How To Reuse Old Potting Soil - Geeky Greenhouse
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- čas přidán 1. 07. 2022
- We often get asked, "can I reuse old potting soil?" or "what do I do with my potting soil at the end of the year?". Well, this video is all about how to replenish and reuse potting mix! Used potting soil is not trash. There are many uses, from planting new plants, to adding volume to raised beds, and more.
Thanks for watching Geeky Greenhouse!
#reuse #potting #soil #gardening
Read the blog post here: geekygreenhouse.com/reusing-p... - Jak na to + styl
Hate the background music? Yeah, so do we. 😂 It’s something we tried in this one video, and we regret it. I wish we could remove it, but we can’t! Rest assured, there will be no distracting music in any of our future videos.
Thank you for noticing. So many people want to make music videos which causes me get up to dance and sing. I like your magic gloves that disappeared then reappeared. Purchasing potting soil at the end of summer is less expensive.
What music? 😄
this music is super subtle and quite acceptable to my ear
Removing surprises that you may discover made me giggle. We went to empty out a planter and found baby bunnies! Mama found them and they are fine, to whoever happens to care. ❤
Love it!! That's amazing. Hopefully they don't nibble on your seedlings though ;)
Awesome!
@@geekygreenhouse It taught me to put a fence around my garden, but oh, they probably did!
I once had several pairs of little eyes looking up at me: a family of mice.
Who doesn’t care about baby bunnies ❤
I reuse and amend my soil every spring before I plant. I over winter my soil by watering with fish emulsion and molasses to keep the microbes happy and healthy. I have a large-ish compost tumbler. Instead of using it for compost I use it to amend soil for my containers. I have nearly 80 containers and I can't tell you what a time saver this hack has been. Put spent soil in the tumbler, add peat moss or coconut coir, compost, organic fertilizer, worm castings, etc... I give it several spins and it comes out perfect. I'm in my 50's so anything that makes amending soil easier, I'm in.
This is so smart and now I'm thinking of doing the same thing. Thank you! (Sorry, I know this response is a year late...)
How much molasses do you use in a tub of soil?
Just bought a concrete mixer for that reason 70 x 11gallon rootpouch takes a bit to process. Then dump it into bigbag on a pallet😅 im so lazy😂
Im sure its easier, but so much more satisfying to see and feel it mix with a hard rake haha@@mfanto1
Where does one procure „fish emulsion?“
Simple down to earth !! Explanation. I am 87 , North England and inherited the same advise from my grandmother. (Born in 1884). Clean it up. ad bone ,fish and blood , $2 US a pound, use over and over with added fertiliser as the plants grow. Never throw it away.
Yes, I really need to start doing that too. It is not a renewable resource, she is right, want to to do this better
Thank you and thank your grandmother! Makes all the sense in the world.
Thanks for the advice, what proportions of each do you/your grandmother use? :-)
Thanks for making a video that is clear and under 10 mins. Not easy to find from gardeners on CZcams!
Glad it was helpful! 😊
For real. Right to the point. 🫡
started giving information at 15 sec, should be a you tube rule to do so. well done video thank you.
☺️ Thanks for watching
I dump mine in a empty area of my garden, add leaves, small sticks, shredded paper, crushed egg shells, leave there over winter. In the spring I put it back into containers in the bottom, top off with a few inches of fresh potting mix on the top, and plant. Then I also use the mixture for mulch on the top. Works for me. Great video.
Can you blood fish and bone to replenish it.
I have large resin half whisky barrels and I could sort it, add the items you mention, then use it for seeds right away.
Sterilizing used soil is easy and may save a plant from disease. "Solarization" is difficult. A better way is to put used potting mix in a 5 gallon bucket with small weep holes in the bottom. Then pour in 2 gallons or so of boiling water on top to kill viruses, root knot nematodes, spider mites. etc.
Ma'am, you are my kind of geek!!!
When I do the soil from last year I add one new bag of potting soil, some manure, blood meal, and bone meal. Overkill? Maybe. I don't know. I do know however my vegetables and herbs are amazing looking.
I just top up with compost (sheep or chicken manure if hungry plants were there), put some slow release organic fertiliser on top. Seems to work. The soil normally has worms after a few months and becomes an ecosystem. I wouldn't want to dry it out or disrupt it like this. I leave the old vege plants roots in there to break down, just cut them off at the base.
Only root vegetables get majority disrupted when I harvest.
