I am on my second grow using a combo of FFOF and some other organic soil I bought. I screwed up my first grow due to pH and didnt flush at end and had drainage issues.
After the grow, I emptied the pots into my wheelbarrow and added about 1/4 of the volume in perlite. I then replanted in that soil. I could tell there were some nutes left because I could see a bit of burn when I had seedlings. They are growing great now as I dropped to 1/2 dosage of Foxfarms nutes.
I have seen people talk about not reusing their soil for risk of infecting new plants. I have also seen people talk about FFOF being too hot for young plants.
Here was my thinking. Once you use up all the nutes naturally in the soil, is it really just a barren medium for delivering bottled nutes? If it is pretty used up at end of grow when flushed for last two weeks, then it should be pretty clean( I eliminated all the fungus gnats that came with FFOF with DE.)
If using mycorhhizae, bottled nutes, and pHed water, what is the benefit of fresh soil other than micronutes? How would it be different than soilless mediums?
Using old soil isn’t so bad assuming you give it time to breakdown some but the main reason it isn’t recommended is things which thrive on dead plant matter can lead to more pests bad bacteria. Pests are attracted to dead plant matter but assuming you compost it then add to new soil the risks are reduced greatly. I am saving mine just to add to my compost pile for my garden this summer
I’ve been saving mine as well but wasn’t sure what to do with it o was going to use it to fill holes o. The yard and plant grass seed lol
I’m not sure I’d take the risk with my girls to reuse it
Maybe like @Donaldj said in my veg garden?
Thanks for the great answer Donald
I am @bob31. My current grow is in its second use. Am also ordering some smaller smart pots than my 7 gal ones. I want to see what the root systems look like on this grow. I have had issues before with not drying very fast. A smaller fabric pot should dry more often.
ok sounds good brother. The general rule is a 5 gallon for photos and 3 gallon for autos. if your gonna veg a monster mama plant you could probably do a 7 or 10 gallon
I was wondering about the loss of nutrients and was wondering why I can’t just mix a little Miracle Grow in when soil gets depleted since it’s so high in nutrients?