Greenhouse Soil Beds – Hygiene.

[StringfellowParticipant]

I have read that soil in a greenhouse bed needs to be replaced after 3 – 5 years to avoid the build-up of pests etc. Is this still an issue if you apply the annual dressing of 2 – 3 inches of compost/ manure?

I have created a raised bed in my greenhouse so that an annual application of this depth is easy to apply but I’m concerned that time spent improving the soil will be wasted every 3 – 5 years by starting from scratch. Maybe you can work round this issue by some sort of crop rotation, although I’d ideally like to grow tomatoes there every year?

Thanks for any help here,

Tris

[charlesModerator]

 This is a tricky one because soil pests do build up, but I find that tomatoes every second year in my tunnels works fine, with two inches of manure on top and salad throughout winter.

To a point, soil pests hellp fruit to ripen by making plants less exuberant! But only to a point. My trials of grafted plants have seen them grow abundantly but make no more fruit than ungrafted ones of the same variety.

I would go for it, toms every year, and as much compost/manure on top of the bed as you can fit.

[StringfellowParticipant]

Many thanks Charles, that is really helpful and I shall indeed ‘go for it’ and see how things go.

Read your books and really enjoyed them and love the philosophy.

Hope to see you on one of your courses some time in the new year,

Many thanks again,

Tris

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