In article ,
Milesy wrote:

I have bought some seeds that I wish to grow indoors.

Coriander
Basil
Chiles.

I have only ever tried to grow coriander before and although it started
to grow - lots of wee flies were coming out of the compost. I have now
recently been told that you need to sterilise compost for indoor use?

Anyway.

My first question is how do you get started with the seeds. Do you
germinate them first? What is the best way to do this? I remember back
at school we germinated seeds in dishes with paper and put them in a
hot place.

I have a hot boiler cupboard that would do the trick. How do I get
started?

Secondly. Compost sterilising? How do you go about doing this?

Also the compost I have seems very spacious - by that I mean there
seems to be a lot of pockets of air between the soil particles - do you
need to compress this down or am I best using a different thing for
growing in altogether?

thanks in advance. I look forward to a response

I've tried growing herbs indoors at work under the fluorescent lights.
Everything bolted and got leggy.

If you are going to try this, you will need some good grow lights in
order for it to work.

Best way to sterilize compost is to pressure cook it for 20 minutes.
Alternately, you can bake it but I can't recall the temp off the top of
my head to sterilize it. You could probably google for that. :-)

Good luck!
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