Compost - ditch it all, or only some?

Now that we are coming toward the end of the growing season, many plants have finished, and as I have been disposing of them I have been chucking the remaining compost around the feet of the conifers and stuff at the back of the garden;

I currently have four re-useable grow bags (one of which contains strawberries, so that will likely have to stay as it is to overwinter the strawbs?) - each of these bags contains approximately 150-160 litres of compost; now, whilst I am sure the borders will benefit from having this ditched on top of them over the winter, there is the cost of putting new stuff into the bags next year (and I will have twice as many next year, so I will be looking at 1200 litres of compost approximately just for the bags alone!).

Is there any point in changing out maybe half of the compost for new stuff in the new year, or is that simply asking for failed crops next year?

 

Its my tight inner Scotsman coming out Jenny - I am looking at ways to keep the cost as sensible as I can for next year so that I don't end up feeling like my veggies have cost me four or five times the amount I could have bought them for from a veg market.

 

I know - see, I have to watch the pennies to make sure that I can keep myself in the manner to which I have become accustomed

 

I, personally, would store the bags in a cool dry place for the following year. Then when it came to using them in the Spring, open them up for whatever plants you're plant into them and, if you're in doubt about the nutrient value left in them, settle them in with a feed of Miracle Grow or the like. All my used compost from containers gets spread onto the borders along with the "black gold" from the Compost Heap.

 

Just to clarify, these are not gro-bags that you would buy and cut a hole in - they are essentially a small raised bed style thing made out of material not dissimilar to tarpaulin, that I have filled with multi-purpose compost.

However, apparently that is of little consequence here, and it looks like I'd simply be setting myself up for a fall if I tried to keep any of the existing stuff.

Oddly enough, when I took the strawberries out of an upright bag that I had them in to put them into one of these bigger bags, a couple of the strawberry plants had small white balls around the roots which I presumed to be eggs of some kind or other? Should I be potting all my strawberry plants up into individual pots for the winter then? And do they need any sort of protection?

 

I suppose the other question should be, how/where is going to be cheapest to buy the thick end of 2000 litres of compost?

 

I don't really have anywhere outdoors that is sheltered, other than inside the greenhouse? I am almost tempted to let the bag of strawbs get on with it through the winter, and if I lose them, so be it - they weren't anything special anyway to be honest, just Homebase jobs earlier in the year; I might be better to start again properly next year and get a mixture of early, mid and late fruiting ones from T&M or similar?