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container Potentially Unnecessary Potting-Up?

Roo

Roo

I saw a gnat near my baby plants yesterday and now I'm paranoid, so I'm thinking about repotting into new soil and pots. The pots they're in now are small (3"? the smallest "can go in the ground" pots that Walmart had) and I know I have at least a couple more weeks until it's consistently nice enough to plant outside and a couple look like they may outgrow their little pots before then. A couple plants aren't fairing so well and I assume this is either natural selection or gnats going to town. Still others are super tall and spindly (even though they've been in the same position under the lights as the other plants) and I figure if I pot up, I can plant those deeper and support the stem a bit... Anyway, would it hurt anything to pot-up my babies in an effort to rid the soil of the gnats? I'd get all new little (slightly bigger) pots, new soil (the gnatty stuff is in the trash now) that I could bake in the oven first, mix with perlite, and fertilize a bit. Since I seem to have gnats, would it be a good idea to rinse all the soil off the roots, or get rid of as much as possible without washing them clean and hope for the best? I've never repotted anything, so I'm a bit intimidated by the whole process and a little afraid I'll kill everyone if I try...
 
yes you can repot to new stuff.
most people go with 1 gallon pots as an intermediate pot after 3 in pots.
yes you can plant stem deeper gives better stability
yes you want to rinse off the plant / roots with water (no wash soap lol) if you are trying to get rid of the gnats
 
it's really simple, pretty hard to kill the plant imo
 
Not that baking new soil and repotting won't help, it's more so the watering and air flow that lead to a problem with the gnats. I don't know that there is any guaranteed solution to fungus gnats. You can water with perixide every so often to help clear the fungus, but you're also killing good stuff. Mosquito dunks are good too and some people strictly bottom water. I'm no expert by any means, but I think the gnats are just something you have to work around and try to minimize to avoid problems with your plants. If the soil is always wet they will keep multiplying and mess your roots up reguardless of what soil you use.
 
I repotted everyone yesterday after deciding NOT to repot everyone the day before :lol:
 
It's a good thing I did, too, because I didn't do a very good job of potting the first time around. The soil had all been packed down and there wasn't really a place for any roots to grow. Some were on the verge of being root-bound, so I feel like my paranoia actually helped prevent an unfortunate situation! Now everyone is in 4" pots with a soil/perlite mix and a nice layer of perlite on top to hopefully deter the gnat. They're also now strictly bottom-watered to see if that helps. 
 
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They got nice little root-spas yesterday to get as much of the old dirt off as possible and then were repotted into the new (baked and hopefully better) soil/perlite mix. I'm stealing borrowing a fan from work and will set that up today to get some airflow going (they've been relying on the ceiling fan because I haven't had money to get an oscillating fan but the ceiling fan isn't cutting it). They also got a new neighbor! I'm trying to grow chives from seed in the clay pot. We'll see if it works...
 
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