It blows my mind that some people buy new soil every year. I garden 10 4'x10' raised beds, ~50 12" pots, and 12 8 gal grow bags so I would have to stop gardening if I didn't reuse my soils. I use about a cubic yard for seedlings and new pots each year. Excellent information and you made a good point that there are lots of ways to use your soil. I have been subscribed to Pepper Geek for quite a while and I LOVE this new channel! I subscribed and will be catching up on your existing content.
Exactly - why waste perfectly usable soil? Thanks for subscribing, glad you are enjoying the new channel too :)
It's just that people do not know how to do it.
Red wiggler tea also a great add in.
Excellent video, very straight forward I also reuse my potting soil but did learn something watching you and then I concentrated on the watching the wheel barrow.🙂
Nice free masonry style gloves
I've reused my potting soil ever since I started container gardening. Your video is excellent in that you show how important it is to clean out the old plants and roots. I usually put new, fresh potting soil on the top third of the container and stir. So far my plants usually thrive. I'm sure I would have a better outcome if I used compost so I may give that a try this year. Thanks for the great video.
Maybe I'm naive, but I think it's just dirt, so I get a big tub, dump all my pots in it, use a shovel to break it apart, and remove any large roots. Then I plant up my spring plants and move on. I have great results.
But hey, you do you
THANK YOU! I WAS TROWING AWAY MY OLD POTTING SOIL, NOW I CAN REUSE IT WITH COMPOST LIKE YOU SUGGESTED.👍
Wonderful! 😁
I usually will add it into my compost pile since I always sift my compost before use. I don't bother removing any roots etc, but I do break it up and put it into a layer between some greens.
What a smart young lady. Congrats ❤
Thanks, i done that one year when potting flowers and got told i should of just throwen it away. Now im not a gardener, but i could reason, why should I??? Famers don't throw their dirt away! They replenish it. The only thong I didnt ro was let it dry out, this year I will. I did mix it all together and added ferilizer, some of the dirt was very dry already, thanks agaln.
I needed this refresher; was about to work with old soil to refresh it yesterday, I could not remember exactly what I’d learned.
Greeting's from Ireland, Great video, I have nine pot's of African daisey's I grow every year and I have been using the same potting soil for year's. I don't even bother putting in slow release fertiliser, once they are planted they are fertilised with tomato feed every week. As the old saying goes they would grow in your hat.
Nice job with your videom straightforward, not complicated nor magic
Apart from the good advice, I love your open-minded attitude! It encourages me to be open too. I hope it has the same effect on others
Really helpful video!
THANKS FOR THIS INFORMATION 😊
Good advice 😀
Thank you for this information!
Thank you for this great information. I will do this.
I am so hlad I found your site. Thank you for the video.
Brilliant!
Many thanks for this informative video. Guess what I plan to do this spring!
Great info. Thanks for the video
Add compost (1/3), slow release fertilizer (1 cup)
This is just what I do in sunny Milton Keynes, an English New Town, recently designated a City.
Hi , It looks good 😊💯
Fab vid thanks. Good descriptions and instructions.😊
Glad you enjoyed it, thanks you watching!
Great tips here. Cleared up some questions I had because I have this really spendy potting soil and would like to replenish it rather than getting more every year
So great i love it
Looks like all the comments regarding b/g music worked. 😊. Basic, but good info.
You don't need background music. It's hard to listen to both the music and your voice.
I'm with you on this, I'm here to learn..not hum along.
At least she is wearing a Lavalier microphone, and the music isn’t overpowering her too much some of these videos. Oh my God the music is so loud I don’t know why they think they need this.
A mic to pick up the ambiance around the garden would be a good addition
Thx for pointing it out in a kind way. Not my thing either.
I'm half deaf and understood her perfectly
Thanks for the great info..
Our pleasure!
Just saw you sifter.., I've been thinking about some design.., but the one you used will be right for my 100 litre wheel barrow. I agree mixing all the stuff together is re-useble, Compost, peat moss + old potting mix is fantastic. I've subscribed.., looking forward to seeing more handy tips, happy gardening. 😊
Great video. I amend with compost, perhaps more vermiculite or perilite, and some bone meal. I typically use it as a base for a container and I sift as well. I made the mistake of using sifted old soil as seed starter and it moulded over, lesson learned. I let my pots dry out in my high tunnel. I store mine in sealable totes
Thank you and subscribed.
Thanks for that!
Great video!
