Her bugs may or may not have come from the potting soil.

Personally, I wouldn't bother. I've bought literally tons of packaged potting soil, and have never had a bug problem. I've had OTHER problems with potting soil, but never bugs.

Gardening just isn't a bug-free endeavor. And if there do happen to be viable, beneficial soil microbes in the soil, you would surely kill them off.

Sue

The potting mix is ok as is.

As for the person with the brown bugs, we need to know *all* the determine if the conclusion was correct. Too often, people draw cause-and-effect conclusions when it was, instead, a coincidence.

If you don't have an autoclave, you pasteurize potting mix by baking it in the oven, and that smells n-a-s-t-y. My opinion is, save your oven for brownies and macaroni and cheese and just use the potting mix as is. If you open the bag and it already smells nasty, leave it open for a few days to see if that helps. Anyway, bugs are not necessarily YUCK! in gardening.

Should you? No. Waste of time, stinks, depletes nutrients, and of no benefit to either you or the soil mix whatsoever.

Dave

if i HAVE to buy miracle grow then i do bake it, cuz then it never fails, i get them gnats! my whole problem this winter was caused by miracle grow. i have since then switched to stay green and now have no problem. but i had to bake all of my soil to get rid of the gnats. that's the only way i knew how to, uhhhh passed down from mom!! LOL now its all stay green and its no problems.but a friend of mine told me that you can use the dunks and put them in water and use it in the soil only. and it works great! hmmmmmm wish i'd known that this wnter!! LOL lesson i learned. if miracle grow is my only choice, wait till i can get something else!! LOL IMHO :')) ps the dunks you can get at lowes, at least i did. they are some kinda mosquito thingi. :'))

For seeds sown indoors over winter, I pour boiling water thru the soil mix first. This sterilizes the container, prevents damping off, and eliminates gnats, fungus, and weed seeds. For outdoor container plants, no.

Like many others I have not had a problem with any potting soil I have purchased, or used, producing Gnats. Often people will have that problem because they tend to keep the soil too wet and that is when the Gnat eggs hatch and the Gnat larva grow. It is not the fault of the potting soil but the grower, but the potting soil is blamed.

that's what i keep reading, but where do the gnat eggs come from?? and i learned from a friend of mine to water from the bottom, in the greenhouse forum, (got the dang thing still not set up!!!) LOL so that's what we did, so i just don't know where i coulda gotten them from other than the potting soil. **so confused on this!!! sigh*** LOL please don't tell me that the eggs come from the water!!! i will totally gross out!! LOL :'))

The gnat eggs are there in that potting soil and there is no really good way to get them out. You have insect eggs in the grains you buy as well as probably feces from mice and rats because your USDA standards permit that.

ok now i'm yet again grossed out. but at least its not in the water. so it is the potting soil. but i just have to be more careful to make absolutely sure that no wetness is ontop, am i right?? like overwatering from the bottom? ok don't think i'm crazy, but a few times this spring outside i have left the pot in the bowl of water and it soaked up all the water till it got wet on the top also. this was a plant i didn't want to risk the leaves getting wet for some reason.

I've experienced potting soil that definitely had the fungus gnats in it.

I care for a large number of plants at our local library.

For the purpose of a plant care and potting demonstration held at the library, the librarian purchased a cheap bag of potting mix. Some of the plants potted up remained at the library. I immediately noticed swarms of fungus gnats in those particular plants.
I quickly repotted them all into new potting mix and that was the end of the problem.

it is possible the eggs were in the soil but fungus gnats are all around us so even by keeping the soil too moist, the gnats would find it anyway. It's also possible that this particular potting soil retains moisture better than others causing an overwet mix if youre not paying attention to the amount of watering youre doing. the best thing to do is change the situation to make it unsuitable for the gnats and they will move on, and that can be as simple as putting a layer of sand or perlite on top of the mix so the soil surface stays drier. over winter I always remove the dishes from under pots,most plants dont need to sit in water in winter and it just gives things like mosquitos places to breed.

timothy: Hell no! This would kill the soil microbes, which are the true agents of fertility and plant health. My potting soil is 50/50 good garden soil and good comopst, hence heaving with microbes. I'm flumoxed by all the talk of soil-less or sterile potting mixes. Perhaps it's a way to sell something; a shame when a superior product is to hand for free. By the way, I've been using the soil/compost mix for over 30 years with no ill effects. Regards, Peter.