Earthboxes for sale on Home Shopping Network

[Barryblushes]

Over the weekend,HSN was selling Earthbox kits.They showed you how to start it and all, and showed various veggies and plants they grew in them.The Earthbox guy says "you can reuse the soil each year up to five years" . Come on,are you kidding me? Barry

[dice]

The Earthbox guy says "you can reuse the soil each year up to five years" . Come on,are you kidding me?

One would think it would have decayed to silt and lack air space
by then, and to an extent that is true. (Perlite will not decay
to silt, of course.) One thing the Earthbox demonstrators do
though is leave the roots in the soil. Instead of pulling up a
plant,they just cut it off at soil level. This leaves a mass of more
slowly decaying organic matter in the Earthbox container mix
that maintains some of the drainage and large pore air space
that would otherwise be lost to siltification of the original organic
matter in the container mix.

It probably depends a lot on exactly what mix you used to begin
with, too, not to mention exactly what kind of plants you are
growing in it (some veggies are more tolerant of soils that
lack large pore air space than others).

[Aphid]

I've been milling about in the earthbox forum lately and yes people do reuse the soil for several years and one benefit is a drop in BER after the first season ,, so actually he is not making that up

[Barryblushes]

Well I could see maybe adding in some new mix like half or so.Well he did say to add new fertilizer each year.Whatever works for people is good I guess. Myself ,I would not use all the same soil for five years running. Barry

[dice]

I let it dry over the winter, screen out silt, and then mix in more
larger structured material (leaf mold, compost, peat moss,
coir, perlite, pumice, etc; whatever is handy with appropriate
size).