Kellogg is in the business of selling human manure from the LA sewer treatment plant. "Well Composted" for a GOOD TWO WEEKS!!!

I pay about $39 a cu yard for mushroom compost and $35 a yard for delivery of any amount up to at least 10 cu yard. At $8 cu ft that's $216 a cu yard. You could get 4 1/2 yards delivered for the same amount.

I won't use bagged gardening amendments because the industry is overrun with those who feel it important to help get rid of my opening subject to the point of even selling it or adding it to organic labeled bags.

Or for free call a horse boarder in your town, google it they're there. They'll usually give horse manure away free. I pay $42 for a rental pickup which includes the mileage to the barn I go to. If you have a mushroom grower nearby they'll also give away the mushroom compost; I'm told.

Feel free to ignore the above comment :-) Kellogg's soil products do not contain biosolids and haven't as long as I've known about them!! If that were the case, they would not come with very obvious OMRI certification labeling on the bags!! Just to be clear, how biosolids (human waste) can be processed or sold is very closely regulated by the Feds and any product that includes them must be labeled accordingly and will never receive OMRI certification!! John has a notion in his head that apparently the facts have no impression on!!

On the whole, green waste (yard waste) compost is an excellent product with a couple of caveats. You need to confirm that it is yard waste only. Compost that includes livestock manures or bedding can be contaminated with persistent herbicides that can affect growth in a wide range of plants. But since these products are restricted from any residential usage, their chance of being present in residential yard waste is slim to none. Other products that may be used by homeowners break down fully through the composting process and pose minimal risk.

Most municipalities will have composting operations that deal with residential green waste and I would look into any of those that might be present in your area. It will certainly be far cheaper than any bagged products....and sometimes there is no cost involved at all.

Hi, thanks @gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9). Yes, I've confirmed the specific green waste contains nothing else but yard (includes both commercial and residential), and the guy on the phone stated it's used in residential settings. I'll try calling our specific trash carrier, who handles a large portion of composting in my county, to see if they offer the compost to public, but I suspect they sell only in massive bulk to some of the dirt yards here, who then resell in bulk to whomever wants to purchase. Again, just a hunch how it works. Following research, I learned some cities near me do offer up free-compost days, or compost for sale, but it appears to be on the same small scale as the 1cu ft bags. I've also previously researched the various claims regarding kellogg, and ultimately concluded I am comfortable using their products.

It seems that pure yard waste is considered safe, so thank you, I will now try to work out the details of bringing it here :)

@John D Zn6a PIT Pa Thanks for the tip on mushroom compost, I'll research to see if there are any mushroom farmers within reasonable distance.

OP - You should be able to also purchase mushroom compost at garden centers and even some sand and gravel dealers.

As far as the Kelloggs I have a link here, and link, and here. That's 3 out of the 4 top google returns for ""Kelloggs biosolids.

And as far as the manure; anytime the subject comes up on this site gardengal points that out as though every person keeping horses has "persistent herbicides" in their manure. The truth is that while she DOES recommend using human manure for growing even veggies the biosolids aren't tested for insecticides or any prescription drugs either

I would never call a garbage company to get compost. My municipality collects fall leaves separately in their trucks which are not used to also collect garbage. I won't use their leaf compost either as they dump a huge pile and allow the public to take what they want. So the place becomes a huge mass of plastic shopping bags. I can't believe that there is but a few individuals who rake their leafs and puts them in plastic grocery bags. So I'm left with the opinion that those were from dog walkers who flipped the bags in the leaf pile at the curb.

If I'm going to eat veggies I grow I want those vegetables to be edible. I feel more comfortable getting my compost from what I make myself and when that's not enough, which it never is, or knowing that I myself loaded a truck with horse manure than counting on those who've destroyed their industries. I'm comfortable seeing a few horses and a pile of manure and assuming that the manure came from those horses and not from the sewer treatment plant.

Anymore the only way to grow organic is to use nothing from off your property to grow your crops and raise your livestock. That's not possible for me at my age and with my health. It's a shame.

John, check the date on any of those links. They are at least 10 years old and are no longer valid or applicable. However, the possibility of persistent herbicides exist with any livestock manure or feedlot manure and they are a lot more dangerous to your crops and garden than any regulated biosolids, which ARE recognized fertilizers, regardless of your opinion.

I'm not going to persist in carrying on this endless discussion with you. Whether you like them or not, biosolids sold as fertilizers are indeed very highly regulated, tested and controlled whereas manure is not. At all!! And compost can be 50-50....some tested and OMRI approved and some not. Just because you may have strong (if ill-founded) personal beliefs about these products does not make your beliefs right and everyone else's wrong. We all have freedom of choice and can make our own informed - or not - decisions.

