Let's Get to the Root of This...
by Kevin
(UK)
I have my main crop of veg and flowers from which I take my main food supply and flowers for the missus and home. After I harvest I shake the root balls which leaves me with used compost mixture with a fairly generous helping of roots.
Now, I could make a Scotsman blush - I want to re-use that compost and roots for secondary grows that are not important to me - such as potato bins. I believe that while the compost is used, it is not 'spent' besides which I would be adding some fertilizer in anyway. I am also aware of quick green crops that are designed to be chopped back into the compost mixture specifically to add nitrogen, which is another idea I'm planning on.
So my question is simple. Would dead/dying roots cause a problem for new growth? I hope you're going good, man ;-) Thanks for all your hard work in answering and posting all the queries you do.)
Answer: Kev- for the most part, a small percentage of dead roots in the soil will not cause any problems. This is especially true when re-using the compost in a second crop that is dis-similar from the first crop. Where you begin to run into questionable territory is when you keep re-using the compost and/or soil with bits of live roots and plant material in it AND you also keep planting the same type of plants into the re-used soil.
What happens when you keep adding bits of live plant material to the soil is that (eventually) some pathogens that happen to really like that particular plant material are going to come across your soil with all the bits of live roots mixed in it still, and those pathogens are going to make that soil into their home. If growing peppers, than re-using the soil on potatoes, this might not be such a big problem....the pathogens that attack peppers probably will not have any effect on the potatoes.
Once the soil is infected with a pathogen that attacks peppers, however, that soil will kill peppers every time you try to grow any peppers in it. This is true for any particular crop. If you constantly try to re-use soil again and again, always planting the same crop again and again, the soil is always pre-disposed to turn against those varieties for the same reasons. This is one of the two main reasons why farmers practice crop rotation.
So, to keep your garden as trouble free as possible, either compost the re-used soil a little bit before actually re-using it, or else be sure keep the principle of crop rotation in mind when re-using the soil, and you should be doing very fine. Happy Growing!
Comments for Let's Get to the Root of This...
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AffordableGarden Design&Setup
Hi everyone, Jason from Jason's Indoor Guide here. When I got started with hydroponic gardening more than 24 years ago, my first garden used rockwool cubes and B.C. Nutrients....and I remember thinking to myself yeah, sure, there may be a lot of advantages to gardening with hydroponics, for example there are very few pest problems, therefore very little pest control, no weeding, no plowing or tilling the soil, no soil testing or having to add things into the garden soil, no watering the garden....but for someone who just wants to grow their own vegetables and have more control over their food supply and the quality of the food that they eat, the cost of constantly having to buy grow media and hydroponic nutrients makes this an expensive hobby for most people...
Epic Nutrient Change
I suppose when you take into consideration how much money you save NOT
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As you browse through Jason's Indoor Guide, you will notice all of the
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Homemade Cloner
And, regarding the cost of the nutrients....I experimented for about 3 years with making different compost teas and nutrient teas, but there is still a lot of expense $$$ associated with making high quality nutrient teas....like kelp meal, liquid seaweed, rock dust, bat guano, un-Sulfured molasses, worm castings. You can eliminate a lot of this expense by becoming an expert at making high-quality colloidal humus compost, and use your properly made compost as the basis of your hydroponic nutrient solution.
Unfortunately, I have been gardening for over 24 years and I have only
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Hydroponics
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Besides mastering how to make high quality compost, learning aquaponics is one of the top 3 things you can do to increase your garden productivity, reduce your total costs, and reduce your total work. The product that I learned from is called Aquaponics4you. With all of my hydroponic gardening experience, the first time I came across the Aquaponics4you product I knew immediately that it was something very special! Place an aquaponics system outdoors and use the sun instead of grow lights, and you have reduced every garden expense to nearly ZERO!
The Same System/ 10 Weeks Later!
