|
Post by daniello on Jul 5, 2008 12:43:18 GMT -5
i was just wondering how many people here reuse their media (esp peat) when they repot their plants, and how many people dump it and start over with fresh new stuff. is reusing media a big no-no?
i have had problems with fungus and fungus gnats and obviously when i repotted my plants where the media was infested i used brand new materials. however i have considered reusing media when i repot healthy plants that have outgrown their pots. i wonder, though, whether reusing old material brings a higher risk of fungus/fungus gnats due to decomposition of the peat?
do you ever reuse potting media? or do you dump and restart every time?
|
|
|
Post by mabudon on Jul 5, 2008 13:24:34 GMT -5
lots of re-use here- if the peat is "finished" you should not reuse it, it does eventually go bad but you should be able to tell if that's the case
I re-use whatever I can whenever.
I was speakin with Jay the other day and he suggested a brilliant way to recover sand and other aggregates from spent peat, basically puting the used media in a basin with water and letting the sand sink then skimming off the rest- also perlite will float and can be similarly retrieved
So go ahead and re-use it, so long as it seems to be "stable"- after 2-4 years it breaks down to the point of being useless
|
|
|
Post by lloyd on Jul 5, 2008 13:39:17 GMT -5
I do the sifting technique and all the used organic stuff goes into my vegetable garden.
|
|
|
Post by daniello on Jul 5, 2008 14:06:44 GMT -5
that is SUCH a good idea -- putting the media in water to separate out the sand and perlite. i wanted to put the peat on my compost but i didn't want to put a whole bunch of extra sand in there too.
thanks for the replies guys. i have a big bucket of used media sitting around that i've been saving, trying to decide whether to reuse it or not.
|
|
|
Post by mabudon on Jul 5, 2008 16:19:56 GMT -5
Glad to help- and again I must stress I got that idea from Jay just the other day whilst speaking about ridiculous things
|
|