container compost after annuals

After basil and thyme have been harvested, or when an indoor plant just doesn't wanna grow, what should become of the compost in the pot?

Sometimes it's a lot of compost.

Surely we don't just chuck it. But it's tired out, no? Has hard water deposits, no?

And it's rooty.

?

 

I tend to add it to my compost bin, but @fat controller , has an idea I had not thought of.

 

When it dries off outside the pot, the texture of the ex-potted stuff is often a bit like coir, which would be nice for use as the bottom layer of a new pot. I'm liking that idea.

Our mains water is pretty hard, often leaves whitish crust inside pot near rim; not significant to condition of compost? Common sense tells me it isn't, but in this era of emergent hazards & best practices, I have to ask.

Anyway I wondered whether it isn't silly to be buying in new compost every year, with normal attrition going on across many pots and containers. And our compost bin gets filled enough with green waste that I struggle to get enough brown layers in, so I'm not actually producing enough compost to grow stuff in yet, only to use as soil improver.

The art of compost I also have yet to learn in detail.

 

I tend to spread it on my garden, then work it in to ghe soil.

 

Spread it on the bare soil under your massive tree. Let the earth worms drag it under to add a bit of structure to the soil.

 

Actually, clueless1, that's exactly where I've put it.

 

I snip the top growth off then put them either into a polytunnel or greenhouse to dry out and then the dry soil gets chucked in our hens dust bath (where it gets 'fertilized' and is then added back to growing areas via compost bins).

 

So Scrungee, it gets a sort of recharge of organic matter.