On Mar 24, 12:09*pm, "OhioGuy" wrote:
* I just bought about a dozen bags of "Organic Valley" cow manure & compost.
When I spread it out, small wood pieces made up roughly 1/3 of the whole
composition!

* The wood certainly is not composted, and I certainly would not feel right
about selling something marketed as a composted cow manure and compost, when
it has this much foreign matter.

* Does this sort of thing happen often in the industry?

yeah; in fact, after my last "compost" purchase i determined to
actually use the stuff as mulch from now on. at which it works pretty
well, given that it is composty, compared to woodchip stuff. i plan to
repeat the application this year.

this after quite a few years of trying quite a few brands from various
garden stores and big box home centers. at this point, i consider a
brand to be of the better quality if it at least doesn't have rocks in
it. seriously, how many rocks do cows poop out? i had tried
laboriously screening the stuff (literally, with screen) to get out
the big junk, but it's way too labor intensive.

i crank out my own compost from whatever cellulose comes to hand;
mostly vacuumed up leaves from the edges/corners of the lawn, but also
weeds, any left over kitchen greenery, dead houseplants, etc. my mower
is a mulching mower, so the grass clippings and majority of the leaves
are mowed into the lawn. i only get maybe a cubic yard of the homemade
good stuff per year, so it goes where the need is greatest.