Hi all,

I've got a beautiful 2-y-o "compost" pile which yielded lots of bait
worms last year... but when I took some of this dirt to start seeds
in, all I grew were weeds.

It seems I've heard at one time or other you can bake dirt - - in a
pan, in the oven - - to kill weed seeds. Any truth to this?

BTW the reason I enclosed "compost" in quotes is I've never added any
manure, nothing to help it cook other than coffee grounds. Not sure
if this qualifies as compost or not, but it sure is rich looking.

Julie in kY

(Tshirt weather this afternoon, and I've got the first jug of 'sun
tea' cooking on the woodshed roof)

http://www.bobsloansampler.com/

On Sat, 22 Mar 2003 13:40:14 -0500, Julie wrote:
It seems I've heard at one time or other you can bake dirt - - in a
pan, in the oven - - to kill weed seeds. Any truth to this?

I suppose it might work but have you ever smelled baked dirt? I don't know
about you, but I don't think my wife would take kindly to having her oven
used to bake dirt. *yuk*.

One alternative you can try is soil solarization. Here are the rough steps
(shamelessly stolen from the Sunset Western Garden Book):

1. Till the bed that you are preparing and remove ALL of the growing weeds.
2. Make a bed at least 2.5 feet wide and soak to a depth of 1 foot
3. Cover soil with 1 to 4 mil clear plastic (UV Resistant is best).
4. Bury edges of plastic in a ditch to keep it in place
5. Leave in place for 4-8 weeks (shorter times for less invasive weeds,
longer times for tougher ones). Do not leave in place more than 8 weeks
otherwise soil structure may be damaged.

I don't use this method personally since I live in Seattle and we don't get
reliable sun (well, not during the winter - our summers are typically
amazing If you get fairly reliable full sun on a patch, it should work
quite well.

Keep in mind that weed seeds will only be killed in the top layers of soil.
If you till the bed, weed seeds will be brought back to the surface.

BTW the reason I enclosed "compost" in quotes is I've never added any
manure, nothing to help it cook other than coffee grounds. Not sure
if this qualifies as compost or not, but it sure is rich looking.

Sounds like compost to me although you probably not well cooked compost.
To "properly" cook compost you need to maintain an adequate carbon/nitrogen
ratio, proper moisture, and proper airflow. Not super difficult, but it
takes some work. (I'm lazy, so my compost is typically "slow" compost that
I stir from time to time)

--

Matt...

It seems I've heard at one time or other you can bake dirt - - in a
pan, in the oven - - to kill weed seeds. Any truth to this?

BTW the reason I enclosed "compost" in quotes is I've never added any
manure, nothing to help it cook other than coffee grounds. Not sure
if this qualifies as compost or not, but it sure is rich looking.

It'll do it, but you'll be sorry (and if you're married, you may end up in
divorce court).

Best bet is to cover it with plastic and let the sun do your work.
Something else you may want to consider is just holding onto it this season
and making it into a regular compost heap -- add various organic materials,
water it and turn it, etc.. You'll find this does a pretty good job of
killing the weed seeds all by itself.

There are a number of decent online resources for proper maintenance of a
compost heap, but one of my favorites is Paul James' -- the man lives for
compost, he's said the word so much that I think he legally owns it. :P
Just go to HGTV's web site and search on compost and you'll get all sorts of
hits.

James

I suppose it might work but have you ever smelled baked dirt?

My mother used to prepare dirt of house plants that way and I don't remember
that it smelled all that bad. Probably because we removed the earth worms
first.


Dave
http://members.tripod.com/~VideoDave

I've baked soil before. If it is not damp enough, it will stink.
There should be enough water so that when you press down on the soil,
it will ooze up though the fingers and ther will be a little water
standing on top. It is the conversion of water to steam that does the
effective job of sterilizing. Use a temperature of 275 and bake for
about 1.5 hours for each half bushel of soil. The top should start to
cake then it will crack near the end of the baking process. There
will be a slight odor, but not objectionable. It smells something
like caramel and disappears quickly. The soil will need to be
screened to fluff it up. The beneficial bacteria will quickly return
to the soil after it cools down.

"Brewer" wrote in message
...

Julie,

The smell of baking soil is guaranteed to run you out of the house

Why not just put the soil in an old aluminum lasagne pan and put it in your
gas grill or a charcoal grill? Put it on low and if it stinks up the
outdoors, no one will care.

-al sung
Rapid Realm Technology, Inc.
Hopkinton, MA (Zone 6a)

On Sun, 23 Mar 2003 20:23:55 GMT, Phisherman typed
these words:

I've baked soil before. If it is not damp enough, it will stink.
There should be enough water so that when you press down on the soil,
it will ooze up though the fingers and ther will be a little water
standing on top. It is the conversion of water to steam that does the
effective job of sterilizing. Use a temperature of 275 and bake for
about 1.5 hours for each half bushel of soil. The top should start to
cake then it will crack near the end of the baking process. There
will be a slight odor, but not objectionable. It smells something
like caramel and disappears quickly. The soil will need to be
screened to fluff it up. The beneficial bacteria will quickly return
to the soil after it cools down.

Thanks everyone for your comments and advice. What I want is a quick
alternative to buying a bag of potting soil. g I'll let you know
what well saturated dirt smells like when it's baking...

Julie in KY
--

http://www.bobsloansampler.com/

Why don't you try using a Microwave oven. a lot quicker and a hell of a lot
cheaper to use.
I cooked 4 litres in 12 mins, remove and leave to stand for another 10 mins,
you can have the next lot cooking during this time, so you can cook around
20 litres an hour, and this is with a small 700w microwave, I wonder why no
one makes a Micro wave soil sterilizer.

"..........There should be enough water so that when you press down on the
soil, it will ooze up though the fingers and there will be a little water
standing on top...."
This is known as Boiling the soil.
Much to wet.

--
David Hill
Abacus Nurseries
www.abacus-nurseries.co.uk

I've baked dirt to use it as potting soil, but I've switched to microwaving
it, about as described in the post by david. The stink of the baking dirt
filled the house for hours, but the microwave is almost odorless in
comparison, lets me prepare smaller amounts as needed, and gives fine
results.

"Julie" wrote in message
...

Hi all,

I've got a beautiful 2-y-o "compost" pile which yielded lots of bait
worms last year... but when I took some of this dirt to start seeds
in, all I grew were weeds.

It seems I've heard at one time or other you can bake dirt - - in a
pan, in the oven - - to kill weed seeds. Any truth to this?

BTW the reason I enclosed "compost" in quotes is I've never added any
manure, nothing to help it cook other than coffee grounds. Not sure
if this qualifies as compost or not, but it sure is rich looking.

Julie in kY

(Tshirt weather this afternoon, and I've got the first jug of 'sun
tea' cooking on the woodshed roof)

http://www.bobsloansampler.com/

Julie,

The smell of baking soil is guaranteed to run you out of the house. If
you build a good compost pile the heat from it will kill most of the
weed seeds. Here's a like that may help you with your next batch of
compost:

http://tinyurl.com/7zy7

I hope this helps some.


--
Brewer
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