I pile mine up in in a row along my fence. scrape it out with a rake after the winter and put into pots and just realizing now I've been adding an extra step for no reason. Could have kept in pots.
Thanks for the obvious but still missed simple lesson.
I dump my potting soil from my grow bags in the Geobin. I cover it with a plastic tarp and leave it tucked away in the back of the garden and stays nice and dry for spring use. Btw, the Geobin makes an awesome compost bin as well.
I've reused mine for years. I dump my pots in a flower bed and take from there the next Spring. Yes I had slow release fertilizer before planting.
Thanks Lady and I have a 5 gallon bucket with such a screen with caulking silicone from my bathroom remodeling that keeps the screen down.
Hay you might be better as a speaker as your husband but I find he's great too
I put the bulk back in my compose.
I do exactly 💯 what you said ( all different way ) it's saves money
Thanks for the video; like you I cleanout (by hand) the old soil, then add about 1/3 home-made compost, old sheep dung, 1/3 new potting soil, handful of slow-release, and a bit of home-made organics depending on what I want to plant . All into high raised beds or pots and deep grow-bags (also home-made from large doubled soil bags) for root crops.
I re-use mine and add the slow release. I also have put veggie & fruit scraps in a big half whiskey barrel planter (that's actually plastic) during the Winter months with the dirt that's in it. The snow is great moisture and helps break down the vegs..
I had left root base within pots and placed them inside the basement @55-60deg F for all of last fall/winter. Keeping from drying out and adding red wigglers to help with composting the roots. This should leave some decent soil for this season.
I like the looks of that sifter, looks like something I could easily make myself!
One question I have is how useful potting soil (new or refurbished) is for in-ground purposes. Are there additional ingredients you should add?
On the flip side, I don't take any type of soil inside once it has been exposed to the outdoors. It could be decontaminated, but I have plenty of outdoor uses so I haven't had a reason to try them.
This video popped up out of nowhere ! How how the flipping bongdoodles did CZcams know that (without mentioning it to a soul) I spent the best part of yesterday doing just this...?
Big brother is watching you !
SCARY !!!
People should check,into "Bokashi" Composting, essentially adding lacto bacteria you make from rice water and milk, ferment it and strain the "whey". That's sprinkled over food scraps (in a draining type bucket setup), covered anaerobically and in a few weeks it's predigested and can be added to soil to break down over a few weeks then used. I do that all winter inside, no smell or bugs. I add it when my 5 gallon bucket is full to a container of soil in the basement and come spring I have the best living soil around. Worm castings added to that and mixed in with old soil and compost and you have a fantastic soil. Where I added that to my potato bed last year, there were so many worms it was almost creepy. I have the added benefit of worm castings from nightcrawlers. It's great stuff and you cn actively compost all winter indoors and have the best soil ready come spring.
Great advice. I have been doing the same for many years.
Last year I had to pause gardening - but this year I was in for a pleasant surprise. The earthworms had been so active in all the pots in the meantime that there were practically no roots left in the soil; it just trickled through the sieve and looked as if it had just been bought and loosened up.
Great video, makes me feel better about my soil reuse. One problem I run into is when using very heavy stoneware pots with rough surfaces and inward-curved openings, the root-filled soil is almost impossible to get out of the pot! The only way I've found to get it out is to actually slice up the root ball with an old kitchen knife.
I slice it up as well. You can use an old serrated knife, but there is a orange handle tool that’s like a little sauce you can get in a garden or hardware store. It folds in half and clips together. It’s amazing for chopping up those roots
I have the same sifter with another removable tighter weave layer to screen even finer.
Nice video.. can you suggest any vegan organic fertilizer for vegetable garden
This year I mixed old with new at about 50/50 then mixed in a little composted steer manure and some slow release fertilizer.. idk i sorta winged it lol but everything seems to be doing well 😅
Question: If potting soil previously had diseased plants wouldn’t laying out the soil on a tarp under the sun eventually sterilize it?
No, get rid of it.
There's dozens of NPK formulations of slow release fertilizer. What numbers should I look for?
Thanks for this video! Where did you get your gloves?
I've always reused potting soil mixed with new or compost. However, last Spring, there were over 100 grubs nestled in the soil at bottom of my pots and grow bags that I'd left untouched over the Winter! I put them in soapy water but it was very time consuming. I think I'll make a sifter this Spring! And get chicken manure from my daughter this year 😊.
I have a lot of issues with vine weevil grubs, so I sympathise 😟 Thankfully they didn't infest all of my containers last year, so I do have some to reuse.
