Rejuvenating Compost
Our gardening sponsor Chris demonstrates how to make the most of old, tired compost and reuse it for the new growing season, essential knowledge for the eco-conscious (and thrifty) gardener!
Fertilisers & Soil Conditioners
Many garden composts can be reinvigorated and used again for the next season with just a few simple steps.
Apart from seed sowing and initial potting of young plants I reuse all of the peat/garden compost/coir composts used in the ring and pot culture of Tomatoes, Peppers and Cucumbers at least once and sometimes twice before it ultimately ends up as a garden mulch or as scratching material for the chicken pens. When the summer cropping has finished I keep the compost as dry as possible as this enables the old roots to be removed easily once the pots are removed and maximises the amount of compost recovered.
To turn this spent compost into a nutritious mix for the following crop you need one ingredient, EX4 General Purpose Premium Fertiliser. Each of my tomato rings contain around 7 litres of compost, so six rings which fills a wheelbarrow and allows space for mixing is around 42 litres of compost.
Once this has been prepared and you don’t need to remove every single old root!, I mix in 3 grams per litre of EX4 per litre of compost, so for the 42 litres I will mix in 126 grams, which is an extremely economical way of revitalising the compost with all the nutrients to give a balanced supply for the following crop. The powder formulation of EX4 really helps ensure a good even mix.
Perfect for a variety of plants
You can mix up to 5 grams per litre for greedy subjects such as compost for making up hanging baskets but I have found that 3 grams per litre works fine for Potatoes in pots, strawberries, potting up herbaceous perennials and for final potting of bedding plants with liquid feeding given as the plants mature.
Throughout lockdown in 2020, when fresh compost was very hard to get hold of I potted around two thirds of my bedding plants into a rejuvenated mix of tomato compost and a third into fresh compost of a leading brand, the result – my mix was as good if not slightly better than the brand!
Over the many years that I have done this I have never had any problems with diseases been transferred from crop to crop, even when blighted tomatoes have been grown and the following crop is potatoes.
I am also careful to ensure no above ground plant remains are inadvertently mixed in as they could potentially be a vector for disease transfer.
The finished product is well mixed and ready to go – in this case for potting on my hardwood gooseberry cuttings that I took last year.
I’m based in Shropshire, and I’ve been a keen gardener since childhood. Throughout my career I have raised plants commercially, landscaped gardens, taught horticulture, built the odd show garden and managed public parks where I helped popularise the use of wildflowers. My passion has always remained with growing fruit and vegetables in my own garden and looking after my rare breed chickens.
I’m based in Shropshire, and I’ve been a keen gardener since childhood. Throughout my career I have raised plants commercially, landscaped gardens, taught horticulture, built the odd show garden and managed public parks where I helped popularise the use of wildflowers. My passion has always remained with growing fruit and vegetables in my own garden and looking after my rare breed chickens.
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