Baking Dirt

We've mentioned our plants on here before (and they're doing fine, thanks) but one aspect of preparing to plant them was a bit funny looking and Ana took pictures which we might as well share.

My parents gave me a large and extremely comprehensive book about growing chili pepper plants. In it, it suggests using only potting soil or similar for potting seedlings, and if you must use actual dirt from outside to bake it first to sterilize it. I used potting soil for the peppers because I'm trying to get as much out of them as possible, but the herbs did fine last year in regular dirt so I decided to keep using that for them. First, however, I needed to sterilize it to kill the weeds and things that were growing in it last year.


So, dirt goes in Pyrex bowl, Pyrex bowl goes in oven, smell of 400F dirt goes into the apartment. Worked great as far as I can tell - no weeds and the seedlings as going strong even after their two weeks in the makeshift greenhouse while we were traveling.