Very few hobby gardeners have thought about this until now. In the spring you get potting soil from the garden store and sow flowers or vegetables in bowls on the windowsill. You only notice that something is wrong when pests spread. This would not have happened with disinfected soil.

Potting soil can be heated in the oven or in the microwave

Why is potting soil or potting soil sterilized?

When growing new flowers or young vegetable plants, you usually sow them in good potting soil. You fill small pots or bowls and place them on the window sill or in a heated greenhouse to germinate. After some time, the seeds should open and small sprouts should become visible. Often nothing happens instead, except that brisk mold growth spreads or countless fungus gnats fly around in the apartment. Individually growing young plants come to light, but cannot continue to grow if larvae eat their small roots.
The good growing soil was contaminated with mold spores or larvae of fungus gnats.
Here it helps to sterilize your potting soil or to use expensive, cleaned potting soil from the specialist market.
This is the only way for the seeds to sprout optimally and grow into strong young plants.

Sterilize potting soil

Use old potting soil from the previous year or soil from the supermarket. Sterilization kills any pests or mold spores that may be present in any potting soil. It is sterilized with heat, either in the oven or in the microwave.
Proceed as follows:

  1. Take enough unfertilized soil.
  2. Choose an ovenproof or microwave-safe container, preferably a tin or plate.
  3. Moisten the soil well with water, but do not let it drip.
  4. Place the soil flat on the tray or plate.
  5. Place the plate in the microwave on high for 5 to 10 minutes.
  6. Or preheat the oven to 200 degrees and put the tray in for about 20 minutes.
  7. Allow the soil to cool down before using it further.

White worms or larvae may appear on the ground after sterilizing. They have become visible through the heat treatment. This is not a problem since the pests have been killed. The earth can be used.

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Care tips