"Milesy" wrote in message
...

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.


Some seeds are better sown directly as the seedlings don't transplant well,
others you can start in seed trays and transplant. In your case I wouldn't
mess about, plant them where you want them to grow. They don't want to be
hot, warm is fine.

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


Too hot.


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


Don't bother. Microbes are good. What is the source of this compost?

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 -

good

do you
need to compress this down or am I best using a different thing for
growing in altogether?


firm it down a bit before planting but not heavily.

As others have said you will need *really* good lighting to grow these.
Unless they are in a window getting sun some of the day with supplementary
artificial light, or very high powered artficial light they will not prosper.

David