"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
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"I Love Lucy" wrote in message
.net...

"Bill R" wrote in message
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I Love Lucy wrote:

I have about a large bag and a half of potting soil that has become
lumpy and dried out because I didn't use any for a couple of
years. It smells musty inside. I'd like to dump it somewhere it
might do some good, but am afraid the musty smell means mold which
might not be good for grass or plants. Hate to just throw it in
the garbage. Any suggestions besides landfill?

Compost it. All you need to do is get something big enough to hold
it (large planter will do). Put the potting soil in whatever you use
along with some fertilizer and some other things (like weeds) that
will decompose. Add some water and mix it every few days and soon
you will have compost that you can use in your garden that is better
and any potting mixture you can buy at a garden center.

Now it would be nice to have one of those things you can turn every
couple days or so, but I can't buy everything right now.

Till it into the soil around whatever plants you've got outside. Don't
worry about it. It won't hurt anything. When you're done, have a glass
of wine.

Heh, that sounds like a winner! I was planning on using it as topsoil
for some areas I'm planting where I've had a problem with clay soil. I
bought a bag of fresh potting soil yesterday. And two bleeding hearts,
two columbine and one astilbe. And some cypress mulch. I also have
some more plants coming from arborday.org. I hope I can save them all,
it is iffy ordering like that.

I don't want to risk it on some odd variety of heirloom roses we
transplanted last Sunday. They are holding their own and a few are
looking pretty good by now with lots of rain and watering, but the tops
on about 3 of the six plants are drooping. One little one looks pretty
far gone, but I'm hoping the roots take hold and put out some new shoots
in time.