Patio/Balcony gardening and 'spent' compost

Second Captain

Hi,

Once a quantity of compost has been used for one season either in pots or a growbag, is it of any further use?
If not, or at least when it becomes surplus to requirements, how is it normally disposed of in domestic situations when your in an managed apartment complex and you don't have a car?

There's lots of guides and advice around for starting out gardening in a very small garden, patio or balcony but the practical matter of the aftermath seems to be ignored, as I am now finding out.

I'm still a newbie at this gardening lark with just a sheltered, west-facing apartment patio to play with. I grew herbs and veg in grow bags in a plastic greenhouse/shelf contraption last year with qualified success. - put that down to inexperience). While they initially seemed the best option for my confined space, I've come to the conclusion that grow bags are actually very awkward to deal with when it comes to disposal and I'm considering pots and troughs for this summer, having discovered that there are some small carry-able compost sacks available. I'm tempted to have a crack at tomatoes and dwarf runner beans in patio planters but if I go with all on my list I am going to have 100+ litres of compost to deal with in due course.

Reading this forum, there seems to be lots of apartment dwellers with a little kitchen garden on the go. If you are in this situation, what do you do?

looksee

I do not use compost once only. All that is 'spent' is the fertilizer, and you can add some more of that. There is a chance of disease but unless it is obvious I don't worry about it. If you tip out the compost and check it for slug eggs and vine weevil (small curled white grubs) and add some fertiliser you should be able to re-use it a couple of times.

Do you not have bin collections for organic stuff? If you put it in in small amounts (ie not the entire 100 litres at one time!) you should be able to dispose of it.

I agree with you about grow bags, I don't find them very satisfactory and they work out expensive. I also don't like to use just peat compost (a lot of people don't use peat compost at all for ecological reasons) I prefer to add some John Innes or just have a bag of topsoil to mix in, as it is easier to keep moist. Once peat has dried it is almost impossible to wet again. Or you can use a wetting agent but it needs to be well mixed in.

Second Captain

looksee wrote: »

I do not use compost once only. All that is 'spent' is the fertilizer, and you can add some more of that. There is a chance of disease but unless it is obvious I don't worry about it. If you tip out the compost and check it for slug eggs and vine weevil (small curled white grubs) and add some fertiliser you should be able to re-use it a couple of times.

Thanks for replying. That's great so. There's a slight build up of moss and a couple of tiny weed sproutings on the grow bags I have stacked from last year so if I remove the top layer, I guess I could mix some feed into this and use it in, say, the bottom half of the deep patio planters I am looking at using for tomatoes.

Do you not have bin collections for organic stuff? If you put it in in small amounts (ie not the entire 100 litres at one time!) you should be able to dispose of it.

Our complex refuse arrangements are poor. There are communal bins for general waste and recyclables (with a big sticker on the recycle bin saying No Glass or Plastics. Glass ok, but no plastics?) and that's it. As a mere tenant, I can't voice my annoyance at this at an AGM ... but I digress. I suppose I can put small quantities of gardening waste in the general waste bin with a clear-ish conscience.

Sonnenblumen

OP

compost is really only a ground conditioner and a weak growing medium which is why compost has 'added' nutrients. Spent compost as others have suggested is simply lacking in nutrients and the simplest and easiest way is to add fertiliser. You could remove and replace 25% of existing compost and the waste can be distributed onto nearest planted bed. Would be a shame to discard it.

A much better alternative to adding more compost is to replace 50% of volume with topsoil. Topsoil is available in 25L bags from your local garden centre and would make for a much better and longer lasting growing medium.

Adding some moisture retaining medium is also a very good idea to help reduce water loss due to dehydration/run-off.

Check your bags as the plastic can become brittle and disintegrate after a year or two.