On Mar 24, 9:09*am, "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?

I'm afraid that I'm going to disagree with pretty much all the
previous reponses.....with the exception of perhaps brooklyn's
first :-)

As stated, 'compost' describe a process, not necessarily the end
result. One can compost anything with organic origins - kitchen waste,
plant parts, bark and wood products (including sawdust), animal
waste....even the animals themselves. In fact, a more or less finished
compost product is made up of a lot of dead animals, but they are too
small to see :-) There is absolutely nothing wrong with a compost
product that contains visible bark or wood chips - it is just not a
totally finished compost product. But then few - including any home
composts - are totally 'finished'. Fully finished compost is humus,
the ultimate end result of the composting process. It takes a long
time to achieve this state and an awful lot of input for not very much
output, which is why purchasing anything labeled as "humus" tends to
be very pricey. And extremely hard to find. Virtually all commercial
composts will be partially finished, as will 99% of home composts. And
there's nothing wrong with that!

So there is nothing "foreign" about including wood products in
something labeled as compost. There is no false advertising or
anything underhanded or sneaky about including them in a composting
product. The wood products, like any other organic matter, will
continue to decompose and add value and nutrients to the soil. They
just take longer to breakdown and lose obvious visual identification
than other, faster decomposing plant material. And if you have the
impression that "mulch" is a specific product, that again is more of a
process than a product - a mulch is anything that is applied to the
top layer of the soil to guard against erosion, insulate the soil,
prevent evaporation and deter weeds. An organic mulch also adds
benefit by eventually improving the soil texture and providing
nutrients as it decomposes (very much like any 'compost'!). Compost
itself can be used as a mulch - it is the ony mulch I use in my
garden.

I'd also like to dispel the myth that somehow bagged or commercially
prepared compost is by nature less 'valuable' or otherwise less
suitable and more deficient compared to homemade compost. Often, it is
quite a bit better, as the composting process is better controlled due
to the larger scale and with higher temperatures generated, resulting
in a product that has less weeds and potential pathogens - it's harder
to achieve and maintain similar results in a home compost unless the
person tending the compost is very diligent and attentive to turning
and temperature monitoring. Most homeowners are not :-) A lot of
commercial compost IS regulated and tested and even certified but not
all - it is just as easy to purchase a poor quality commercial compost
as it is to purchase a good one. Ideally, inspecting the product
before purchase - only valid with local, bulk supplies usually - is
desirable but researching bagged product or reading the labels
carefully and looking for certification or testing info can be a
reasonable substitute.