Hi All,

I am putting in my first in-the-ground garden this year, and need to add one more layer of nutrients before seeds go in.

I'm hoping to do a slightly less intensive version of square foot gardening (because I just know my soil will not be up to snuff to support that much production). Because my only available space was lawn, I started adding foundational layers to my garden in January. I started with two thickenesses of cardboard, then about three inches of soiled straw and about an inch of clay mixed with rough mulch to hold the straw down. Today, I got access to half composted horse manure/sawdust and added four inches (didn't realize it wasn't finished until it was already in the truck!)

I know I need some good quality stuff to make sure something actually grows out there this year. My question is which type of compost would be most suitable based on what I've already done. My local supplier has three types: blended soil (1/3 sand, 1/3 garden compost, 1/3 dairy manure/sawdust compost), garden compost ("green waste"), or mushroom compost (a whole huge list of ingredients).

My thoughts, and hence my confusion, are that the blended soil has the manure component that I just put on today so would be redundant aside from the fact that it's dairy and not horse. I'm concerned that the garden compost will not offer sufficent nutrition to compensate for other mistakes I'm sure I've made along the line. Yet the mushroom compost might be TOO rich and burn up the whole area.

Your thoughts?

Hubby is picking up the next load tomorrow, and I'd like to give him better feedback than "run your hands through it and make your best guess"