[Chrysalis]

My greenhouse has done well this year - a zillion cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and strawbs., but now what do I do, please?

Should I dig out and remove the soil, or just dig it over and put in some fertiliser of sorts?  I'm happy to do either but as it's half term, I'd like to get on with it over the next fortnight!

Many thanks,
C

 I should add that we grow in the soil and in pots.  Pots will obviously be changed, but the beds???

[Fairy Plotmother]

I'm not clever 😏 but if I were growing in beds in the greenhouse, I think I would treat those beds the same as I do outside beds. Dig and feed with whatever you use.

[mumofstig]

What I do is sort of halfway between the 2 options 
I dig out a couple of spadefuls where the plants actually were and replace with a soil and compost mix.
Give the beds a quick fork over and a little BF&B and plant the beds up with winter salads 

[GrannieAnnie]

I'm a bit like MoS and FP.  Same as outside.  except my fertilizer is old chicken poo and comfrey!

Dig a bit of the ground soil out and chuck it on garden, then fertilizer and I put the old comost from the pots on it too, then new compost in the pots.   

[Springlands]

I do the same as MOS and GrannieAnnie except for about four years ago. After 20 odd years productivity in the greenhouse had really fallen so I dug out all of the soil in the border and completely replaced it. But I would only do that again if it was really necessary. 

[Headgardener22]

Same as MOS, dig out where they've been growing and replace with soil/compost.

Plant up with winter crops

In addition, I put "drippers" off the waterbutts to try and get some water back into the ground. (No matter how hard I try to water enough in the summer, the ground always looks really dry by now).

[Chrysalis]

Thanks all.  I think I'll dig quite a bit out and replace with muck from a farm where my OH's uncle lives - it's really well rotted by now!  Asking the question has spurred OH into helping and making suggestions, so a good result! 

Also, like the suggestion to water....will get onto it tomorrow.

Thanks again,
C

[Kevin67]

To GrannyAnnie,

I also use Comfrey, but still have them in pots as I haven't decided where to put them. Every place I've thought about is  a space for fruit-growing bushes.

Where have you put yours?

[Comfreypatch]

Put the comfrey in a place where you won't want to move it from. It forms VERY long roots and is difficult to move once established.

[Kristen]

I replace the border soil in my cropping greenhouse every Autumn, using a mixture of 50;50 compost heap and rotted manure.  The Compost Heap is not well composted, so a mix of old stalks and Good Stuff.  After a year in the greenhouse it comes out Boo'tiful and I use it for all sorts of potting.  The mix is quite a bit lighter to work with than than my garden soil, and holds water well which suits the crops.  I don't grow any greenhouse crops in containers any more, too much effort watering them - or more correctly watering them often enough / at the right times, growing in the border evens that out with much less effort on my part.

If you want to mono-crop your greenhouse borders year after year, without changing the soil, I think it would be worth looking at Grafted plants as they will be more resistant to disease and perform better at extracting nutrients which might be getting depleted etc., personally I find the resulting material that comes out of the greenhouse so useful I'm happy to replace the "soil" every year.

[Kevin67]

Put the comfrey in a place where you won't want to move it from.

Yes, I'm aware of that, thank you. It's just that every space I have is used for growing fruit instead and I wondered if you had that problem and where it was you decided to put your comfrey.

I think I may just have to make a new (comfrey) bed somewhere!

[cadalot]

Put the comfrey in a place where you won't want to move it from.

Yes, I'm aware of that, thank you. It's just that every space I have is used for growing fruit instead and I wondered if you had that problem and where it was you decided to put your comfrey.

I think I may just have to make a new (comfrey) bed somewhere!

I found an area to the side of my shed and I was contemplating planting more and was thinking about the boundary between my plot and my neighbours as a harvestable hedge row. There is a little clump that come up naturally (or previous planting) on that line anyway. My neighbour thinks it a weed and is quite happy that I keep it under control 

[Comfreypatch]

I put my comfrey along part of the border of my plot with the main path and more recently put some right at the back of the plot against an adjoining Laurel hedge boundary with the housing behind. It has spread quite a lot and I have to keep digging up the new pieces before the root gets out of control.

[Kevin67]

Thank you, both, for your replies.

I *do* love the idea of using the comfrey as a border-type plant. That could really work for me.

[cadalot]

Make sure you purchase bocking 14 comfrey plants as they will not spread like the ones Confrey patch has obviously used. You can purchase root cuttings off ebay quit cheaply