As of: March 8, 2024, 11:09 a.m
By: Larissa Strohbusch
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Buy new soil for beds, pots and containers every year?
Old potting soil can be recycled!
This saves you money and is also sustainable.
In spring your garden comes to new life: you want to plant new plants and repot old ones.
But your soil is old and worn out, dense and lumpy from frequent watering and has also lost volume.
Does that mean you have to throw out all the soil and replace it?
Not at all, because you can easily reuse used potting soil.
To do this, it just needs to be prepared.
Reuse old potting soil: It's that easy
You can renew potting soil using various methods.
Depending on the procedure, you basically need this material from the hardware store:
new peat-free soil
Horn or bone meal or alternatively grass clover pellets
activated biochar (pay attention to package information)
If you repot your plants in spring, you don't necessarily have to buy new soil.
© Zoonar.com/Olga Simonova/IMAGO
You will also need a large tub or bucket to work the soil.
How to proceed:
Add the spent soil to your container.
Loosen it up with your hands and clean the soil of old plant remains, large roots, stones and shards of pottery.
Pay attention: If the old plant was sick, you find larvae or the soil is moldy, it is better to dispose of it in the compost.
Now add new nutrients to combat tired soil.
To do this, mix in horn or bone meal or grass clover pellets according to the manufacturer's instructions.
These provide your plants with nitrogen, phosphate, potassium and calcium.
Add about four percent biochar to your soil.
This ensures that the nutrients are not immediately washed away when watering or in the rain.
If the biochar has not yet been activated, first mix it with a little sauerkraut juice.
This is how valuable microorganisms are created.
Put on gloves now at the latest - the biochar stains strongly!
Finally, fill the renewed potting soil with fresh soil.
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There are also other methods to enrich the potting soil with fresh nutrients: Use compost or humus.
If you have your own composter (promotional link), you can easily use it for your plants.
To do this, mix compost and soil in a ratio of 4:1.
Another variant is humus from the worm bin.
Here it is enough to sprinkle a layer at the bottom of the pot.
The cleaned old earth follows on top.
If you don't have a composter or worm bin, you can ask around in the neighborhood.
Many garden owners sell compost through local classified ads.
Reuse potting soil for undemanding plants
Some plants, so-called weak feeders, only need or tolerate a few nutrients.
For this you can easily reuse the cleaned old soil without enriching it.
According to the portal, these include my harvest:
salad
Herbs
radish
Peas
Beans
Garlic
arugula
You can find even more exciting garden topics in the regular newsletter from our partner 24garten.de.
Some houseplants such as arched hemp, lucky feathers, money trees or cacti are also very easy to care for and rarely need fertilizer.