There is. Its now called Rol-Land Farms, used to be Money's Mushrooms until Money's went under and the farm was bought out by Rol-Land. They give away the compost for free during the week of Mother's Day, but its available at any time of the year for next-to-free. $1.00/bag, any size bag from lunch bag to garbage bag, bring your own shovel and bag. $5.00 for quarter ton truckload, 10$ for half-ton truck load. The loaders are only available on Wednesdays though and I don't remember if there was a fee for loading (I don't think it was much, for the private citizen.) Otherwise, bring shovels. During their "gardener appreciation week", the compost is free, and on the Saturday of that week, they have several loaders and bobcats available to load trucks and trailers for free. Also hot dogs, soft drinks, hamburgers.... yeah they make a production of it =D

The compost is nice stuff but strong, you don't need much to make your plants happy. I used it in my square-foot garden last year and got some very happy vegetables, nice sweet carrots and tomatoes. No, you won't get any mushrooms =)

Hope this helps
-==- Katzedecimal

Hi Katz

Welcome back and stick around.

Where exactly is this place? How far north of Calgary? I may have cause to be heading down that way sometime in May. When is the "gardener appreciation week"? This sounds better than the compost I get from the City of Edm., which is $2.00/bag and I can fit about 6 bags (clear lawn type) in my wagon.

Shauna

Hi Shauna! *__*

The farm is about 16 km north of Airdrie, just south of Crossfield, actually. You take the QE2 (hwy 2, for those who don't know about its poncy name change 9.9 ) to the Beiseker/Crossfield overpass, then take the Beiseker highway East for a very short distance, to a sign that says "Service road". Turn onto that, go all the way around the J-bend (do *NOT* go down the unpaved road, stay on the pavement) and head back south on the service road. Just follow it around and it'll take you to the farm gates on the east side of the road. This year, Gardener Appreciation Week is May 8 - 14, and the 'free loading day' is the 13th. Proceeds from the hotdogs and suchlike go to the Airdrie and Crossfield food banks.

There are a couple of mushroom farms near Edmonton, too, Shauna - Prairie Mushrooms, north of Sherwood Park, and Superior Mushrooms, east of Sherwood Park. You can ask them about their compost too, I'm sure they do offsales too. They gotta do *something* with the spent compost! XD

Hope that helps
-==- Katzedecimal

Thanks, Katz. I totally forgot about those mushroom farms. Duh. You are so right. I'm sure they would be able to spare a bit of compost. I still might be heading down that way in May, but I'm not sure which weekend, yet.

But, that's great info. for everyone that may be close enough to go and get some. Believe me, it is worth it. An extremely good way to get rid of weeds in your garden rows is to put down about 4 layers of newspaper, right on top of the weeds and then about 4" of compost. Looks terrific and no more weeds - at least for that season. OK, maybe just a few but they are so close to the surface, they pull out very easily in the loose compost.

Shauna

THANKS!!! More information than I dared hoped for!!! I'm itching to go get some! I won't make it until free week, but hey those prices are dirt cheap! LOL!

Their garden appreciation is the week after Mother's Day.

The Loaders are free that week but they will not do it the rest of the year as they had some people showing up with trucks only to find that the people were turning around and selling the compost in the city. The week it is free there are insane line ups so expect to be there a few hours in line. For how little the cost I got other weeks. You drive in their yard and around to the east side. There is a door you enter and wave down one of the mushroom packers, they will take your money and then you can go load off the big hills of compost.