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Hello smart people
DeeWest
Posts: 39
Is it ok to reuse compost? If it's full of roots and bits of dead plant? E.g. From faded annuals, once they die back and you get rid of the foliage, is it ok to mix up all the compost together and reuse it.
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Hello LovelyDee,
Use your old compost to mulch your beds with or include it in your compost bin/heap (if you have one), unless the plants grown in it were affected by pests or diseases, in which case, it should be disposed of to avoid spreading problems.
That makes sense, thank you guys
I spread used compost which might contain vine weevil grubs onto a tarpaulin on the back lawn - the blackbirds and starlings help themselves, then the compost goes on the veg patch.
Last edited: 28 September 2016 11:14:17
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Dee, Always use fresh compost for plants and seeds, as mentioned above all the goodness will be long gone and plants do not come cheap they deserve the best start you can give them. My way is to pot on any thing I buy already growing into a good compost with a slightly bigger pot and it will reward you. I mix my own seed mix as they do not need nutrient to take and push up a stem as a seedling. John Innes seed mix is what I use but mix it, one third JI one third washed sand and one third small grit. Once the seedling has its two leaves I pot on, one half JI one half sand and grit mixed, as it gets a good root then pot on into good clean compost. The old compost goes in my Compost Heap and in time becomes a good friable compost for adding to pots or planting holes as you plant up beds.
Frank.
Thanks all thats really helpful. I have read somewhere that some types of organic matter enrich soil, so I thought that maybe roots would be included but it makes sense that they don’t as they are the things which suck it all up. It would be quite good to have a diagram of sorts to know which things are nutritious and which aren’t wouldn’t it
Yet another trip to the garden centre then
Dee All plant matter is nutritious in its own way depending on how long it takes to morph into a product that will enrich the soil. Your spent compost put on your beds (garden not sleeping) will be drawn down by the worms and having passed through them in the normal way becomes a lovely feed for the soil. Bought Compost is normally ready for new plants with feed added after composting although saying that some of the modern compost is suspect, you do not expect to find bits of glass tin plastic and thick twigs in good compost which is why I sieve it then add my own, some bone meal and a handful of granular fertiliser does it for me. John Innes number one is loam (garden soil) with sand and grit mixed that is for seeds and seedlings, I do mix more sand and grit as drainage to stop damping off. JI number two is for potting on seedlings and young plants, a mix of loam compost sand and grit again I add more grit. JI number three is for planting up pots permanently and is a mix of loam compost with nutrients and added fertiliser. Planting straight into the ground you are planting into loam, garden soil that you can give a tonic to by adding some of your own compost, blood fish and bone, or bone meal and a handful of fertiliser which ever floats your boat and always water well for a day or so. That Dee is about the only list you will get and we learn by trial and error (often more error than trial) which kind of soil we have and what will grow well in it, experience is the key which we all learn by making mistakes yet keep on trying, some plants in my garden have been moved up to five times before finding their niche in this world. No body ever said gardening was easy sometimes sitting there with a glass in the sun and perusing your efforts you wonder why you do it, you can always see what wants doing and never what you have done, "oh" well some seed to collect, in the words of the song, "Hey ho hey ho it's off to work we go" thats life.
Frank.
My old compost gets thrown in the compost bin (or across the lawn if it was only a little pot).