The season is almost over and planning for next one is in progress. This year was terribly wet and unusually cool, so late blight had a blast in my garden. Now I try to place suspectable things as much apart as possible to avoid spreading. That requires to move potatoes from the place I originally planned for next year into a safer, but much smaller spot. So I may need to plant some of the potatoes in the pots again. I have pots and the space for them on the parking lot, but I am not sure what I am going to do with their soil at the end of the season. This year’s soil is just dumped in the woods, but I am not ready to do it every year. Other containers I rotate, same way as the garden beds - tomatoes, eggplants are interchanged with bush beans and melons. But their containers are 2/3 of 55 gallon drums and set put in the garden. I know that one year interval is not great, but better then plant same things in the same spot every year. Potato pots are soft pots and can’t be left full of soil for winter and anyway next spring I will need them again for potatoes, so i need to clean them and get new soil. It is 10 containers of 25 gallon each. Even if I hill potatoes with mulch, I still need at least 10 gallon of soil per container. Any ideas what can be done with 100 gallons of soil mix possibly contaminated with potato diseases? Can it be used to mulch roses instead of compost? Can it be sterilized somehow?(But not by sun, the sun is not hot when I have to deal with the soil and I do not have any safe sunny spot I can place the soil for next year solarization)
If you’re sure the soil is infected with disease you can either sterilize using some form of oxidizer drench and/or mix some good compost where beneficial microbes can outcompete the disease pathogen. Personally, I have reused soil used to grow potato to grow other vegetables, planted flower shrubs, and once tried sterilizing soil in a half wine barrel with Hydrogen Peroxide but its a lot of work.
Let it dry out i side over winter then replant in spring.
I recycle soil frequently. I have sturdy 33 gallon barrels with lids to hold it. When it’s time to recycle, I put a greenery barrel next to one of the soil recycling barrels. Then, placing the potted plant in or over the recycling barrel, I pull off the pot and shake off the soil. The plant material I’m holding onto then goes in the greenery barrel.
Afterwards I apply conventional pesticides to the soil and close the lid. I’m not concerned about killing off beneficials. They’ll jump back in soon enough when I reuse the soil.
I have never done anything even planted a few years in the same spot. I never throw out soil. I use way too much to do that. I add compost and usually the 2nd year is when the soil it’s at its best as bacteria are established the compost degrades from the first year. All I know is things grow best in second year soil. I’ll use a third time then use soil in my raised beds. When the season is done I cut annuals and leave the roots in the soil. Like tomato and pepper plants. Roots are very rich in nutrients. Let them decay in the soil. In the spring I pull them out cut them up and use as mulch. A lot easier to pull out in the spring and most of the roots fine hairs feed the soil all growing season, as they stay in the soil. I get tomato diseases every year. This year was great as the leaf diseases are just starting now near the end of the season. Anyway I think I prefer managing things this way as many of the methods mentioned don’t really work. If changing the soil is not preventing the problem why do it? I use fabric containers so the soil can be left out all winter. I grow many perennials in fabric and they overwinter great in fabric.
I also never toss out any soil, if it seems depleted or maybe diseased I either toss it to the compost or plant something likely not affected by that disease (blight in this case). You could plant some clover in it as a cover crop to reinvigorate it or solarize it if you think you can get it hot enough to kill the diseases which is unlikely from most people that I have seen talk about trying to do that unsuccessfully.
I’d start making a spot where I can reuse it by throwing a cover crop in it and then till that in. It’ll end up making a nice top soil for your yard if you ever need to address a lowspot.
I grow zinnas and mexican sunflowers in all of my spent potting soil. I started with 2 of the cheapo plastic half barrels and i am up to about 10 of them now. I get a full year for the most part of pollinators hitting them…plus i love the flowers. In the fall finches eat all of the zinna and sunflower seeds…its a nice show as well. After the season i chop all of that top growth off and put it in one area…i think bumblebees have nests under there… likely other things.
I put leaves on top of the barrels and a few worms and i guess all winter long they eat the rotting roots from the year before. They also eat the leaves.
$1 worth of seeds and i get all of that enjoyment plus my pollinators and birds enjoy as well.
Thanks, everybody!
If a potted plant dies, I mix that dirt into whatever I have on hands at any given time, to create up-sizing of plants potentially getting root bound.
Some of my best dirt for re-using is some subsoil I mixed a little cheap big box bagged stuff into…back in North Carolina from a couple decades ago. The sand and mica offer good drainage but still retain enough moisture to not have to be watering stuff all the time to keep it alive. Stuff don’t grow a lot in that soil…but LIVES, and that’s half the battle at least.