@@MargaretUK I'm wondering if I put some screen fabric (like on windows or doors) down on the soil surface this year it will prevent the eggs going down into the soil...
@@alcg3981 I think that would depend on what the grubs were, I guess it can't hurt to try?
In fall and spring, add chicken manure and bio char to the potting mix as well as some compost.
For hydroponics you have to replace the nutrients every now and then because the plant have used the nutrients it wants and just refilling would lead to nutrient imbalance. Can this happen in soil as well or can you just straight up reuse the soil and pump more nutrients in it? Is for example worm castings a good replacement for compost or is it another type of additive? Also, how important is the crop rotation? I live in an apartment and only grow peppers in pots on my balcony, so I don't really have anything to rotate with.
you folks are in CT, correct? I use fabric GrowBags (a LOT: 80ish???), and am in Boston area, and on Cape Cod. I've always dumped my bags into my compost pile. From there, I amend/sift, as I refill each March.
After watching this, I noticed you leave your soil in the grow bags over winter. Does the freeze cause issues with bag breaking?
Video hay❤❤❤
New to gardening and new to your channel. Did I mess up by dumping several growpots with formerly various plants all together into the sifter? After amending with manure, peat moss, compost and lime, I put it back into the pots and stacked them under the porch. I figured in the spring I would redump , amend with fertilizer, blood and bone meal.
No it should be just fine, as long as none of the original plants had any major disease problems. That sounds like a lot of amending, so I'd just say try not to go _too_ heavy on the nutrients. I'm sure it'll work well to grow next year's plants!
if you have a builder tonne bag layer soil and then green waste soil waste and so forth and come spring soil has fresh organic matter to replace any that has composted naturally, I only need to top with soil dressings in growing season, been doing this for 15 years and no complaints
✌️😎
I reuse my soil each year. I dump out my pots into a bin, I fill bottom of pot with a few inches of last year's leaves/or food scraps this usually contains a few worms. then in my bin I add compost and old soil back in 1:1 ratio. I might add some biochar, minerals or lime depending on what I'm growing but I only fertilize after planting.
She rescued my heart. Garden chicks 👌🔥
Please use coco coir instead of peat moss. The peat bogs are being horribly depleted for gardening. Thank you!
So true!
The coir blocks being sold on Facebook are not as shown. Many people say the blocks they receive are about 20% size of the ones shown. So, where do people with small resources get coir? I actually want to know.
It can be advisable to not reuse soil that have had any infected plant in them whitout steralising it first by putting it in boiling water for a bit before draining it.
How I reuse old potting soil. I keep the pots next to my barn all winter then get my supplies ready when I'm ready to plant and I always use live plants purchased from a local nursery. Supplies: - wheelbarrow, Miracle Grow all purpose potting soil for plants, water hose and a 5 gallon bucket. I do one pot at a time - I scrape off three inches of old soil off the top of the pot and put that into the 5 gallon bucket, I pour the old potting soil from the pot into the wheel barrel and inspect it - If I find anything I don't like I discard the whole batch - but 90% of the time I reuse the old potting soil. I wash the inside and outside of the pot with the garden hose. Then I mix in new Miracle Grow soil into the old potting soil in the wheelbarrow then fill up my pot to about 1 inch from the top. Then I plant my garden vegetable - mostly tomato's and then water them with water that has Soluble Miracle Grow all purpose plant food added. I take the 5 gallon bucket that has been filled with the top three inches of old soil from each pot and just toss it into my in ground garden and roto till it in when its time to roto till and plant. Has worked for me for many years.
I could not catch where you said we can get free compost. Plz let me know. Useful tips for a fresh gardener like me.
Check with your town or city!
This looks fun if you have plenty of time. If you don't want to waste all day just take it put it on a tarp walk on it. don't worry about the little bits of stuff it's going to decompose in there and feed the dirt. Amend with a decent fertilizer organic of course and don't forget micronutrients if you're working with a lot of dirt it's easier to do this with a poly drum cement mixer if you have one. Tarps work too but it's certainly a lot of work. If you want to reuse infected soil, spread it out on tarp and put black plastic over it leave it covered for several months during early summer and this will bake and sterilize anything bad out of there. Another misconception, if you'd grown things in fall or early winter, there's still food in the dirt it's not all washed out unless you take some of the substrate bring it up to Field capacity and catch the first 15 seconds of runoff. You then test that. Hope this helps
I built a table similar to what she's using but a bit taller. This allows you to put a tarp under there to catch the dirt, or preferably a wheelbarrow. I have amazing dirt where I live so I will scrape it up with my tractor in a front end loader and then put it on a table like this to screen it.
