Firstly, please let me know if this belongs somewhere else. I bought a large property with a greenhouse on it. I have never had a greenhouse but have been doing my best to do as much research as I can. I read that if you aren't sure what killed the plants, you need to dig up the soil and start fresh. The man I bought this property from was in his 90s and I am almost certain this greenhouse is only in this state due to neglect, not disease.
I started digging up all of the dirt, and to my untrained eye it seems so healthy. I just wanted to check and see if this is a fool's errand to completely remove everything and start fresh.
Thanks for any pointers!
by Orford_M
10 Comments
Don’t throw it away leave it in your beds. Like you said it looks good. You can keep mulching it and use it indefinitely
Use it
I wouldn’t ever dig up soil just because plants died in it. Plants die all of the time.
You don’t have to cover the greenhouse – I’d grow food or flowers right in the beds now. Remove all the weeds, then wait, then remove all the weeds hehe then plant and mulch. Bet you have great success! Can always re-greenhouse any time you want
also, start composting and mix it in. Black Gold!
Regenerate it!!!!
I can say with 90% accuracy that freezing temperatures, neglect, and weeds killed the plants.
If you have a tiller, I would break it up, add some compost and maybe peat moss. Depends on how it feels.
No need to dig it out.
If it was me I would ammend it.
This one time dig it all up, sift out rocks etc.
Add in additional substrate, I like compost ,vermicompost, aged manure and rice hulls, if I had more cash or it was cheap I would add pumice.
Then depending on the soil itself I would throw in some gypsum, blood bone and feather meal, some alfalfa and kelp meal, some crushed basalt, neem and crustacean powder. Probably even some Epsom salts, a couple of spoons of imo3 and a splash or 2 of bacillus in molasses (or compost tea or LAB), a few pinches of trichoderma.
Wet to around 40% and cover with a tarp.
Don’t plant for 2 weeks, needs time to cook.
The soil looks good! The color looks good, the texture looks good, the weeds growing in the soil look like a well balanced mix (I have similar ones in my garden).
The plant in the last picture looks like parsley or dill or fennel or similar, you will be able to tell by the smell, the seeds are probably still good for planting.