What do you all do with old compost? My chills & toms been growing in a mixture of compost of varying types inc John Innes no 2, some Westland stuff from homebase and some other seedling mix I had to use during lockdown for established plants. Never grown anything before but does this all need chucking at end of season? I pulled one tomatoe plant from its pot which was a bit of a growing disaster due to breakages, bends (lesson learned for next year) and a lot of the roots were left behind in the old compost. Kind of seems a shame to now have to chuck it, somehow, which itself is going to be a pita.
I reuse mine, do you throw your garden soil out every year?
It's just a growing medium with very little nutrients inside it, break it up and pull any big roots out and bin them.
if you grew tomatoes in compost and then grow tomatoes in it again next year though any disease from your previous tomato plant could be still inside the compost like tomato blight, so for some things it's worth chucking it on your garden instead to improve the soil.
but most plants you can just reuse the compost fine as long as you break it all up to be fluffy again.
If you want to be overkill you could sterilise the compost yourself with boiling water in a pan, some people do that to kill any insect eggs and disease.
probably stinks though
Poor show this year.
