Soil Sterilization Debacle

 

This post is not a tutorial for sterilizing soil. This story is purely for entertainment purposes. You can laugh with me at all that went wrong!

I was excited to start some seeds this spring! I had heard about sterilizing soil in the oven and I wanted to try doing that with my soil in order that I might kill any weed seeds. Soil from the store is already weed free. I have recycled potting soil, though, so my soil was possibly contaminated with weed seeds. 

I dug through our garden shed to find all my bags of dirt. I had this very large, heavy duty, aluminum tray that was also in the garden shed. I thought it would be the perfect thing to bake all this dirt on in the oven.

I brought the dirt inside to my kitchen. It had to sit around for a couple of days to thaw. Once the dirt was thawed throughout I carefully piled dirt onto the giant aluminum tray. Cautiously I lifted the tray full of dirt and took it to the oven entrance only to find that the tray was too wide to fit into the oven. What a pain!

I had to scoop the dirt off the giant tray and distribute it among several of my good baking trays.

I baked the soil at 400°F. for 30 minutes.

The house was filled with the smell of wet dirt. Reminiscent of what it smells like outdoors when it starts to rain after a long dry spell. I can't say it was the most pleasing aroma to fill my house with. Little did I know how much worse the house was about to smell.

I had a lot of dirt to cook. I ended up doing several batches. I scooped the hot steaming dirt into large Tupperware containers and then refilled all my baking trays with more dirt. I was in a time crunch because I had a friend coming over in the afternoon. Maybe it wasn't the smartest move to cook a bunch of dirt before having company over. 

My thought process went like this,

"I don't want this thawed dirt sitting here on the kitchen floor when my friend comes over."

"I must get it all sterilized so that I can put it away before she gets here."

So, now my house stinks and I am having a hard time containing this dirt. It is getting on my table and floor and clothes!

The last portion of dirt that I had to sterilize was mostly peat moss. I didn't think peat moss was much different than soil. I certainly didn't think it would ignite in my oven!

Smoke began to permeate through the house. At first it blended in with steam and went unnoticed. The smell went from wet dirt to smoldering organic matter. Think of musty leaf mulch burning. It was nasty!

I opened the oven to find burning coals of peat moss and waves of stinking smoke! 

I quickly took the baking tray of peat moss outside to the porch. 

I had one more batch of peat moss to put in the oven. I soldiered on! More peat moss on the trays, back into the oven they go. Only 15 minutes this time.

Back outside to check on the tray of burning peat moss. There was a gentle breeze outside supplying my burning peat moss with plenty of oxygen. The flame continued to burn and consume more and more of my peat moss! Agh! 

I fetched a bucket of water and put an end to the fire once and for all.

I hope you take this take into consideration if you ever sterilize soil in your oven.

In conclusion, I was able to air out the house sufficiently to have my friend over in the afternoon. I had a funny story to tell her as I explained why there may be a smokey smell in my house. We had a good laugh! 

All's well that ends well!