reusing soil from last year?

I don't know about you, but I am itching to get a start on my outdoor grow. I've been taking advantage of the grood weather to improve my gardening site and inventory what I will need to do in the upcomming months until planting time.
My site will consist of two planter boxes 3 x 20 ft. that I did very well in last year for 6 plants. Plus 6 in the ground sites that did ok, not as good as the planter boxes though. Plus aprox 12 plants in 45 gal smart pots.
My original mix, used throughout last year was a base of a 20% worm castings and 80% compost that I picked up at the local worm farm for 45.00 a yard. To this I mixed in perlite, blood and bone meal, azmite ( trace elements ), and lime.
Now I have approximately 2 yards of this from last year that I was thinking of re-using. I was considering adding chicken manure plus more bone meal and blood meal. Is this a good idea? As I can pick up several yards of pre-mixed for around 80.00 a yard and go with the new potting mix instead of messing with the used stuff I'm not sure I would be actually saving any money, but I just cant see wasting what I already have.
Does anybody have any experience on re-charging used potting soil? Or is it not worth the effort and money doing it?
Thanks in advance for any help on this.

Soil does not host the beneficial organisms in large numbers until it has been used 2 to 3 times. Clean ALL root material out. Flush well with water prior to mixing your new. You'll be good to go but watch the nutrients and feed only what the plant indicates a need for, especially early on. I have reused soil so many times it tried to retire. Now will come those warning of certain dire horrors awaiting you if you do this. Ask them if a farmer swaps out the dirt in his cornfields every grow.

BTW if you go hydro you can forget all this BS. As my last soil plant (indoors mind you) finishes it will be my last most likely. These 5 gallon DWC units are so cheap and easy to build and use and so productive that it seems a fool's errand lugging dirt indoors.

hotrodharley said:

Soil does not host the beneficial organisms in large numbers until it has been used 2 to 3 times. Clean ALL root material out. Flush well with water prior to mixing your new. You'll be good to go but watch the nutrients and feed only what the plant indicates a need for, especially early on. I have reused soil so many times it tried to retire. Now will come those warning of certain dire horrors awaiting you if you do this. Ask them if a farmer swaps out the dirt in his cornfields every grow.

Click to expand...

That was kind of the way I thought about it.

why clean the roots out? if you grow outdoors, why not just add some high n guano and ewc and let it compost during the off season? (obviously i'd take the big fuckers out, but the little stringys?)

this is my last year buying hella soil...
i can't make anymore veggie gardens!
im sub'd here

This wilp be my third year in the same holes. I just add more to it and mix it all up with a shovel. No reason not to

Thanks for the input folks. I've run out of vegatable gardening space to use the used soil in as well. So all the used soil is piling up around here and I don't know what to do with it! I think for part of my garden at least I will re-use some of it. I really do not want to make any more raised beds than I already have, as I'm getting a little old for that kind of work. And digging into this rocky ground is a real pain in the ass. I will be using some of my 30 gal smart pots for the veggies, they worked real well for the squashes last year, so maybe thats what I will do with the soil. There are several good sources of premixed soil in the area and I will be checking them out as the season progresses. I think 80 or 85 dollars a yard is a good price for bulk and it will save me the time ( and musclepower ) that I could be using more constructively.
Getting old sucks big time. Jobs that would take a few hours just a couple of years ago, ( like mixing soil ) now takes me forever!
I think for the raised beds my mj will be going into is the only one that will get re-used as I cant see myself shoveling all that dirt out and filling it again. I will just get a couple of bags of chicken poop and blood and bone meal and mix it all in with some more azomite and call it done.
I've found that by mixing in some diatamatious earth I can control the underground pests like moth larva, catapillars and other nasties that can be bad news for my plants, I'm sold on using it in all my plantings and recomend it to any outdoor gower. I also sprinkle a little on top of the soil right under the plants and it keeps away the cuttworms as well.
I've started my mother plants and hope to start taking clones for the outdoor grow around the middle of March. May 15 is my earliest planting date. Any earlier than that and they start to flower on me. I've been growing a strain I picked up last year, Criticle by Royal Queen that looks very promising. I've got some now in my indoor grow that is about a week from harvest and I must say I am impressed with them. Fast finishing and nice frosty looking buds. I flipped them into 12/12 about mid to late december. I think they will make an excellent choice for outdoor as well.
Other strains that I am working on for outdoors are Chronic, Pineapple Express, Afghan Kush, Tahoe Kush, Blue Widow, and a Blue Dream x Og Kush cross. I also have a Blue Hash ( Blueberry x Hashplant) that looks promissing as well. I've tried to narrow down my selections to the faster finishing strains, as last year I ran into trouble toward mid Nov due to the weather and lost quite a bit of my crop to a storm.
I'm rambling, sorry about that. Like I said I am just getting so darn antsy with the good weather comming around.

Thanks again for all the advice, its great to have a place that I can discuss my growing and ask for advice. I'd be lost without it for sure.