Quote Originally Posted by search1st
What type of compost do I look for if I wanted to blend my own compost-based potting soil?

Locally, I found two "cotton burr composts" from Back to Nature:
backtonaturecompost dot com.

I don't know what the PH the "regular" is, but they also offer an "acidified" cotton burr compost which contains sulfur. I don't know if that would be too acidic for MJ. Back to Nature says to add soil or sand for use as a potting soil. I plan on just adding perlite.

I've also seen some composted cow manure, locally. Is one compost as good as another if I'm trying to get away from peat? I've noticed that stinkyattic suggests "composted humus", but that must just be composted plant and animal material. So, would some composted cow manure and the composted cotton burrs be as close to "humus" as I can get?

With my first grow, just for expediency's sake, I'll probably just go with either:
a. Ocean Forest from Fox Farms or
b. ProMix from Premier Horticulture. There seems to be some argument here whether ProMix is a soil-less mix (where I'd shoot for 6.2 PH runoff) or it should be treated as a soil (in which case I'd shoot for 6.8 PH runoff).

But, for subsequent grows, I'd like to blend my own compost-based potting soil. Not only does peat (such as found in ProMix and Ocean Forest) tend to go acidic after 6 to 8 weeks of watering (requiring repotting every 5-6 weeks), but peat is not a renewable resource.
I think we get the same local compost. I just got the 'acified' Back to earth compost for my veggies, they seem to be loving it so far. Its kind of a test grow for my outdoors this year.