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Old February 27, 2018   #1
TC_Manhattan
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Default Earth Box Roots

Last summer was the first year I grew tomatoes and peppers in my earth boxes.

Before this, I used them for beans, peas, and kale, and their roots would disappear from the earth box mix over winter, so it was easy to add new fertilizer and re-use them the following year.

Now I have these boxes that seem to have their root balls still very much present in the soil(less) mix. Do I need to remove them, or can I just pretend they are not there and plant new seedlings anyways? Not sure how to navigate new fertilizer around them, since the roots act to bind everything together in a cohesive mass.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'd hate to have to empty them and use new Pro-Mix every year. $$.

Thanks in advance!
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Old February 27, 2018   #2
ginger2778
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No need to throw out,it just turns into organic food for the new plants. Just remove any remnants of the main woody stem. It's weird that you still have roots, mine are always gone by the end of the summer, but that is my high heat solarizing period, so maybe that does it.
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Old February 27, 2018   #3
Worth1
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Any dead root is a good root.

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Old February 27, 2018   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Worth1 View Post
Any dead root is a good root.
Well unless it has a nematode hotel in it.

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Old February 28, 2018   #5
TC_Manhattan
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Thanks for your thoughts.

Around here, we get subzero temps. over the winter latent period, and not much happens by way of decay, as the contents of the above-ground containers freeze solid long before the in-ground soil does. I pull intact root balls out of my garden beds in early spring as I clear out for the new season, so I can work in some more Plant Tone before the new crop.

Maybe I can use a steak knife to carve out a hole for the seedling plugs. Leave it up to them to work around the remaining tangles. I'm not kidding, I can pull the entire content of the earth box out as one big loaf because the roots hold it all together so.

Never had that problem with beans or peas or leafy veg.
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Old February 28, 2018   #6
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Wow, that's amazing!
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Old March 3, 2018   #7
edweather
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I hear what you're saying about the roots binding up the whole container. My container mix is a bit different, but in the spring I dump out the loaf and kind of mash it up a bit, and some of the roots can be removed. I hate to just plant in root filled material, so I try and re-sift the roots out the best I can.
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Old March 3, 2018   #8
PotGarden
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I do the same thing as edweather. I get a large sharp carving knife from the kitchen, yank the whole thing out, shake as much soil off the root ball as I can, cut out the large pieces of roots, cut up and put the smaller ones back in the bottom of the box, cover with soil and maybe put in just a few handfuls of new soil to fill it up. If you chop up some of the roots of helps create more surface area for microorganisms to work on breaking them down.
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Old March 4, 2018   #9
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My big tub containers all the roots were gone I just flipped the soil by hand.
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