Do you ditch the dirt?
EAT YOUR VEGETABLES: Maryann James posts on vegetable gardening every Tuesday.
Though I grew up in rural Virginia, playing in the rows of my grandfather's vegetable garden as a child, I didn't consider vegetable gardening until I was in Baltimore, living in an apartment with a concrete balcony and a no backyard.
Enter container gardening.
I grew tomatoes and beets last year; this time around I'm a little more ambitious, growing tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, parsley, lettuces and arugula, all from seed. I think I may be heading for a bumpy ride: My tomato seedlings (at left) are thriving, but my parsley is looking a little worse for wear. I'll soon be transplanting my tomato and basil plants outside, planting them in some old and new pots.
But reader Kristin Bailey has run into the same problem I ran into a few months ago: What do you do with old soil?
She writes:
What is the environmentally responsible thing for us container gardeners to do with the tired out and root-filled soil from last year's annuals when it's time to do this year's planting? I live in a Canton rowhouse with just a paved back courtyard, and I used to have the same problem when living in a condo and apartments. I'm sure other urban gardeners have the same dilemma. Trash bags full of soil and roots are horrifying -- why throw dirt in a landfill? ... (There are enough rats in the area already, so composting doesn't strike me as a good idea. Not to mention, what would someone without a yard do with all the compost?)
I reused it. It seems wasteful to throw away perfectly good -- OK, mostly good -- earth. I simply mixed it with some new potting soil and distributed it evenly among all my pots and went to town.
On their blog, Gardening and Yardening, writers Nancy Szerlag and Jeff Ball recommend emptying out the old soil, scrubbing your pots with a mild bleach solution, then filling your pots with two parts old soil to one part new potting soil or compost. They also recommend using a slow-release fertilizer, such as Dynamite Plant Food.
Editor Avis Weathersbee recommends a similar approach, using a little bit of of old, a little bit of new and some dry plant food.
Seasoned urban gardeners, what's your take? Do you reuse container soil? Do you have magic new-to-old ratios for your container plants?
P.S. -- Composting is an option, too, even in the city; there are composting options that are designed to keep away pests. (Just ask my garden blog pal Julie S.) And if you produce too much? The Whole Foods in Harbor East will gladly take surplus compost off your hands for you.
Categories: Urban Gardening, Vegetable gardening
Comments
I, too, grew up running through my grandparent's 1/2 acre garden in rural Virginia and my horticulturist grandmother's beautiful gardens on the Eastern Shore, and now find myself in a city apartment not only without a yard but without any patio/balcony/outdoor space at all! It's eating my soul....
Anyway, I compensate by having a lot of containers on windowsills and several at my desk at the office. When it comes time to repot or change soil, I usually mix old and new by about half and divide evenly between pots. Throw in a little slow-release plant food and they're good to go! The plants are thriving, so something must be working....
Posted by: mkwg | May 5, 2009 1:53 PM
Thanks for these suggestions! At least this way I won't be getting rid of all the old soil, which will help. I'll confess that last year I did the ignorant-and-lazy cousin of this approach: dug out the big root clumps, added the new plants and just enough new soil to fill'er up. That actually worked ok, but I figured it wasn't a sustainable solution.
Posted by: KristinB | May 6, 2009 11:17 AM