In a corner of your local nursery, tucked away in the back, a worker is piling up an endless stream of dead plants and tossing the plastic planter into a dumpster. It’s a bit like what you do at home, filling planters with dead plants at the end of the season, with one notable exception: the soil from the nursery is recycled. You can do the same thing and save money by recycling your potting soil from year to year with a few simple steps.

All soil is soil, right? Unfortunately, there is some nuance to this. The soil we buy in the store is made up of many components, including compost, topsoil, coco fiber or peat, and various nutrients. Some soil is specifically formulated to be used outdoors in a large garden bed. That soil would not work as well in a small pot, as it cannot hold moisture and requires more nutrients for the plants. So the soil you buy for potted plants (potting soil) has additional components to hold moisture, as well as slow-release fertilizer.

At the end of the season, as you have probably noticed, that soil is hard as a rock and refuses to absorb water. Its nutrients are also depleted. That is why nurseries always recommend turning your planters over completely and refreshing that soil by breaking it up and giving it new fertilizer.

So why not just buy new potting soil? Mainly the cost. Like every other industry, the cost of gardening has increased dramatically over the last four years, not just because of the recession but also because of the sudden increase in gardening during the pandemic. Plus, every bag of potting soil means more plastic waste (and just lugging a bag of potting soil home). You’re losing money by literally throwing away soil that could be perfectly usable if you took a few steps.