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lakngulf
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No Till Pots??

As many of you know most of my vegetables are grown in pots like the ones in the picture below. During the winter several of them grow collards or turnips, and others just kill off summer weeds and allow whatever comes in the springtime.

My process each year is to (1) clear the pot of weeds (2) leave the collards and turnips (3) turn the soil in each pot (4) top off with barnyard dirt and (5) plant the vegetable.

This year there is a slight problem. Early Feb I totally busted an Achilles tendon, had surgery to repair and am out of commission for 4 more weeks. I have been able to get tomatoes started in my greenhouse but no way I can get them in the pots for quite awhile. I have some folks who have offered to help, but I hate to see them go to the same trouble I do each year.

So, I thought about current farming practices, and deer food plot methods, of NO TILL planting. Do you think we could get good result by simply (1) removing weeds or collards from pot (2) dig planting spot with hole diggers or such and (3) plant the tomato. Then when I am able to get around I could do the soil top off around the growing plant. What do you think? Thanks for your help

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applestar
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First, sorry to hear about your injury. Hope you are free of pain and it heals up quickly.

Based on your description, the primary issue seems like relieving compaction to ensure drainage — in my experience the compaction at the bottom of a large planter is difficult to manage without occasional overhaul (appropriate worm population of shallow red wigglers and deep nightcrawlers do help) — so I envisioned using one of those power drill-attached augers used/sold for drilling holes to plant bulbs in.

A few quick holes then maybe a bigger diameter one of necessary — essentially each of those protein tubs would end up looking like a commercial restaurant/bakery mixer bowl….

If you have helpers, then I imagine they might even use power fence post auger as long as they are careful not to drill a hole all the way down into the wooden pier … :shock: … but that might be an overkill.

Get well soon!

imafan26
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I have been reusing soil, because it has been hard to find. It is possible, but, I still have to remove the soil from the pot, not because of drainage. That is not so much of an issue, in fact the pot drains worse after I refill it because the drainage channels have to be reestablished.

The problem I have is that the bottom of the pot is full of roots, usually tomato roots and I don't have a winter to let them decay, so if I plant in the pot without removing the roots, They cause a problem until after they decay. The other issue I had, was that if there were any problems with soil borne diseases, nematodes, ground mealy bugs, bacterial spot. It only aggravated the problems afterward.

There was a fertility problem too, but I finally figured it out. I had put in less fertilizer thinking there might be some residual. Well, I guess, I am using just about the right amount, because if I don't add fertilizer or add less, the plants are very small. If the fertilizer is on the top, that works for shallow plants but the plants that had deep roots did not do as well, so I had to make sure the fertilizer got mixed in everywhere.

I watched some videos and most said to replace 1/2 to 1/3 of the old soil (up to 3 seasons worth) with new soil and compost. Compost still causes issues when I use it in pots. This time, I lost plants because I tried not to over water it and ended up drying out my cucumber seedlings. My pots with the reused soil still look too wet and heavier than the ones that are fresh. I still have to add more perlite even though my original pots have a lot of perlite in them. The mixes people have used have been compost, garden soil and sometimes perlite. They also add additional fertilizer.
The fertilizer was mostly eyeballed. Unfortunately, I am a baker, not a cook, I really need specific recipes and specific fertilizers.

Some of the videographers did just replace the top part of the soil and did not take the bottom out. But they said you could do that if the buckets were in their second year of reuse and the media still looked fluffy. They said eventually, the soil will be too broken down to keep reusing and you would have to get rid of it. If you soil in the pots are not that broken down, you might be able to just replace the top third with new soil and fertilizer.

The pots are too heavy for me to move and dump them, so I do it very slowly. I scrape the soil out with a trowel, my pick is faster, but it is too easy to break the plastic bucket. I put it in bags or a bucket until the pots are light enough for me to dump it out on a tarp. That way, I can sterilize the bucket with soap and water and bleach before refilling it. I can mix the new potting mix with the old one so I don't get the layering effect. and I can get most of the old roots out that way.

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applestar
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Oh oh. A container soil/potting mix renovation method I’m planning to experiment with this year is to add/mix in microbes. The idea is to speed up breakdown of roots and improve/increase good microbes to outcompete the bad, as well as add symbiotic microbes that improve plant health.

I imagine microbial inoculants for this purpose will eventually become available in the USA market since I have been seeing them mentioned for a couple of years elsewhere.

I’m going to go ahead and try different things, including sealing the whole pot in plastic bag to solar or otherwise heat sterilize or pasteurize at some point in the process.

Microbes I’ll experiment with will be home made like AACT (actively aerated compost tea), Cultured growing tips of mugwort or other plant material, Ehime AI2, etc., and commercial products like Bio-tone, and others (some are too expensive and only available in large quantities, so not likely this year).

Some worms will eat the dead roots, and I think they might be driven out afterwards, so that’s a technique to develop, too.

In my case, I think roots in containers left out all winter tend to have been frozen/broken down and only the thicker stem parts or base of the stem and thickest attached roots are all that remains recognizable. In my case, sometimes it’s the worms having turned all the looser organic matter into vermicast that end up compacting and restricting drainage.

Another project is trying to produce more biochar that would help with the container mix aggregate.

imafan26
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I am seeding my pots with fresh vermicast. Someone also suggested you can use your homemade compost or soil from your yard to get the bacteria to seed the pots. I am experimenting with lactobacilli, basically bokashi which I am fermenting with the weekly fish emulsion to see if that helps. I only did it twice, so I can't really tell if there is a difference at this point. I made too many changes at one time so a lot of my cucumber seedlings are looking really sad now. Mostly because of watering problems with added compost in the media. That is something I will have to work out by trial and a lot of errors.

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lakngulf
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Thanks for your discussions. The compaction issue is what I see as the main problem. I have reused the soil for a few years, but have added new rich soil each year. I then have turned the soil quite a bit to make sure the old and new are mixed. The soil I add comes from the barnyard so it adds a flavor of nutrients.

I agree that consistent fertilization is important though out the season, and the right amount of watering. Some of my pots drain better than others.

I think we will go with less pre-plant preparation and see what happens. I will still add the new soil but only after the plant gets going.

Thanks

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applestar
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Good luck! Looking forward to your report :wink:

Drilling additional holes up the side of the containers might help relieve some of the issues?



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