Potting Soil - Wrong to throw in gardens?

[CanadianLori]

Okay, so I will start a small experiment to try to get comfortable with this process. I will take an empty 5 gallon pail that I have, sneak some of my veggie scraps out there along with some shredded paper and put between layers of disease free potting soil and finish up by sprinkling lightly with molasses enriched water.

Kinda sounds like trifle for worms!

You all have me sold on this - going out there now to get started.

Thanks all!
Lori

 

[Chuck]

Okay, so I will start a small experiment to try to get comfortable with this process. I will take an empty 5 gallon pail that I have, sneak some of my veggie scraps out there along with some shredded paper and put between layers of disease free potting soil and finish up by sprinkling lightly with molasses enriched water.

Kinda sounds like trifle for worms!

You all have me sold on this - going out there now to get started.

Thanks all!
Lori

Just to be safe from a scolding from Hubby get a lid for the 5 gallon bucket and punch a bunch of holes in it. Guaranteed mouse proof

 

[CanadianLori]

Will do. Thanks Chuck. Never thought I'd need to start smuggling "garbage"...

 

[Chuck]

Will do. Thanks Chuck. Never thought I'd need to start smuggling "garbage"...

Life is a road of adventures. Some are dead ends and some lead to insanity.

 

[Sheal]

My composter is open at the bottom to let worms through to break down the contents. This is the type I have ( we call it a dalek here in Britain) and being a type of plastic it holds the heat and helps with the rotting process. I don't use the front hatch but lift it off to sort through and empty any finished compost. I do this twice a year, so it works fairly quickly once it gets going.

 

[ChanellG]

My compost bin is just a rubbermaid type storage tub with holes drilled into the bottom to let the worms in. I put brown paper inside and then added kitchen scraps, which I then covered with soil. At the time I started, I had some compost on hand and I tossed that in to help things get started. I set it up around February or so and I would add cardboard tubes and potting soil as well as the fruit and veg scraps. After a while I started seeing worms.

 

[Christylynn]

I have for years emptied my used potting soil into my flower beds. Never hurt a thing. I just work it in really good in the fall so that the old roots will decay. In the spring I add some sheep manure or whatever kind of manure the hardware store has at the time. Flowers grow beautifully!

 

[Fernsdaddy]

I've been dumping potting soil and orchid mix in to my raised beds for years and every thing grows just fine. I had more bush bean using potting and orchid mix in the bed. theres old saying " waste not want not "

 

[Trellum]

And of course you always remove all the potting compost from your plants before you plant them in the garden..........No? Of course not. Heard some rather silly advice given on Forums, but this one is a goody. We have frequently used old potting compost as a mulch on our garden and it ain't killed anything yet.

We did the same back home, nothing bad ever happened. But then again we made sure not to use the potted soil coming from a plant that might have died of some mysterious disease or fungal infection. Let's say I learnt my lesson the hard way.

 

[Corzhens]

When we transplant into pots, we mix the soil - ordinary soil plus compost or humus plus extenders like rice husk or coconut coir. We also add some other ingredients like earthworms. We leave the pot with the potting medium for a week under the sun to let mix merge properly. When the plant is planted in the pot, we are sure that it will be healthy.