indoor Should You Heat-Treat Mulch if Used Indoors?

A

Aeternus

I've been using primarily MiracleGro potting soil (non-organic) along with added perlite and vermiculite (about 8-1-1) and my plants seem to be doing just fine, but I feel like the mixture is a little too dense and I want to "dilute" the time-release fertilizers down a little.  I picked up some pine bark mulch (1/4" size) but since the pallet was outside, it's quite wet (it's a sealed bag but there is definitely a ton of moisture inside).  Do you think it makes sense to bake it in the oven or pour boiling water over it to kill any insects, etc?  Everything is still inside in a grow tent so I would hate to introduce a pest problem if I can avoid it.  I'm about to re-pot everything into one-gallon pots.  Thanks!
 
If they are staying indoors there is not much need in mulching
Either way,in or out spray some neem oil at ground level and it will keep things pretty quite
 
Well they're eventually going outside (about a month from now) I just wanted to provide a more suitable growing medium than straight MiracleGro for the re-potting.  Ok thanks I'll do that if there are any issues - sounds a lot more reasonable than cooking off 10 gallons of mulch lol
 
Btw, when I baked soil last year, I used a large disposable turkey roasting pan, and threw it inside my charcoal grill. I probably took care of 4-5 gallons per batch.
 
Oh wow that's actually a much better idea than doing it inside the house, didn't even consider that haha good tip.
 
First of all, if you use MG, you should DEFINITELY pasteurize it in the oven before using indoors, or else you WILL get fungus gnats. I made the mistake of not doing that for years, and just now won the battle against the fungus gnats in my house. Believe me, IT SUCKED! Never again with MG.
 
Now I don't use MG anything anymore, that stuff is crap, and I pasteurize any and all organic material I bring into my house for plants. I'll pre-mix the soil, vermiculite, perlite, compost, etc, put it in my dirt baking pan, cover it with tin foil, then cook it at 200F for 30 minutes.
 
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