And not everyone is trying to adhere to organic standards either! Nor are we all trying to be home farmers and growing only edibles. Much of the traffic on this forum is from average homeowners just trying to grow a healthy landscape and lawn.

Sorry.

??

GG - If you want to argue the merits of two products you have to use the same standard. Your standard is "very highly regulated, tested and controlled". I posted a link to Penn State which tests municipal biosolids and they don't have a test for the items you criticize horse manure for.

Here's the link again for your convenience.

You are irresponsibly recommending using human waste to grow vegetables for human consumption when they aren't tested either.

I would rather trust a horse owner than someone who bags human waste an marks it organic to provide my soil amendments. When I brought up the fact that I grew cows which never saw a vet; let alone get dewormers and that my fields and pastures never saw any herbicides your statement was: how's that relevant.

John:

1) No one "bags human waste and marks it organic". If you claim that, I want proof.

2) I never "recommended" or advocated using biosolids (your extreme prejudice against this product is revealed by your persistent terminology) to grow vegetables. I only stated that they can be used safely in garden if marketed and sold as a fertilizer. And they can.

3) of course Penn State is not going test biosolids for persistent herbicides!! The chances of humans eating treated hay and pasture grasses is pretty low :-)

4) as to the testing and regulations, here's a quote from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality: "Biosolids are one of the most studied materials that have ever been regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). Decades of studies have demonstrated that biosolids can be safely used for the production of crops. The National Academy of Sciences has reviewed current practices, public health concerns, and regulator standards and has concluded that “the use of these materials in the production of crops for human consumption when practiced in accordance with existing federal guidelines and regulations, presents negligible risk to the consumer, to crop production, and to the environment."

And here is another link that explains it all very well in laymen's terms and with attention to detail: safety of biosolids

5) How is that not, not relevant??? You are one man who chose not have his livestock seen by a vet or fed them contaminated food stuffs. How does that possibly compare to all the many thousands of farmers and farm businesses that do use dewormers and vets as needed for the health of their stock and either buy treated hay and pasture grasses (knowingly or unknowingly) or treat their own pastures and feedlots? Your individual, personal experience or practices have no bearing on this discussion!

Two of the links provided dated to 2011, and the third, a list of soil amendment products supposedly containing biosolids, is undated and has no explanation of how they know that this list of products contains biosolids. Aside from whether it's safe to use on vegetables or not, the claim that it's in there at all is going to need clearer and more timely evidence in my book.

If it's not tested for it would obviously be hard to produce "clearer and more timely evidence".

I can't imagine having a salad with lettuce, spinach, scallions and radishes. Maybe garlic? No. And a side of asparagus all grown in human schit. Don't tell the kids. But enjoy the salad!

In keeping with my widely admired reputation for being kind of a humble sort, I'll only say that I make a considerable amount of compost annually for one person, and not bore people with yardage and weight and braggy photos. I discovered that the next town over has a yard waste collection/compost making facility, and they offer the finished product free to homeowners. I don't take that compost, though, because it does sometimes have plastic bag fragments in it. I take the ingredients that are piled up---the feedstock---that they make the compost with. On weekends or Tuesdays when other people are arriving with their bagged yard waste, I empty their paper waste bags, examine the contents and, if approved, refill them and put them in my truck. I can usually be very selective---scoring only bags with chipped leaves and grass clippings. Then I go home and make an instant bin---a large, full hardware cloth bin consisting of mostly leaves and grass clippings, but often also pumpkins and apple and pear drops or hay bales. 12 or 14 paper yard waste bags---a truck-bed full---can usually fill a bin. It was years before I realized you can make a lovely compost with just a very few ingredients. Some Saturdays, I'll make two runs and fill two bins in about 4 hours.

Oh, I forgot I was going to make an actual point. Despite using grass clippings of unknown origin, I've never had any issues with germination or growth in my garden. The only issue I might have blamed on the "green waste" I brought home was introducing a morning glory weed into my yard four years ago, but I blame inadequate heat in the pile for that. Your green waste facility probably heats up the compost more thoroughly than I do.

Some people like to make their compost out of a giant pile of steaming idees fixes, bees in bonnets, private obsessions, personal prejudices and freshly harvested monomanias. Presumably it works for them. But it isn’t the only way.

My bin, The Trolls, feeds on all of that, even soggy bread, and given enough time, turns out more of The Same Old, err...Stuff.

I'm reporting both of you.

John, as far as I'm concerned, you can maintain your prejudices. In fact, your stubborn adherence is becoming endearing to me. I only use composted chicken manure (because that's what I have) so I don't know why you find manure from a cow less offensive than manure from a human. I can tell you this, though, there is perhaps no more foul manure than what a chicken produces and that's what I grow my onions and carrots in. Lastly, I want you to know that I feel your pain regarding slowing down in the garden.