Greenhouse plants have all died now what?

[Caterpillarbugs]

Hi, all.
I've recently been in hospital for a while and my family were in charge of house keeping. However, they haven't maintained my greenhouse
I was growing tomatoes, peppers, strawberries and herbs. Luckily the herbs are okay. The other plants have mouldy and shrielved. Understanding it's winter so they were expected to die however there has been no maintaince to them at all.

I've just washed my greenhouse with water and Eco soap and I'm wondering what to do with the plants?
They are all in terracotta containers as my new home is privately rented, sat in a plastic greenhouse. Can I remove the stalks and root ball and reuse the compost? Or is it best to not reuse incase there is bad bacteria from the plants?
Do I need to do anything specific with the the pots?

Thanks! Sorry it's a long post.

[Meatburner]

Where are you located. Please put that information in your profile to help with suggestions.

[Caterpillarbugs]

I'm from the UK. I'll update my profile now, thanks

[applestar]

Oh how sad and disappointing for you.
It's difficult when other members of your family or household do not share your enthusiasm for gardening. I can get my kids to go harvest their favorites, but DH, not so much.

I'm thinking your strawberries may still be OK -- just have gone dormant. They are fairly drought tolerant as well, so even if they have been allowed to dry out, they might still come back when it's warm enough and above freezing. (What's the temperature like right now?) So I would set those aside on the floor in a corner if the greenhouse, and just keep the soil somewhat moist but not soggy.

Tomatoes in particular are susceptible to a number of fungal diseases, so you wouldn't want to reuse the soil for tomatoes or their relatives -- particularly not potatoes or eggplants. But you could probably grow maybe winter leafy greens like lettuce, spinach, Asian greens, brassicas like cabbage, kale, broccoli, peas, radish, turnip, or onions. All if these might be possible even now depending on your greenhouse temperature.

I would not re-use the pepper soil for peppers but might for tomatoes, but again, it's better to rotate.

Best way is to remove the stems (Securely bagging and disposing of them), dump the compost/potting mix on a tarp in a large tub, and mix in equal amount by volume of fresh compost/potting mix. Adding leaf mould (or what we in the U.S. Call compost), vermicompost/earthworm castings, compost tea, or good organic fertilizer with mycorrhiza will help to add good microbes to counter the bad.

If you can afford to get completely new compost/potting mix, some may advise dumping all of the old/used contents in a large bag or trash bin...or if you can, pile it outside ... mix in some of the probiotics as mentioned above, and let it age before re-using.

I hope you are feeling better now and able to enjoy gardening.

[ButterflyLady29]

I'm so sorry you lost so many plants. That hurts.

I wouldn't dispose of the used potting mix in the trash. It wouldn't hurt the lawn to spread the mix on the grass in a thin layer. But that's only if you decide not to re-use it. I have re-used potting mix many times after adding fresh mix and mixing it in the top part of the pots.

[imafan26]

I reuse potting mix, but mostly I put it in the garden. I have a lot of weeds growing in the media and I can take it down to the garden and have it sterilized in the soil steam sterilizer to kill the weeds first. For starting cuttings or plants that are susceptible to fungal problems I prefer to use new media. I will use old sterilized media for transplanting.

[bryanwalker]

When you water, how long do you leave the pots/cells soaking before pouring off the excess water?

Have you taken a temperature reading in early/mid-afternoon inside the little greenhouse -- with the plastic cover closed?

Did you use a plastic dome over your seedlings? If so, when did you stop using it?

How many days old are the seedlings when they die? Do they have their first true leaves yet?

[bryanwalker]

Using old sterilized media for transplanting is helpful...

[imafan26]

I clean out and bleach terra cotta and plastic pots that I reuse. A 10% solution works. I leave my pots in the bucket for a week or more. By then most of the bleach dissipates. The bleach cleans the terra cotta pots like new and removes some of the accumulated salts unless there are still roots attached to the pot. Soaking them a week usually makes it easier to rinse. Then I put them away for use later.

Terra cotta pots turn white from the accumulated salts. Salts are always bad for plants and it blocks the pores in terra cotta. When the salt build up is very bad, the pots have to be discarded.

I know you said you washed your house with eco soap and water but it is better with a greenhouse disinfectant or bleach to get rid of fungal spores and algae especially.

I use physan20. It is not organic, but it is useful for disinfecting benches and is safe as a seed treatment or fungicide for orchid media and plants. It is also very expensive now. The last one I got was a while ago and it was $58 a gallon, so I hate to think what it costs now.

Try not to keep more media in a green house than you can use within a season. If you have to store it keep it somewhere dry.

I usually put old potting soil in my yard or I take it to be resterilized. I tried to strain out the old roots and reuse the soil a couple of times with fair to poor results. It is hard to know how much fertilizer is left in the potting soil without testing it. If I am going to test it, I may as well buy new potting soil. If the plants dies from pest or disease or there were a lot of weeds in the pot, then the soil is usually used to fill low spots in the yard.

I don't like to use plug trays. I start my seeds in community pots and transplant them once they get true leaves. It takes up less space. My main propagating bench is outside in the sun. I don't use tray propagators and I use another tray as a cover mostly to keep snails from getting to the seeds. I have orchids and anthuriums that are under cover. I have shade benches not a poly house. It allows more air circulation and polyhouses hold in too much heat. The benches still need to be cleaned and disinfected and the shade cloth maintained. My winter protection is to add an acryllic sheet of plastic to the top to keep the rain out.

Rainbow and Applestar do a lot of indoor propagation so they might be able to answer your questions about the propagator.
I tried to propagate roses in a bag, but I had the same issue. I left them in the bag too long and they rotted. Most of my cuttings can be propagated in perlite in a bulb pan under the bench, no cover required, just a lot of slug bait.
https://ag.umass.edu/fact-sheets/cleani ... greenhouse

[bryanwalker]

Good to know that 10% solution works....

[bryanwalker]

Also checked the link. It's useful...