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I have a number of pots I grew tomatoes and cucumbers in through the he summer. These have now died off but I want to reuse the soil (mixing it with compost etc to get nutrients back) for other plants.
Can I simply pull out the main plant remains, break up the root ball and treat it as if it was compost going in with the new plants, should I sieve out all the roots, or should I leave it for a while to rot down further before reusing the soil?
You should remove as much of the rootballs and roots as you can, but a few small fragments here and there won't be an issue. However, I would not advise re-using the same potting soil to grow food plants in again, it may contain pathogens that will affect your plants next year. I've certainly risked re-using potting soil in containers, but only for non food plants - its always a risk, even with flowering plants.
