Reusing potting soil
Growin_Crazy
20 years ago
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MarlaZ
20 years agoMeMyselfAndI
20 years agoRelated Discussions
Reuse Bulb Potting Soil In Garden?
Comments (3)Thanks, Al. Coming from you that's high praise...LOL. I've been digging up rotting leaves from woods behind my father's house. I take all the earthworms that come along with the blackened rotting leaves that are working their magic under there and the nice black soil under the leaves for about 2 inches. I hand shred leaves to smallest size I can, mix with black soil from under leaves, some top soil left over from yard regrade and then mix in greensand, sphagnum peat moss and bagged compost. I started cheating by adding some bagged garden soil mix. Have no idea if I'm adding too much or wrong proportions but I'm trying to work in all the organic matter and draining aids I can. Then I turn all that stuff into the top 18" of the clay soil. It's kind of making raised beds which I assume will settle over time but I won't be disappointed if they stay raised for a while until plants have time to settle in. I try to stick to plantng things that will tolerate clay but one can only expect so much from the plants themselves. I've got to give them the best fighting chance with the soil so I'm amending my little heart away. I made my first "black garbage bag" of stuff to compost last night. Layered dark leaves with grass and plant greens, threw in some bone meal for nitrogen and some "compost booster" from Bonide. Watered it, sealed it, poked some holes, rolled it around some and put it in the back of the yard. If it works out I'll only have a measly pile of compost but maybe one bag less I have to buy in the Fall. I'll keep making these bags all summer as grass, leaves and kitchen scraps become available. I don't have money, space or permission of my father, as I'm only a visiting gardener, to buy a composting tumbler or rig up a compost bin. Every little bit should help even if it's inefficient compared to other composting methods....See Morere-using potting soil
Comments (3)The potting soil was the generic brand of my local gardening store. It was specified as "potting soil"....See MoreRe-using potting soil?
Comments (31)David - this is written in a conversational tone, even though I disagree with you on a couple of points. First, the reason I don't reuse my potting soil, and I start with a soil that has as its primary fraction, large particles of pine bark, which takes 4-5 times longer than peat to break down, is that I have found it VERY advantageous to keep my focus on aeration. There are actually ways to quantify a good soil and compare it to a lesser soil by examining it's total porosity and air porosity at container capacity. Container capacity is the soils state of water retention after it has been completely saturated and has just stopped draining. You cannot achieve a level of either total porosity OR air porosity at container capacity using broken down particles of peat/compost/coir as the primary fraction of your soil, even with a considerable volume of perlite added. If you are left with nothing but perlite, which doesn't seem like something that would occur as a common scenario in normal cases of soil aging, then we really aren't talking about reusing an old soil; rather, we'd be talking about reusing the old perlite fraction, which is something quite different. So, if you are reusing the old soil as a significant fraction of the current soil, its very likely you're putting yourself at a distinct disadvantage because of the inherent reduction in aeration and probable excess water retention. I'm not pointing out these facts to disparage how you grow, only so we can understand that SAYING a soil drains well (or is well-aerated) doesn't mean it actually does (or is). We KNOW that fine particles hold more water than coarse particles (of the same material) and vine organic particles tend to compact, further reducing aeration and increasing water retention. IF you were to use inexpensive pine bark as the primary fraction of your soil, and add enough of your used soil to arrive at a favorable state of water retention, you would end up with a soil that DOES have favorable total porosity and air porosity at container capacity. If the soil is entirely broken down as you suggest it is, you STILL need to buy something to replace the lost volume, unless you're using compost ..... and then you end up right back where you started - so why not buy inexpensive pine bark instead of another finer ingredient? Something I wrote on another thread about rooting in water: Though roots form readily and often seemingly more quickly on many plants propagated in water, the roots produced are quite different from those produced in a soil-like or highly aerated medium (perlite - screened Turface - calcined DE - seed starting mix, e.g.). Physiologically, you will find these roots to be much more brittle than normal roots due to a much higher percentage of aerenchyma (a tissue with a greater percentage of intercellular air spaces than normal parenchyma). Aerenchyma tissue is filled with airy compartments. It usually forms in already rooted plants as a result of highly selective cell death and dissolution in the root cortex in response to hypoxic conditions in the rhizosphere (root zone). There are 2 types of aerenchymous tissue. One type is formed by cell differentiation and subsequent collapse, and the other type is formed by cell separation without collapse ( as in water-rooted plants). In both cases, the long continuous air spaces allow diffusion of oxygen (and probably ethylene) from shoots to roots that would normally be unavailable to plants with roots growing in hypoxic media. In fresh cuttings placed in water, aerenchymous tissue forms due to the same hypoxic conditions w/o cell death & dissolution. Note too, that under hypoxic (airless - low O2 levels) conditions, ethylene is necessary for aerenchyma to form. This parallels the fact that low oxygen concentrations, as found in water rooting, generally stimulate trees (I'm a tree guy) and other plants to produce ethylene. For a long while it was believed that high levels of ethylene stimulate adventitious root formation, but lots of recent research proves the reverse to be true. Under hypoxic conditions, like submergence in water, ethylene actually slows down adventitious root formation and elongation. If you wish to eventually plant your rooted cuttings in soil, it is probably best not to root them in water because of the frequent difficulty in transplanting them to soil. The brittle "water-formed" roots often break during transplant & those that don't break are very poor at water absorption and often die. The effect is equivalent to beginning the cutting process over again with a cutting in which vitality has likely been reduced. If you do a side by side comparison of cuttings rooted in water & cuttings rooted in soil, the cuttings in soil will always (for an extremely high percentage of plants) have a leg up in development on those moved from water to a soil medium for the reasons outlined above. Al...See MoreDo you reuse potting soil?
Comments (15)I reuse all my WS soil in my containers - I have a system set up where I sift all soil from last years decorative containers and WS containers into a wheelbarrel and use it along with some fresh potting soil for this years decorative containers and windowboxes. I have had no problems with disease and sometimes get that 'happy' surprise. Sifting it allows me to remove stems and roots so the end result is pretty clean. Anything that doesn't sift through goes into the compost pile - I recycle everything except weeds that have gone to seed ...... Lynne...See Moregayle0000
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