reusing soil???

[GreenThumbBill]

gobble gobble slurp slurp

fwiw

The problem lies with ignorant old men like barry munday wobbly gobbly who think their way is the only way of doing things and falsely equate their own way as the one right way. These arrogant old coots should shut up and realize there is more than one way to skin a cat.

My plants are neither diseased, nor infested.

ftw

 

[wobbly goblin]

The problem lies with ignorant old men like barry munday wobbly gobbly who think their way is the only way of doing things and falsely equate their own way as the one right way. These arrogant old coots should shut up and realize there is more than one way to skin a cat.

My plants are neither diseased, nor infested.

ftw

checkmate

 

[lazarus718]

Uhmmm....truce? Yes, you can reuse soil. Obviously if it choked and maimed your last crop you don't want to reuse it. Or put it in your savory herb garden and make a new killer batch for your godly pot garden and then again recycle it into your lowly herb garden. That's what I do. It works.

 

[Buddy Hemphill]

checkmate

Not.

You COULD recycle the water from a Under Current system.:sun

You can do anything you want. That doesn't mean its the best idea for the masses. Everybody doesn't have 15 years experience to draw upon...

convenience, I believe, is the keyword. Followed by experience. Nobody wants to ruin a crop on a dirt REUSE experiment.

We are all fat lazy Americans anyway....lets start acting like it! (welll....I act that way now anyhow). I'm cool with it.:mmm

 

[cannarado]

Throw that dirt on top of your veggie or flower garden. I have an emerald barberry that blew up this year after i put a few pots of soil from my grows around it.

Its the Catalina wine mixer bitch! Pow-pow!:punch

 

[Seamaiden]

So, like I said before, just because you can doesn't mean you should. For me, soil is precious and I am one seriously CHEAP-ass woman. Sure, in certain areas you want to spend your money, but media isn't one of those necessary recurring expenses for me with the way I do things.

Lazarus, I meant what I repped you.

Now I need to look up emerald barberry. I've been on crutches the past six weeks, today's the first day I've used my desktop in.... holy carp, around two months. Anyway, no actual gardening of any sort for me for a good long while yet, hopefully closer to six months than one year.

 

[lazarus718]

Lazarus, I meant what I repped you.

Thx Maiden...I'd send some back your way but you've already got me maxed out!!!

 

[Purple Grapes]

In a pot, I think it would make sense to not reuse your soil; however, if your growing in the ground or beds I would mulch and and add composts as appose to bringing in new soil every year. I have this big oak tree on my property (oaks are everywhere where I'm from, they are illegal to chop down in my town with out special permission). I went over to look at the fallen leaves under the tree. When you dig down a bit, you can see the different stages of the oak leaves decomposing and adding nutrients to the soil. The top leaves are newer and just are brown. As you go down they start to get smaller (more broken down) until finally you have just dirt. Finally, at the bottom, you can see the dirt. I would think if a grower set up their grow like this every year, they could easily reuse their soil because this is how nature reuses its soil. I know some organic farmers plant in rows and every year they shift the rows and mulch the other row. This method is sustainable and could cut the cost of growing by a lot.

 

[caregiverken]

I have raised beds with lots of worms living in there..
I will be adding more worm food (paper and kitchen trash), Pearlite, and some good store bought soil too.

Do I need to try to dig out the old roots or
can I just add some kind of enzyme to break em down?

The enzyme wont hurt the worms will it?

what kind do you guys recommend?

thanks in advance :)

 

[tattoojim]

i have 3 80 gallon trash cans in my garage full of dirt from my last couple of runs. i would love to reuse it but i remember what it said on the bag(miracle grow). i was thinking of making some flower beds in the back yard and letn it rip.

 

[kindindy123]

LMFAO, great analogy, that's about how I feel when it comes to reusing grow media of any kind. Dude, it's like $1/gal at the store, just go buy more. Fookin hippies, lol.

its getting rid of it,that sucks,ya cant just dump it!!!!!!

 

[kindindy123]

i reuse my soil all the time, in fact my second and third run normally yields more than the first run. i sperate the rootballs and hit it with some myco and go for it.

thats what i mean man,some people just dont use there heads,thats why they get cought

 

[kindindy123]

Hilarious!! Y reuse when it's cheap enough to buy new????...... Great. Idea to keep the same problems u had from reusing your las batch of soil..lol..NOT

u dont get the importance of the ques,if ur having probs with organics,get a dozen books and start reading,or stick to hydro salts:cool0019:

 

[GreenThumbBill]

its getting rid of it,that sucks,ya cant just dump it!!!!!!

