[oharabe]

Hello all, FIrst time on the board for me so my question is can I use the compost that I bought last year which I used to grow tomatoes last year. I did use tomorite when growing so there was some nutrition in the compost not sure whether I can use again, with added fertiliser, this year. Advice required please

[JayG]

It's very difficult to exactly replace the nutrients which were taken up by your previous crop, and would be a particularly bad idea to re-use for members of the same family of plants (ie. potatoes or tomatoes) due to the risk of re-infection with any disease or pest you might have had last year (possibly without noticing.)

Far better to use as a mulch or general soil improver (same precautions) but you could try using it to grow something like herbs or lettuces after suitably improving the nutrient content.

[oharabe]

Thanks for your quick response I must admit I thought that might be the case but it's nice to have things confirmed by some with more experience. Thanks

[solway cropper]

I regularly reuse compost and just add a general purpose fertilizer such as blood, fish and bone. It's fine for things like lettuce and radishes and after they've had their fill it goes onto the compost heap to get recycled again!

[yorky]

Most of my old compost goes on the bed for this years carrots. Some of it was dug in during the Autumn, the rest will be raked in nearer to sowing time. I find that this gives me a nice fine tilth for making the seed drills.