I've seen of them. I've purchased two bags about two weeks apart from each other. 3 Cu Ft. for 7.99 at Scott McLendon's Hardware. It covers well and looks like high quality shred bark. It doesn't look like it's going to fade into something fugly. It is brown dirt color. Seems to be holding in moisture around my potatos, zukes and flowers. I also added it to the Rose garden. I think it's a real bargain. I didn't find a websit for that company though. It's easier to handle than a bail of peat moss too!

Here is a link that might be useful: tanasplants

The important thing to do when you are looking for compost is to lift the bags and feel them. If they feel heavy, wet and clumpy avoid them. If they feel light and fluffy then it will probably be a good choice. I got a couple of bags of composted cow manure from Lowe's before I read this advice and I just bought by what it said was in the bag. I ended up with bags of clay soil. That may not be too bad if I was trying to amend sandy soil, but I already have my own clay soil that I was trying to lighten up.

Good luck and good gardening, Mary

Mel suggests compost from several sources. I didn't find this as easy as it seems. When I was searching, most of the big box stores only carried one, and it was usually cow.

Also consider your local hardware stores, ours down the street had bags of seashell and mushroom compost. It was beautiful stuff.

Keep searching.

Here is a link that might be useful: GrafixMuse's Garden Spot

Here there is a city beautification group and they sometimes sell compost really cheap that is how we got ours. I don't know how you would go about finding that out. Maybe you have heard about who keeps your city nice and planted with flowers and can research that. We knew ours because their are small signs that say "brighside project" next to most of their projects. It was pretty good compost though I don't think it had any kind of manure in it. We had to add that seperate. Have you went to the garden web forums for your area/region to get an idea there?

Here is a link that might be useful: my garden blog

One 2x6 standard size box is 8 cubic feet of Mel's mix. I mixed enough for 3 boxes each time. For that I used 8 bags of compost (1cu ft bags). Of that I used 2 bags of poultry compost, 2 mushroom, 4 cow, That was what I could find so that is what I used. Having said that, I have had excellent results. I feel the key was the hot nitrogen rich poultry compost. 1 to 4 ratio on the black Hen compost worked for me.

Our local stores carried cow and mushroom. Then I also found worm castings on Craigslist and chicken compost at a local hydroponic store (where I also found the vermiculite). I check Craigslist every so often and there is usally someone wanting people to come take their manure off their hands!
We started a few worm bins, and I also bought a bunny - he's a good manure making machine LOL.
Anyway, just a few thoughts on places where you may be able to find some different types of compost for your boxes :) .