Is there a way to recycle old potting soil?

Question

When I repot all of my potted plants each year, I end up with a rather large amount of used potting soil. It seems like a waste of good organic material to take it to the landfill. Is there a way of saving and recycling it to make it usable in some way? Can it be composted?

This question, regardless of being high quality and also featuring stellar answers, looks to me to be a [duplicate](https://gardening.stackexchange.com/questions/274/is-it-wise-to-reuse-potting-soil?rq=1). — Vorac, May 15 '22 at 10:32

score 9 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 22 '12 at 16:00

Of course you can compost it! Clay soil improvement (@uncle brad) is another possibility.

I use it to fill small lawn gaps (I'm not into the bowling green quality lawns!) or to help top up raised beds (where the bulk goes).

The only thing to watch for would be possible disease. You may want to discard it if you had some serious disease (or nematode) problems in the plants which were in it. There the best thing would depend on the disease - a good hot compost heap may be sufficient to sterilise it.

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 22 '12 at 15:36

I use it to amend the clay-like soil when I plan something in the ground, which I always seem to be doing. If you don't plant anything in the ground, I imagine you might be able to just reuse it, maybe even once or twice, before you add it to compost.

Is there a way to recycle old potting soil?

2 Answers2