Growing in Pots

Most of my gardening is done in pots, I seem to water them and more appear (joking, I’m a nightmare for buying pots) I do have some borders but these are limited. So normally I empty out my pots when the spring bulbs are done, put new compost in and then put summer bedding in, then come autumn I repeat this in reverse with new compost and spring bulbs going in. Each time this is done, I add a helping of Growmore or chicken pellets or something.

So wondering if it is necessary to change the compost, not only it is expensive, it isn’t that environmental and it is hard for me to dispose of old compost, so seeing my strawberries, cannas or other herbaceous plants in plants, I don’t generally change the compost on these and they survive, so is it really necessary to keep changing my compost? Or could I reinvigorate old compost? With my potato and tomato plants, these are very hungry plants so understandable I cannot use this compost again, but is summer bedding that hungry or the bulbs in the pot, do these get a lot of their nutrients from the bulb itself?

Also thinking of the buddleja (butterfly bush) that grows a massive shrub well out of a wall, where there is hardly any nutrients, but does it none the less.

So can I be a bit more frugal?

 

I have never changed the compost for bulbs, they just go into the existing. For bedding plants, I used to add a little new and some fish, blood and bone.

I say used to as I haven’t bought any compost in for a couple of years. I use garden soil for all my pots now as I have a mound from old lawn turves. When that runs out, I will just carry on re-using the soil in the pots, with some added fresh garden compost and BFF.

 

Okay is Growmore different from BFF? I don’t have garden soil or old lawn turfes, I just don’t have the room, my garden is small courtyard garden, it doesn’t help I’m a sucker for buying pots.

What I do have is Westland’s Garden Boost All Purpose Liquid Feed, Miracle All Purpose Feed, Chicken Pellets, Miracle Gro All Purpose Slow Release Pellets. All this I bought at 1/2 price in September.

Growmore, which I have bought 3 weeks ago to spread around my borders, on herbaceous plants.

I have compost from my slow release compost heap and also from my hot composter but this is limited, so tend to use these with my tomato’s and potato’s as these are very hungry plants I understand.

I also have some bags of Westmoreland Compost, With Added Nutrients, from B&M.

I am also making leaf mould in old compost bags, this will not be ready for a while.

 

Growmore is inorganic and gives a good quick boost to plants BFB is an organic fertiliser with a slower release.
Chicken pellets are similar to growmore in giving a quick hit but its organic.

Liquid feeds are similar but really need applying weekly in the growing season.

Slow release pellets are what they say on the pack, infact most of them tell you on the pack how much to use and when.

You can reuse compost but probably not forever, a couple of years and the texture changes without some kind of additions, pest and disease build up could be another problem.

Bulbs will grow first year in just water as they contain all they need in the bulb, for year one, after that they need nutrients to grow on if you want to grow them again.

 

Great to know.

With the ever increasing pots, it is getting hard work, but I will change the compost, but not as often as I did. As you know I have just repotted my Cannas.

 

Goodness, I have well over 100 pots, some very large, and I don;t continuously change the compost.

 

I've got more pots than I can count, it would be impossible to change the compost every year. I just buy new compost for tomatoes cucumber etc and annuals in pots. I don't reuse it, I spread it on the garden.

 

I also have an awful lot of pots. Shrubs and perennial things only get new compost if they need repotting because of growth. I admit that in the past I have used new compost for annuals and bulbs, but I may not in future, so thanks for that. One question; do dahlias in pots need new compost?