We all know gardening is expensive.
Especially on the scale
that I do it. And I'm a huge fan of
growing potatoes in containers.
And the most common question I get is.
"Wow that must be really expensive to do
that,
is it really worth it"? But did you know
that you can reuse compost
time and time again? In this episode I'm
going to take you through exactly what
you need to do
to be able to use this medium over and
over again.
I'm Tony O'Neill and this is Simplify
Gardening. Where I show you how to garden
in a simpler way.
If you want that perfect garden to relax
in, or just want to grow your own
nutrient-dense foods.
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You may be at home and just harvested
all of your potatoes or carrots
or whatever vegetables you wanted. And
you may have even had some plants die
and because of that you're left over
with
all this used compost and you don't know
what to do with it.
And the answer is to reuse it. Now
you may have heard various people saying
that you shouldn't really
reuse composts. And sometimes this is
true.
But it's usually put out by
organizations that are greedy.
And they would love nothing more than
for you to hand over
wads of notes every single year, for you
to buy
fresh new compost. And we all know that
spent compost will have had
all its nutrients used by this year's
plants. But it's
really easy to rejuvenate it and make it
as good as new.
There is one caveat here though. If you
have had a disease,
for instance onion white rot, then this
compost is best to be disposed of.
But as a general rule, we can reuse it.
In order to rejuvenate spent compost
it's a simple matter
of using the dump method. Simply
dump it into a huge pile on part of the
garden or
tarp and then you want to get your hands
into it and you want to break it up.
So if there's any roots or anything like
that. That
are compacting it together then that's
what you want to do. You want to
literally get in there
and break it up like that. Any of these
bigger roots can go into your standard
compost you don't need them.
This is a perfect opportunity to
check the compost for pests and disease,
something like vine weevils or slugs.
It's an ample opportunity now to get rid
of them because these will
kill your new little plants when you're
growing them
when you're reusing this product. This is
now ready to be rejuvenated, so let's
take a look
how we rejuvenated from this point on.
Now
there are various methods to rejuvenate
compost.
But first I need to explain something to
you.
Compost is just a medium to hold air,
water and nutrients for your plants and
it's also a food source for the
microbial life in the soil.
Now let's get to turning this spent
compost into a useful product again.
There are many methods for rejuvenating
compost,
such as mixing it on a 50 50 basis with
new compost.
Even just doing this sometimes can
rejuvenate the compost enough
so that you can reuse it for the next
crop. Manures are really good too!
They help bulk out the compost and they
build texture, they stop compaction
and they add tons of microbial life into
this
new compost which revitalizes it.
Even good old topsoil can be added to
your compost
and this will add lots of soil life to
this
dead compost. But not only that it
practically
doubles the volume that you have to
use
in the garden.The next thing to consider
is to add a balanced fertilizer because
as we've already discussed
this is spent compost. It's had all its
nutrients removed
so we now need to reintroduce nutrients
into this compost.
There are many fantastic fertilizers
that you can use such as
blood fish and bone or if you're in the
U.S blood meal and bone meal.
Even products like seaweed pellets
can be used, all you need to do is make
sure
that it's a slow-release organic
fertilizer.
When adding fertilizers be sure to
follow the
instructions on the packaging because
you don't want to over
feed. It is much better to underfeed
than
overfeed, due to nutrient locking. So now
we have our rejuvenated fed compost
how can we reuse it in the gardens?
Number one.
We can continue to grow crops in pots
with this compost.
Number two. It can be used for potting on
young seedlings.
Number three. It could be used to top
dress or mulch the garden over winter.
Number four. It could be added to the
compost heap.
and, number five. We could store this
in an old compost bin ready for
next spring or for our potatoes next
year.
Really, anything you would normally use
compost for. This can be useful because
essentially it's the exact same stuff.
It's important to note that I haven't
mentioned using this as a seed starter
mix. And the reason for this is there
could still be some pathogens or pest
eggs
within the compost. Now if you were to
use it as a seed starter mix
it may prevent the seeds from actually
getting
mature enough to survive, whereas once
they are mature
then it wouldn't affect these plants. So
at this point, if you haven't already
used the compost as a mulch
on the garden, then you are now free to
use it for whatever you want to use it,
minus that seed starting mix.
So the alternative here would be to
store this compost ready for use in
spring.
Now we could refill the compost bags
that it came in originally if we still
have them.
And these could then be stored in a cool
area or in the greenhouse or polytunnel.
Alternatively, if you have the old dalek
style
bins like I have here, you can simply
shovel it
into these bins and store it over winter
and it'll be there safe without the rain
affecting it.
And you can reuse this at any point that
you require it.
Now if you've watched any of my videos
you may remember me saying about the
importance of
soil life. Well to use this compost
in order to build soil quality, there's
one more thing
we need to do and that is to inoculate
the soil.
So it's a really good idea to inoculate
this compost before adding it to build
soil and
that's to bring in the soil life. Now
there are many ways in which we could do
this.
We could use compost tea or something
like bokashi compost which is a form of
E.M.
And also we could even bring in some
worm castings. The great thing about
doing these
things is it adds lots of soil life to
this compost
and they will breed over the coming year.
But you can also add additional
applications as well
to really enrich the soil life and
this will hugely benefit your garden.
So how long can we use this compost for?
Well,
pretty much indefinitely. As I've already
said, it's just a medium
that we can add nutrients to and keep
rejuvenating it.
But you do need to take some things into
consideration.
If the compost starts getting tired and
picks up disease
then it's time to cut your losses and
get rid of it.
But growing your potatoes and other
vegetables in this compost in containers
doesn't have to cost the earth. You can
make your own compost, or you can buy it.
But if you do have to buy it then you
can use it over
and over and over again. Don't think it's
a one-time use product.
If you've got value from this video, you
can subscribe here.
And if you want to know exactly what you
can do to build your own compost instead
of buying it
but then reuse that over and over again.
Then I have a real
detailed video here, on the ins and outs
of making compost.
I'm Tony O'Neill and this is Simplify
Gardening. Where i show you how to garden
in a simpler way.
Don't forget folks, You Reap What You Sow! I'll see you in the next one.
bye
