Soil question ???

Dear ALL

I am a newbie to this gardening malarkey ( my spuds are yum ) but need to know what do i do with the soil / compost from garden centre that i grew my potatoes in ???

If the answer is plant more stuff in it !! then i shall toddle off to my corner with a sheepish grin :-)

 

Once the potatoes have finished they will have taken a lot of nutrients out of the compost so I personally just dig it into the veg patch, put it in the compost bin or use it as a mulch..:thumb:

 

Two options.

As Bilbo says whatever you grow always takes a lot of nurishment out of the compost so most people buy new compost and dig the old into the border or veg patch to improve the soil.

But I live in Yorkshire and am mean. So I reuse the compost and simply replace the nutrient that has been taken out. I would use Miraclegrow for green veg or a tomato fertiliser for tomatoes or any other fruit. As potatoes are swollen underground stems I think I would use Miraclegrow for them too. As a principle I would feed any plants in containers even if they are in new compost - the feed doesn't last very long.

Being mean I don't even buy a new car when it runs out of petrol - I just replace what has been used. :D

 

Sound advice there from Peter, but don`t plant tomatoes in compost which you`ve grown potatoes in. And vice versa.

 

Why not Dai? I am sure you are right, I don't grow veg but I always like to try and understand what's going on.

The only qualification to what I said above, is that like any car, compost does ultimately have a finite life. There comes a time when you have to get rid of it. This generally is if you have a serious soil borne disease. Its then probably better to put it in landfill and not even the green recycle bin. Or if you get vine weevil, whose grubs live in the soil and eats young plants roots. You can see the young grubs as small white blobs. The best thing for this is to spread it out thinly on a bare piece of ground. The birds will very quickly find and eat the grubs, then the compost can be safely dug into the ground.

And finally, compost is an organic material. And like anything organic it will rot down. The result is that the texture gets finer and finer until it prevents water draining freely. At this point it is turning into humus which is excellent if dug into the ground. This decay takes 3 or 4 years or more, and is a good reason why you shouldn't pot long term plants, like trees, in compost. Instead use a soil (ie rock based) medium as the rock particles won't break down into smaller bits.