The ginger soup is even better then the Tom yum doup
How you feel about cloth pots
Since peat moss is a non-renewable resource, wouldn't it be better to use renewable sources instead such as the coir you recommended? Great video!
Glad you posted this comment. And not surprised that she hasn’t replied.
I have a question about rotating crops. Last year was my first garden in over 25 years, so I decided to grow tomatoes in food-grade 5-gallon buckets. I’m only growing tomatoes, so how can I rotate them? Doesn’t seem logical to me since I’m only growing that one crop. 🤷♀️
Where did you get the sifter?
Great video. I have a question? I want to refresh the soil in my pots in the spring. Last year I dumped all my pots and buckets on to a tarp on the driveway and mixed in some mushroom compost. I also put in all the other stuff (granulated organic fertiliser, etc, etc) But I have a friend who keeps horses. He's got a mountain of straw and horse poop that's been there for 3 years years now. I used some of it last year with no problems. Can I forgo the mushrooms compost and use the this composted horse poop instead? (it's free!) Thanks again for this video and I look forward to hearing from you.
Yes! But you would want to make sure the manure is properly composted. Manure that did not reach a high enough temperature during composting shouldn’t be used because of weed seeds and pathogens
Nice shirt 😊
, , , and the Gloves
💯 👍
I do container gardening with vegetable seedlings i start myself. Can I use any of the soil from previous year to add back to containers? Thanks!
Yes.
0:24 : moss peat absolutely IS a renewable resource.
If you leave your pots exposed to the rain over winter, most of that "slow release" fertilizer is going to drain away, as is a good chunk of the nutrients in the compost. The water that comes out of a pot is brown, and that colour represents lost nutrients.
Great video, very informative. Although it's sad to note that people seem to have taken the vocal fry at the end of sentences for granted.
I used a regular old spaghetti strainer 😅
I use the old soil every year, put the old in the bottom and add new soil to top four inches or so. I plant flowers in pots. Fertilize with water soluble fertilizer according to directions. After all, it's just dirt.
I probably won't see the answer but I thought some fertilizers like miracle grow might stay in the old soil and possibly burn the new plants before they got a good start. I was wondering about rinsing the soil to remove previous fertilizers for a fresh start id f that is even possible to do.
Nice video. On a tight budget this year but constantly needing more soil, so this made me think it's okay to use old soil. However, I've been hesitant to do that because I always deal with tons of aphids and other pests, and have been told to sterilize the potting soil first and don't want to go through that hassle. Thoughts?
We don’t use outdoor soil indoors or for seedlings. The best way to deal with aphids and other pests is to attract beneficial insects to your garden (you can do this with plants). Nature has a way of balancing things out. (There are also other ways to control them). For sterilizing the soil, no soil is ever “truly sterile”. However, you can mix it with boiling water before replenishing it. Of course, make sure its cool before using it. You can also utilize a tarp and leave the soil to dry in the sun. Hope this helps!
I've been told to bag the soil in a black garbage bag and tie it off, then leave the bag in full sun for a while. The heat and lack of air should kill any pesky bugs. I tried this when I had a gnat problem, and it worked well.
why use chemical time-release fertilizer? what is a natural alternative?
Add in a handful or two of Azomite and bone meal.
Thank you so much!🙏 Is it okay to leave the soil outside even in winter when it's freezing temperatures for months?
Yes! You can leave it outside as long as there is drainage.
@@geekygreenhouse amazing! thank you for your videos, love how informative they are and your chill energy
as everybody dont know ;) there's little to none calcium and magnesium in potting mix, and needs to be added in.
i made the mistake of using dolomite, which has too much magnesium to calcium.
plants need a good big top-up of calcium and magnesium--not at same time as other fertilizer--once every few months. the correct ratio is 7:1 calcium to magnesium. calcium is the "trucker" of other nutrients to plant, and used to build cell walls.
My grandmother got a problem in her tunnel house one year. She microwaved all soil then added more goodies lol. I think it was just one tunnel house
I just mix some manure and some of my composte
Low spots my Shepard every spring takes mouthfuls of grass and tears them out? So yeah i just used cheap top soil ovet grass seed with grower on it