decisions decisions decisions

I'm looking over the yard and trying to decide what to plant, where to plant, how to plant. I feel like I have been presented an embarrassment of riches with all the space I have, and I don't want to mess it up. The soil isn't very good, but I was planning on doing raised beds, so that isn't a major concern. What is a concern to me is that I've heard reports of killer compost. The big chemical companies have bred herbicide seeds that have entered the composting system and as a result the compost is toxic to plants (other than the specific plant it was bred for). Here where I live there is fairly easy access to free compost, similar to what I had in St. Louis, but now I'm freaked out over the killer compost and I'm not sure I can use the free compost. I just don't see how I can produce, in my backyard, the amount of compost that I normally use in a year's time. ARRRGGGGGG.