How do you re use your coco?

[Vador]

Hey.
What’s your favourite method to re use coco? From getting it out the pot to cleaning it for re use.

I’ve just harvest my plants and just started to sort the coco out for re use. I put the pots in the shower and flushed them with water to get rid of excess nutes/salts then was expecting them to come out nice and easy. I’m using 16L fabric pots and the root ball/ coco is stuck in there, I guess the roots grow into the fabric and take hold. The top layer of loose coco and volcanic balls I’ve poured off into a bag.

Now I need to get the rootball out and separate the coco from it, the easiest way I can think would be to use water and rinse the coco from the rootball and into a new fabric pot without making a mess.
There’s only one thing that puts me off and that’s the outside of the pots have grown some sort of white mold, perhaps powdery mildew? I’ve done my best to rinse the sides of the pots and scrub it away but I don’t want to contaminate the coco with any remaining spores. These pots can be soaked in sodium hypochlorite when they are empty to kill it all off.

Just wondering the best way to go about it without making too much mess.
What’s your favourite way?

[Wardrobe Farming]

hi vador well if im in a hurry i just put the rootball in a doubled up bin bag and beat the hell out of it against the wall which loosens it up and then use a small hand fork and comb the roots out along with the coco,the most effective method is slower and this method negates need of seedling feeds,roughly chop up the old rootball and pull out any larger roots then put in a binbag add a dozen or so earthworms and throw it in a dark cool place for a few weeks.
it comes out looking like new coco but with a bit of added wormdoes and is great for seedlings.
or there are commercialy made enzymes you can add to used which do work faster but i prefer the worms there cheaper!best i find is 50-50 mix of new and reused coco seems to work better,good luck

[Wardrobe Farming]

After harvesting I leave the coco in the pot to fully dry out, that makes removing the root ball easy enough. Just grab the stump, hold the top of the coco and pull. Empty the pots into a flexi tub and break up the coco, picking out any obvious roots. If its still damp I'll leave it to dry out completely before moving into a large fabric pot and giving a good rinse, squeeze out any water and then submerge in double strength calmag solution and maybe a splash of cannazym if you have it. I put the full fabric pot with coco into a matching size flexi tub and fill with the calmag mix. Leave it soaking for at least 4 hours but I normally let it go overnight. Lift out the fabric pot, drain the excess water and your good to go. I have been meaning to pierce a few holes in the bottom of the fabric pot to let the really fine coco wash away. Dr mjcoco suggests washing in a colander to do that part and he also has a pretty in depth video on it. Hope that is clear enough and of some help

[Vador]

Nice thanks guys.
I’ll leave them to dry off for a few days then and then go about beating the death out of them and see how it goes.
Liking the sound of the worm idea, might have to get some out of the worm bin and let them do there thing for a few weeks, won’t be needing the coco for a while yet anyway so got plenty of time to get this done.
I’ll have a look now for doctor mjcoco
Thanks for your help

[Wardrobe Farming]

Just going to leave this here for future reference
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N708P_6s0oQ

[Wardrobe Farming]

[Wardrobe Farming]

Thx @Wardrobe Farming
My phone doesn’t let me see the embedded videos for some reason, it just shows me a big blank space so I just posted a link

[2-Scoops]

I rip out the old root ball and any other root clumps i can pick out easily, im none to fussy though cus theirs always loadsa rootage left behind, but i can`t be arsed with picking at it all day long, i then sling it in my pots and add a bit more perlite to top pots up and sling that under hot water tap for a minute or two, i then give a good soak with my fert mix, add the plants and bingo jobs a good en.

[Wardrobe Farming]

I rip out the old root ball and any other root clumps i can pick out easily, im none to fussy though cus theirs always loadsa rootage left behind, but i can`t be arsed with picking at it all day long, i then sling it in my pots and add a bit more perlite to top pots up and sling that under hot water tap for a minute or two, i then give a good soak with my fert mix, add the plants and bingo jobs a good en.

Nice and simple, I like it.


I can feel a plan formulating, going to leave the pots in the groom with my veg’ing plants to dry, that should help boost humidity a bit and keep them out of the way at the same time.
When they’ve dried out I’m pretty much going to do what it shows in that video above, I like the idea of getting rid of all the dust so will be rinsing it all through a sieve, after that they can soak in the calmag water for a day, it just so happens I have 4 buckets that are just the right size for a 16L pot each.
Love it when a plan comes together, thanks for your help guys, I’ll post back with my results