I have a huge compost pile and an outdoor garden where it gets used. It's not like I'm dumping it at an apartment complex. Plus I'm legal, I don't worry about getting "caught."

 

[ibTheMan]

IMO never reuse Dirt or Coco, its pretty cheap and there alot of problems that can happen when reusing mediums, mostly bugs and locked up nutes.

 

[kindindy123]

Soser, I think it's while the new user is below a certain post count, maybe during the same time that their posts need to be approved.



Who says I'm having problems with my soil? Ha ha! Who, for that matter, says the original poster is having problems with anything other than not wanting to waste a valuable resource? Why are so many people so ready and willing to throw something out? Just because you can doesn't mean you should (or even have to?).

I don't know about the pond enzymes, but I have often used, and still often use, one of the pre-mixed line of dry fertilizers made by Dr. Earth to break down old roots, as well as reinoculate the media with beneficial microbes and macro and micronutrients. Simply put, once you figure out how to do it, what is needed after growing a crop it's easy. Another suggestion is to check out one of the no till threads. Should be in the organic soil section over at ICMag (I don't know if there is a similar thread here).

this is why i come back to these forums,because the people who know there shit end up chimming in & give me the ans i am looking for,& weed out the kids with the pumped out kicks,,,would like to thank the gentlemen for there quality info:banana1sv6:

 

[kindindy123]

I have a huge compost pile and an outdoor garden where it gets used. It's not like I'm dumping it at an apartment complex. Plus I'm legal, I don't worry about getting "caught."

that makes all the diff in the world,,,thats great

 

[PButter]

I don't believe you should ever throw your soil out. If you have the time, space, and knowledge you can easily and safely return your soil to production - usually alot better production than a first rounder...

If your soil was made by you with all (most hopefully) the proper amendments, you will only need to add a bit of EWC... but that comes later. After say recycling four times or so you will want to dump the soil and re amend with some of the amendments that break down faster.

EM-1. Get a gallon don't use it from the container. One gallon of EM-1 will allow you to make 11 gallons with the recipe on their site.

Once I harvest I cut the stem off close to the soil. I water with em-1
(1-2tbspns) and let that break down the roots with anerobic bacteria. Doesn't smell, this is something you can do inside. I have heard you can do this step as fast as two weeks. I have enough recycling soil where I let this go for six weeks or so.

The only thing you need to do before putting plants back into this soil is get rid of the anerobic bacteria. You do this by watering the soil with an actively aerated compost tea. AACT. I usually apply EWC and alfalfa meal to the top of the soil.

This works great for me and is a great system but I do NOT use any of these organic liquid nutrients that so many 'organic' soil growers think is the way to grow organic. I do not believe you should reuse your soil if you are using any additives that you would want to flush out at the end of a run. If you can find excess salts coming out of your soil, dont recycle, put that shit on the flower bed. If you want to recycle, make sure your plants will have most of what they need to grow in the soil. If your soil is lacking something, its not the end of the world you just need to be ready with the appropriate teas. If your soil is lacking something and you automatically want to pour some 'organic free range naturally harvested by ten year old boys salt' on it, you should not be recycling.

PB

 

[BobbyHopkins]

LMFAO, great analogy, that's about how I feel when it comes to reusing grow media of any kind. Dude, it's like $1/gal at the store, just go buy more. Fookin hippies, lol.

Maybe some people don't want to spend $600 on soil every two months if they don't have to?
Maybe some people don't want to lug 1000 pounds of soil in and out every two months if the don't have to?
Maybe some people don't want to make mulitple trips to the dump every two months if they don't have to?
Maybe some people don't want to spend a lot of money and work to waste something if they don't have to?

Not everybody's crop fits in a milk container. For some of us, replacing soil is a BIG deal.

I use beds. I just remove the root balls, break up the dirt, mix in a little studge and BAM!! Good to go. I get no drawbacks from reusing the dirt, in yield, health, diseases, whatever. So, no ill effects and it saves me a lot of money and hassle, that makes it a no-brainer for me.

 

[PButter]

Hey Bobby, What is studge? ... and Bam!! sounds even easier than EM1.