Soil conditioner for greenhouse pots?

[Ja9]

My greatest expense each year is the many bags of John innes 2/ compost that I buy to fill my greenhouse pots for growing toms,cucumbers, peppers ,melons and aubergines etc.I was delighted to acquire a trailer load of soil conditioner from the local tip at £1 a tonne!(its made from composted domestic green waste at high temperature. ) obviously I was very excited at this find and have filled EVERY container I have and put it on my vegetable beds. Is it suitable for growing my greenhouse plants in or should I mix it with other compost? I don't use my homemade compost in the greenhouse because of risk of seed contamination etc.

[chris]

It's sold as a conditioner, not growing medium - meant to adding to your soil to improve its structure.

It's probably not as high in nutrient as compost - but you could mix it with it to make it to further.

You can freshen up old compost without having to buy it again each year.... Loads on here do it, PTD has a good thread on it.


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[Kristen]

My greatest expense each year is the many bags of John innes 2/ compost that I buy to fill my greenhouse pots for growing toms,cucumbers, peppers ,melons and aubergines etc..

Any particular reason you are using John Innes for that (rather than Multi purpose or just the contents of Grow Bags - which would be a fair bit cheaper)?

[Ja9]

Not tried grow bags but was thinking of it.Tended to use john innes as soil based so doesn't tend to dry out as quickly as compost.they do give the NPK values at ph etc so will check it out against other products but I guessed that it couldn't be suitable on its own.Thanks Chris I will check out the threads, had seen a few, and I do reuse the compost in different ways a few times.

[Bill HH]

Grow a tomato in it this year as a test, next year you will know. I think it will be ok assuming you feed your tomatoes anyway. WIll I could get some.

[Potstubsdustbins]

My total purchase of compost so far this year has been two 60ltr bags for seed planting. Everything else as usual was saved over winter, just short of a 1000ltrs this year.

I riddle the used compost at the end of the season and store it in my bins. In spring I fetch it out as needed and freshen it with a NPK neutral fertiliser such as 7-7-7 growmore and reuse.

The only time I don't reuse is if I have had a problem with disease and I can't remember the last time that happened.

Potty

[Ja9]

Thank you all. Think I will use it mostly for what I originally planned,large containers to grow carrots in. Our ground is so stony it's rare to get a straight one!otherwise great for dressing the flower beds and help bulk up my raised veggie beds.Will try some with fertiliser in the greenhouse, as any compost will loose nutrients fairly quickly with tomatoes etc.