Re-using Soil

Thanks for that. Its good to know more people are doingbit. Adding worm castings (nitrogen/humic) and epsom salt (magnesium) should prevent yellowing

Originally Posted by Kalyx

Hey guy with hydro in his name in the organics section; your starting your post with not one but two qualifying statements makes me wonder about you being a shit and a troll. JK.

Simple one word answer, although hyroot was more than nice with his. BUDGET. Most responsible modern humans have to instate one eventually. Let the man break the cycle of the disposable economy if he sees fit. Ditch the synth mindset, go organic, reuse your soil and be healthier. 100 bucks a month would do wonders added to my budget!

Hyroot - adding in some fresh mix (or something not so broken down) to get it back up to the original volume will ensure a better physical structure to your soil over time. Great idea! I like to add more coco and EWC/compost as the perlite and pumice don't go anywhere unless its really windy!

No need to be rude. Chris was just asking a question and meant no disrespect. He is a friend of mine and definitely not a troll. I reuse my soil also. I grow outdoors and originally dug huge holes and filled them with a good soil mix. Now I just amend it with goodies and it seems to be doing great. I think that it will get better each year.

Originally Posted by missnu

I have literally been reamending and using the same soil for 4 years... and sometimes all I do is rip one plant out and directly stick a new one in the same soil the first came out of... I usually add some worm castings and guano and maybe some compost...but nothing special, and no waiting and I get great results......Nothing bad has ever happened...Well I take that back...the plants in the reused soil tend to yellow earlier into flower than plants with new soil,

Nice! 4 years is a good run, i'm into my 2nd year of reusing my soil and my plants are greener and greener rather then yellowing early, i do amend the living shit out of it though with many different ingredients thanks Kalyx for puttin' the link up. All i really buy now is a couple bags of castings or compost each month and that also is used for the teas. Soon i will be venturing into my own little worm business and who knows maybe i'll throw live worms into my mix, i liked that idea, someone posted that as an ingredient in their mix, fuckin' awesome!

Here is an old thread I did in 2009 when I first starting thinking about reusing my soil
is there a way to replenish / reuse old soil?
I can tell you I have been using the 3 little birds soil recipe in that thread and the same soil since then and have had zero food/soil problems since then. I have had bug problems from bringing in clones from outside sources but its never effected the soil to where I couldn't keep using it. The soil you can get in stores isn't a fraction as good as what you can make yourself and it only gets better the longer you use it. Really the only things I have changed in the past few years as far as food/soil goes is now I use compost teas once in a while and add azomite to my mix but other than that all I do is water and up pot as needed.

The only thing I've noticed in years of reusing my container soil mix is that you have to keep an eye on the structure of the soil. It will break down over time into finer particle sizes and can dramatically affect the drainage properties of your mix. But I don't see this as a disadvantage though. Nothing scientific about amending the soil. I just king of eyeball it, since all of my base components are equal amounts. If it looks like I need more of something I just add some back in.

I don't tend to reuse right away.... but I have with no ill effect. My used container soil goes in 40 black pickle shipping drums with 100 1" holes cut in them and then fiberglass window screen guerrilla glue over the holes on the inside. Going in the drums I add base soil components to get the soil back to what looks like equal proportions of base ingredients, toss in half of the nutrients that I used to make the soil, wet with an alfalfa/molasses tea and allowed to cook in the sun. The barrels are tumbled daily by rolling them on their sides. When I am ready to use it I just split the soil into my 2 batch system, amend with the appropriate amount of base nutrients for each batch and use.

After about a dozen or so uses I put the used soil in a pile for use in my raised beds and make new container soil......

Yah I run no-till beds and the most I will do is top dress the beds with amendments and water it in... also when you remove the plants, just cut it at the base and leave the root mass in there, then plant right next to it...