Have you ever wondered if you can reuse your old potting soil? You know, those pots from last year that had tomatoes in them? This question has been asked numerous times in various gardening forums in Facebook groups, and the answers are sometimes surprisingly ill-informed. To save money and to practice frugal gardening methods, recycling depleted potting soil is not only something we gardeners can do, but we can make better potting soil if we take the right steps. In this video, I will show you four different ways to recycle and reuse your old potting soil. We will cover the simplest methods and move up what I call the “fertility scale” to achieve a potting mixture that is more nutrient-rich than it was when you first bought it.
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Black Gumbo shares our suburban, backyard, sustainable gardening efforts. We work a small-scale, typical Zone 9a garden and raised beds, the kind of gardening accessible to all. We tend to take the slice of life approach and hope you will enjoy our family, our dog, our cooking, our adventures, and occasionally some commentary and advice. We love family, joy and friendship, and we invite you to enjoy these things with us!
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21 Comments
Not sure you will see this but we had grasshoppers this year. There were lots of them. Can I use the soil? I am sure they laid eggs in raised beds and the ground as well so not sure it will matter?
Do you take care to put in the soil what YOU need? We need more than NPK. We need magnesium, calcium, iodine, etc. Plants cant make minerals and neither can animals. Whatever minerals are in them must have first been in the soil. Whatever minerals are in us had to first have been in what we eat (plant or animal). If it's not in the soil it's not in the lettuce.
Great video Scott. I will probably remove a couple shovel fulls of old soil out of my pots and top them with ready compost. I'll toss the old soil in my next compost build.
What about using synthetic nutrients that could cause salt build up
Feed it to the worms if you go all organic and didn't have to use pesticides
Talk too much
🥰😍🤩
Could you tell me why new bagged miracle grow raised bed garden soil would have all kinds of mushrooms in it. After the first 2-3 weeks my garden looked great as time went on it all went down hill. My tomatoes had curled, yellow leaves that soon lost all their leaves but still made tomatoes. Now im scared to use any of my containers next year. My broccoli, okra, potatoes, did great but my water melons had curled up leaves too. So confusing made me wanna give up.
You have inspired me & my Dog Dog to start our container garden and start a video blog on YouTube. ❤❤❤😊 thanks. You are the BEST 😍😍🥰🥰👏👏🤩🤩
Thanks
Great info
Dolomite?
I learned a lot in this video, thank-you very much!
Very useful video 👍
Great video
. Ready to refresh and amend my old soil. Time for me to get to planting. 🥦🥬🥕🧅.
What is compost tea?
I started planting in pots this year, and I like it ! I'm glad I saw your video about reusing the potting soil, and how to revitalize it. it will save me a lot of money. Thank you !
I am a fellow Texan "gumbo gardener" — North Texas. I do container gardening after 40 years of doing hydroponics. I switched because container guardening is easier for me. I'm 74 years old. Also, I have found that using wicking tubs is 10,000 times easier than anything I've ever tried and I have less plant loss due to heat or drying conditions, because, as you know, Texas has only two temperatures, namely scorching hot or freezing cold. 🤣
Thank you for your video. I do much the same as you do and renew my potting soil every time I replant. The old soil goes into one of several composters, while the new soil is a mixture of old soil, new soil, new compost and I also raise worms, so I had worm castings as well as periodically fertilize using worm tea throughout the growing season.
What kind of compost can I buy at Walmart
Shopping bags ARE great pots, I agree
That is some GREAT looking compost!