What to do with compost after growing potatoes
Tony Littler
Posts: 6
Hello everyone
I am a new to growing vegetables and have this year attempted to grow potatoes in bags. I am limited to space so bought 4 large bags and followed all of Monty Don's instructions. I must admit the cost to fill each one with good compost plus the bags certainly was certainly expensive option however it was fun harvesting them and enjoying eating them too. The variety I choose was Duke of York.
My question is what do I do with all the compost? I have quite a lot and I don't just want to from it away and I don't have a compost heap, but I have been reading that reusing the compost again is not good especially if the potatoes suffered from blight, which I had a couple of plants where effected.
I was looking to seeing if I can spread as mulch over my plant beds or any other suggestions would be helpful
Thank you
Tony
Posts
You could probably use it for other, unrelated plants next year e.g. dwarf French Beans do very well in pots. You'd probably want to mix in some kind of solid fertiliser and feed with liquid tomato food. Alternatively you could use it as a general mulch / soil improver.
Thank you
Yeah, chuck it on top of your beds. It'll find its way down into the soil over the autumn/winter with a little help from the worms. Do the same next year (and the next, etc.) and you'll really improve the soil with next-to-no effort. :-)
That's great, thank you. Sounds like a plan if not there is so much wastage and makes growing potatoes a very expensive exercise!
Tony