"Mike" wrote in message
news:NDzGj.4272$Dv5.1096@trnddc02...
I have a lot of clay clumps in the area I want to garden so..

I was looking for a cheep soil replacement to plant vegetables in so I
went
to home depot and found one cubic foot bags of Earth Grow Steer Manure
Blend
(at a buck a bag) that says it's A blend of steer manure and compost.

On the back of the bag it states "do not plant directly into" Earth Grow
Steer Manure Blend.
I notice this stuff retains moisture, though on the other hand I heard
from
2 other sources that using manure as a growing medium is standard
practice.
What gives?

if your soil is rubbish you could try raised beds. These do not need to be
filled with soil, decent quality compost & aged manure will do for the
outset.I build some raised gardens & chucked a whole mixture of organic
matter in, including barrow loads of horse crap, & simply layered a few
inchs of soil or good (backyard) compost onto the top to plant into. The
first seasons veges went fine and over time the gardens have only inproved.
True, for a coupe, of them I could fill them almost full of soil but for the
other 3 whatever I had on hand was used. Thats my adage, use whatever is
available. Bugger it, if you have the gardens deep enough you can pile a
load of raw materials into the gardens and plant whilst they are still only
partially rotted. I planyed tomatos into a garden full of partially rotted
hay and grass clippings, with a few inchs of compost to bed into. The
tomatos went well and gave me very satisfactory crop.

Have a squiz at
http://www.fbga.net/Lasagna%20gardening%202004.htm
http://www.ourgardengang.com/lasagna_gardening.htm

you don't have to make the garden as ugly as the first link for it to be
successful, but you get the idea of what they throw in their garden.
Basically everything organic and now where near rotted. They covered with
top soil or compost & planted away. I wouldn't bother with the peat moss
myself, waste of time.

rob