Reusing soil

[zazen999]

At about this time of year, I usually cut off any dying peppers and tomatoes and look at reusing the soil for overwintering peas and salads etc.

Usually, I end up just taking the top 2 inches of soil out, and putting fresh soil on top and sowing/planting in that. Mainly because if I start to sieve the soil there are so many roots that once I get the root ball out, the soil is littered with broken roots.

This year, though - even though the plants have cropped [although nowhere near as much as usual] - there is hardly any root growth and I've had loads of reuseable soil. So much that with just a few smallish pots, I've sown 2 large tubs of peas for the winter.

Anyone else noticing an incredibly small amount of roots in this year's summer fruiting plants?

[veggiechicken]

I've been doing the same thing today. Clearing out the toms from the GH, mostly grown in Flower buckets or ring culture pots sitting on a 3" deep bed. The oldest toms had massive roots, filled the bucket and extended several feet through the bed. The later ones, armpits, cropped almost as heavily (or as lightly since its been a poor year) but had small root balls.. I've upended the compost into potato grow-bags, sides folded down and sown.........peas!!

[zazen999]

Freaky!

Some of the pots - the roots hadn't even got to the sides. Never seen that before - and mine were all really early sown...

[veggiechicken]

Here are the only 3 roots left unbinned!

The largest is one of the 3 original toms from VVG, the others are armpits, but both taken at the same time.

[VirginVegGrower]

Yet the roots on my tomatoes were as extensive as ever, but I had three plants that never cropped anything at all. Tomatoes have been a poor one for me this year, as have peppers compared to previous years. This was however my heritage year against my usual growing of usual varieties. I therefore have no marker against which to guage.

[veggiechicken]

Same for me VVG, as I've only grown yours this year. The roots in the photo were either Salt Lake Surprise or Gold Medal. Black Krim was in there too but it was huge in every direction - a right forking thug!! Nice though

[alldigging]

Tomatoes hit the ceiling but not big root balls! Peas coming up n mine already! Thought it seemed a shame to waste the stuff!

[Snadger]

Mine are always planted in beds to save expense on compost and give them a better chance if an odd time or two i can't get to water them.
The ones I have pulled up had shallow root systems, yet the plants were quite healthy. I thought it was maybe it was because I water the plants but not the beds? I usually water the plants directly with the rose OFF the watering can then water the beds with the rose ON.
I might try adding some Superphosphate of Lime to the soil to encourge root growth in the next crop, or even give the micro summat or other fungi a try?

[binley100]

I haven't got round to emptying pots yet (I've just chopped down plants as they've finished) but my Dad has had to empty his into the garden waste bin cos some sort of grass grew in all of his pots and baskets with a ridiculous root sytem thats made the compost rubbish for reusng.

[Potstubsdustbins]

I put this one down to the weather in my own circumstance.

My weather log shows March unusually warm more like June. My tom's log records at the same time that they were growing very quickly. So quickly that I cut off some of the leaders and put them through the 'milk bottle' process to give them a fresh start. These later plants have produced the best crop.

Looking back this is the time the main roots should have been forming, but the plants thought it was June so top growth was the order of the day.

Colin.

[Sarico]

i notice the same problem and i thought maybe was the different compost that i used this year... i also noticed that the outside tomato the rootball was very small maybe the weather was so wet that they didn't need to grow more root and deep one seeking for water...

[chris]

Haven't cleared my GH out yet - I'm still getting tomatoes ripen - despite a couple of frosts. I may yet have some seeds to swap!

Will report back when I do though

[Paulieb]

With regards to reusing soil from pots, I thought it might be worth mentioning that I am now harvesting lots of small to medium carrots that I sowed back in June/July in my new potato buckets.

Just sprinkle the compost back in after harvesting the spuds, add a bit of sand to lighten the mixture and the carrots love it. Can also move them into the greenhouse around now to avoid any heavy frosts which makes picking easy as and when needed.

I do also have loads of buckets of used chilli/tom compost and growbags which will probably be used to top up my raised beds.

[zazen999]

Yeah - that's what the thread is about. The fact that there is much more re-useable compost than normal.