Baking Dirt -Seed Starting

I'm moving slowly in my seed starting this year, but I did get an important (for me) step done today. Today I baked dirt. Or to be more precise I sterilized my seed starting mix, which is actually a soil-less blend of materials. Most pre-mixed bags of seed starting mix are perfectly fine. You want to avoid starting seeds indoors in garden soil or potting soil as they are too heavy.

The reason I sterilize my soil is to kill off any weed seeds, fungus, or other harmful organisms that may have found their way into the mix. I sterilize my soil by placing it into a large foil pasta tray and covering it with aluminum foil sheets. I then bake the soil in my oven for 2 hours at 200˚F/93.3˚C. I even have some quality control helpers here in the first photo.





Now that my mix has been sterilized the next step will be planting my seeds. I'll be posting on that soon!