With that much soil I strongly encourage you to take Elaine Ingham’s Compost Tea Masterclass and her Soil Regeneration masterclass on YouTube. She explains in detailed repeatable steps. The one tool needed is a compound microscope to see the organisms causing issues and watching the good microbiology out-compete the bad. Once i received my microscope a whole different world opened up to me. These classes opened up my mind to the solutions based on organic material. With Elaine’s methods this is the perfect time of year to practice the Soil Food Web practices and use biologically complete compost tea to rehab your soil. Good Luck and please report your success. Thank you
You know what’s even better than compost tea? Compost! Some of the so called expert class do think it’s better. I can say it’s faster! Everything in compost tea is in compost too.
I am unaware of research that confirms high benefits from compost tea beyond response to nitrogen. I don’t care what Ingham’s qualifications are as a soil scientist, I am always somewhat skeptical of the embrace of any particular ideology on interpretations of best methods, especially those who make a career out of such ideologies such as by writing books.
Ingham claims don’t seem solidly research supported- I’d like to know more about the research her books and methodology are based on. I am always suspicious of anyone who has been employed by the Rodale Institute because I feel that over the years it has put idealism about organic gardening above scientific reality and that in the past I was victimized by misinformation they helped perpetuate when I came to the east coast and began trying to produce fruit here many years ago, using their guidelines on organic production and inspired by their unrealistic optimism in their methods.
or a more positive take
https://www.uvm.edu/vtvegandberry/factsheets/composttea.html
More skepticism
This is my first year growing tomatoes in containers and they produced well. I plan to branch out and grow a few other items next year. The soil I used was pretty expensive to only use once so I will attempt to rotate as much as possible. I experimented with cutting off one determinate tomato and planted some onions without removing the roots and they did well. This is new to me but I feel like I got off to a good start.
I am 100% agree with that
I was considering doing that. I don’t know how long various pesticides remain active in the soil and are any of them systemic to some degree. I need to do research on that.
She teaches us how to identify the important microbiology in the soil. She is not selling anything other that her expertise and us to use it how we please. All of her case studies are repeatable and are thoroughly documented. Check out all of the farms saving hundreds of thousands of dollars using her methods along with permaculture. Get yourself a compound microscope and learn how to make biologically complete compost and compost tea. Please by all means be skeptical, I was. Till I seen the success with her methods of raising the fungi in the soil and microryzal fungi, humic acid and being able to identify the good guy nematodes, protazoa and arthrapods. These microbiological creatures all have a place in the soil at different levels and their roles are inspiring. The Soil Food Web methods can save this planet from the use of pesticides that are killing us and our planet. I encourage you to get your own microscope and take some classes on Youtube. Let me know how you fare. Have a great day on purpose.
I admire anyone zealous for the things they believe in.
I just wish a bunch of zealots with unproven theories didn’t hog all the media and cause so much hysteria espousing partial truth and untruths.
Greed has replaced kids 60 years ago chopping the fields of undesirable plants among the tobacco, corn and cotton…and giving ‘Roundup-ready’ seeds and subsequent sprays
instead.
There’s a place for thoughtful points…enjoyed reading yours.
But I tire easily of propaganda.
There’s something to be said about having the ‘good bugs’ working for you; I experience it every day I go to work and see our treatment systems functioning. That said, healthy skepticism is an important part of science. I really appreciate you sharing your experience and knowledge Carolyn. if you have found a method that works well for you, keep it up! What I will say about my limited knowledge of compost tea for the purposes of gardening- We intentionally create anoxic conditions to encourage sulfate reducing bacteria to remove iron from the mine water we treat. Very shortly after those SRBs are exposed to oxygen, they die. Conversely, the process of making compost tea as I understand it involves forcing additional oxygen to maintain a different biome of bacteria which is supposed to be healthy for the soil and for use removing pathogens and harmful ‘critters’ from our plants. I assume it is a similar situation where the critters you harbor in the compost tea aeration process have a short lifespan outside of the tea making process.
Speaking more on topic to @galinas original question- My strategy if I was concerned about disease would be to rotate crops within the raised beds every 3 years or so. If in pots, use that soil for unrelated plants in off years to reduce pathogens. Alternatively, plant a later round of seeds to replace the plants you know will get blight to extend your season like some do with squash.
Never got the hang of aerated compost tea, did it a few times and gave up because it’s too much work compared to mixing/spreading compost. From what I understand the process of pumping air is to speed up multiplication of aerobic microbes and slow down anaerobic microbe like E-coli. With the addition of food (molasses, fish emulsion etc.) it could go pretty bad if anaerobic microbes end up having a field day.