I live far in Arkansas and have been unable to find any organic nurseries. I have gone to Lowe's and looked at purchasing a product they have in bags called "Cow Manure". Is this the same thing as Compost? I am wanting to use this in my flower beds and also to spread on my grass to improve the sandy soil I have.

If you buy 27 cubic feet of cow manure, pile it up and keep it moist for a year, you will have a pile of compost next year. Compost comes from manure, but manure is not compost. Manure stinks while compost smells very fresh. Manure can burn your turf but compost cannot.

The use of manure has shattered the hopes of far too many would-be organic gardeners.

What if it says composted cow manure? Will that still burn your lawns if you top dress w/ it? thanks

If this manure compost from Lowes' is "Black Kow", it is pretty good stuff. It is composted & shouldn't burn when used. They advertise on this site if you need more info. from them.

When all raw manures are either composted or aged over 6-12 months, the strong soluble ammonia/nitrogen and pathogenic bacteria in these manures, all get digested and converted by good aerobic microbes into more safer, healther, insoluble forms of nitrogen, that will never burn any plants in your garden or lawn.

I personally would never use any raw manures, raw meats, or any other forms of high ammonia, high protein, or other high nitrogen materials, without composting them first with lots of heavy carboneous "browns", in order to balance and buffer the C:N ratio, and get the good aerobic microbes eating down the stuff a while first, before applying to my garden or lawn soil.

Black Kow seems good. I've seen it and smell it and my only complaint was the wetness of it.

Generally if a bag says "composted cow manure," it is more like fresh manure than it is like compost. If it was compost, they would advertise it as compost and get 10x more money for it. Compost takes many weeks to make and the volume goes down the whole time, so the cost for that material is higher than for a manure.

Thanks to you all for the good input. I bought some "Black kow over the weekend and spread it on certain areas that needed help on my lawn. Hopefully it'll help those areas.