Does anyone have experience with making a soil sterilizer?

[Jstpssng]

I want to kill off the weeds before planting my garlic. It also will be handy for my seed starting medium next spring, and for raised carrot beds.
This is the only one I've been able to find.

How to Make a Soil Sterilizer (7 Steps) | eHow

My father used to steam all of his greenhouse planting soil. He had a pipe setup which set in the bed of his International KB5 dumptruck, these had small holes drilled into them. He tied into his boiler with fire hose, covered the soil with plastic and steamed away.

 

[Stimw]

My dad used to do it by putting dirt in Electric Roaster (I think it was a Sunbeam??) and bringing it up to temp.
You might find a Roaster at a Thrift Store cheap. ??

 

[brown40]

I know you're in Maine, so sun is an issue--especially this time of year, but clear heavy plastic and moisture will do a "solar sterilization" if you had the option wait a bit to plant. Some people don't plant until July, when the soil has warmed up and have good results. I don't know that it gets every pathogen, but it kills weeds. Just have to get it down with no air flow under it--weeds are tough. Where you want to plant ASAP, you'll have to add steam or heat--next years plot you can let the sun prepare it.
Request Rejected

 

[Egon]

How much soil will be involved?

 

[stuckmotor]

I thought I would be the only one with a "My father" story. Here goes: My father said his father used to build a wood fire over the ground where he sprouted his tobacco seeds. I can't remember the details except that the wood was probably cypress. My dad liked to talk about cypress.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

I want to kill off the weeds before planting my garlic. It also will be handy for my seed starting medium next spring, and for raised carrot beds.
This is the only one I've been able to find.

How to Make a Soil Sterilizer (7 Steps) | eHow

My father used to steam all of his greenhouse planting soil. He had a pipe setup which set in the bed of his International KB5 dumptruck, these had small holes drilled into them. He tied into his boiler with fire hose, covered the soil with plastic and steamed away.

I doubt that you mean the term "sterilize" to include every living thing in the soil, at least I hope that is not what you are aiming for. I started my professional career as a Lab Tech in a Microbiology lab, and one of my projects included an attempt to "sterilize" some soil samples. Let me just say that you cannot completely sterilize a soil sample using steam and pressure in an autoclave. There was always some little bug that would survive no matter what. Now I suppose you could eventually get it hot enough to kill everything, but not using steam and pressure.

 

[Jstpssng]

I know you're in Maine, so sun is an issue--especially this time of year, but clear heavy plastic and moisture will do a "solar sterilization" if you had the option wait a bit to plant. Some people don't plant until July, when the soil has warmed up and have good results. I don't know that it gets every pathogen, but it kills weeds. Just have to get it down with no air flow under it--weeds are tough. Where you want to plant ASAP, you'll have to add steam or heat--next years plot you can let the sun prepare it.
Request Rejected

If I used clear plastic up here it wouldn't get hot enough for my purposes, but it would be a great way to grow some weeds.

How much soil will be involved?

For my garlic this fall only a few cubic feet, and the item in the link I posted would do the trick. Next year I hope to do a couple of 30 foot raised beds for carrots and greens, and that would be too time consuming.

I doubt that you mean the term "sterilize" to include every living thing in the soil, at least I hope that is not what you are aiming for. I started my professional career as a Lab Tech in a Microbiology lab, and one of my projects included an attempt to "sterilize" some soil samples. Let me just say that you cannot completely sterilize a soil sample using steam and pressure in an autoclave. There was always some little bug that would survive no matter what. Now I suppose you could eventually get it hot enough to kill everything, but not using steam and pressure.

You are absolutely correct, and your comments show the difference between a layman and a scientist. ( I read very similar comments when doing a search on the subject.)
All that I care about is killing off the noxious weed seed for my longer term crops, and seed starting medium next year. (It just about killed me to buy those little bags of soil this past spring, knowing that everything I needed was just up the road in my garden, buried under 3 feet of snow.)

My father now has an electric bench top unit which can do several bushels of soil at a time. He's 200 miles away though, and I'm not big on borrowing things which I can't afford to replace.

 

[Egon]

using an excess of nitrogen fertilizer will look after all the growing stuff. It will not effect seeds. You would have to water well before planting to wash out the nitrogen.

For sterilizing a couple of cubic feet a bucket and tiger torch should get your soil warm enough to get all the seeds in it.

 

[RalphVa]

My experience with using clear plastic is that you create a greenhouse for weeds.

Black plastic is supposed to be good for sterilizing the soil if you can get enough sun on it this time of year.

Ralph

 

[JimRB]

I burned some brush over one section of my weed laden garden. That seemed to kill most if not all the noxious weeds. Only thing growing a month later was the bermuda that has roots almost a foot deep. I have some more brush burning to do this fall which might help me get the weeds under control.