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soil Freezing Potting Soil

irishmaverick

irishmaverick

Does anyone freeze their potting soil before using it to kill off any pests? I tried it a couple weeks ago before planting and I think it may have eliminated my spider mite issue that I constantly have in the early sprouting stages. It's still too early to tell whether it was effective, but I was just curious if anyone has experience doing this and if it actually kills off all the little creatures that come in Miracle Gro potting soil. Thanks for any other advice.
 
nope! my potting soil sits in the garage until i am ready to use it. -35C many nights. can't speak for spider mites but aphids still thrive. heat is the only enemy of bugs.
 
+1 Mark. Many bugs go into a state similar to hibernation in the winter. They appear to be dead, but no. And even if the adults do die, their larvae tend to survive. Otherwise, we sure wouldn't have any bugs in the spring. Nature finds a way.....
 
From what I understand, freezing won't kill bugs. There's a reason bugs bury themselves in winter.
Heating soil will kill them. I heated all my soil for seedlings up to 90 degrees c to kill any mold, and nasties, then cooled it down before sowing seeds.

I used the microwave
 
alot of people use an oven to bake their seedling mix as seedlings are most sensitive to pathogens and dont require hardly any soil at all.

obviously if you are talking about sterilizing cubic yards you must look at an electric soil sterilizer. im actually looking at building a small scale sterilizer with some stainless steel heating elements i found. they are exceptionally low wat density elements, so i think they could fit the bill.

the big boys use massive steam boilers to sterilize mixes. its mostly done these days for manufacturers of stuff like miracle grow bagged soil.
its my understanding that soil sterilizing as a way to control pathogens in crops is more or less restricted to green house cultivars, and is fairly even in that case rare. these days you can get hybrid plants that are very resistant to disease, and for pathogens like root knot nematodes, there are many rootstock available that are very resistant, and explosively vigorous.

i guess for the organic/heirloom crowd you might need to sterilize soil, but it has to be terribly expensive, i cant even imagine. id rather just use fresh peat lite each time than deal with that.
there are photos of massive tractor towed units that would place spikes into the ground and spray steam for several minutes. the ground would then be covered for plant out.

edit:
check this out.
http://www.soil-steaming-steam-boiler-blog.com/2010/02/university-california-steaming-automat/

lol.am i the only one that finds this stuff interesting?
 
I nuke the soil in microwave for a few minutes and allow to cool before I use it in the eggs to start seeds.
 
I boil mine in water so I don't burn anything. Then I strain it and put it in the freezer to cool down.
 
:shame:
one should not put super hot things in the freezer. you will turn your ice bin into an ice burg... then what will you put in you scotch?
 
Burning Colon said:
nope! my potting soil sits in the garage until i am ready to use it. -35C many nights. can't speak for spider mites but aphids still thrive. heat is the only enemy of bugs.
Click to expand...

yup, any bugs that can somehow survive the Canadian winter wont be killed by freezing, OR you can try to soak it, once the water freeze you might be able to suffocate them?

give it a try
 
To prevent damping off in seedlings, I make my own starter mix.

I take nice rich soil, and NUKE THE CRAP OUT OF IT in the microwave :P

Once the seedling gets the second set, Boom, hit it with AACT and you got nice rich "LIVING" soil again.
 
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