Ohioguy wrote:
(my apologies for the title - I'm a Trekkie. Just bought a Spock
shirt, in fact)

Anyway, today I called numerous places, and visited several large
stores and garden centers in search for "Composted Cow Manure".

In the past, I've been able to find this stuff everywhere in the
Spring. Even small hardware stores had bags of it outside the store for
adding to the garden soil.

Now, they all seem to have bags of "topsoil" instead, or maybe a bag
of humus. The small garden center where I stopped this afternoon said
they had 40 pound bags of (and I quote) "hummus". Now I like hummus,
but usually on crackers, and not as a soil amendment. I'm assuming that
guy doesn't put this on his crackers, hopefully.

Anyway, I tried Kroger's, Mal-Mart, hardware stores, and none of them
had plain old 100% composted cow manure. Mal-Mart did have "compost
WITH cow manure", but I wanted the nutrient rich cow manure compost that
I'm used to putting under trees, shrubs and vegetable plants when I put
them in the ground. I'm a crotchety young gardener who is used to doing
things about the same way as I was taught when I was 3, and I'm
wondering where the poop went.

Is there a national shortage of poop that I'm not aware of? A poop
embargo of some foreign country that gives us more crap than anybody else?


I am curious as to what part of the country you live in, and wondering
if it may be a "local" shortage there. I live in SW lower Michigan, and
every home center, garden center and supermarket around here has all the
40 lb. bags of cow manure in stock you could want - and ironically, at a
lower price than I've seen it in the past! But that's not helping you
so I'd say the following:

1) Keep looking! It may turn up somewhere.

2) The "humus" is likely Scott's bagged "Humus and Manure" - also
relatively inexpensive, and the closest thing to bagged composted cow
manure I've seen. IMO, it's you're next best bet.

3) Unlike the previous respondent "Bob", I do not recommend the use of
dog or cat manure in your garden. I have read for years - and just again
recently - that they are the two types of domestic manure not
recommended for any garden use, though I admit I can't point you to any
specific articles on that topic off the top of my head.

I sympathize - composted cow manure is a favorite of mine, too. Good
luck in the search, though.

Tony