I burnt the peat!!!!

[snailgal]

Hey Paul,
No kidding - I put a pan of peat in my oven and after about an hour it caught fire!!!! The smoke was horrendous I had to quickly throw it up the garden, goodness knows what the neighbours thought I hope they didn't think it was our dinner ;D
Tell me - would I need to sterilise coir or would this be "bug free"

[Paul]

I've no idea, I imagine it would be cleaner.

Perhaps thoroughly wetting the peat before you put it in the oven would help, or just less time, 30mins should get hot enough to kill 99% of things that live in it.

Still, I use the microwave, it doesn't smell and is quick. I think even if you don't need to sterilise coir when you get it, unless you want to buy new all the time, you'll end up sterilising it. You can't get all the snail poo out of the soil, no matter how hard you try so sterilising the soil kills any bugs that may be on it.

paul

[pheonixx]

Ohhh LOL Val that cheered me up no end.. ;D

[Correne]

Oh, Val,

That made me laugh - I can just imagine you running down the garden. ;D

I am going to try peat when my coir stocks run out. Paul has made a great page on the subject of substrate. Have a look here:

www.petsnails.co.uk/index.php?action=care&type=substrate

No more fires, OK?

Correne

[snailgal]

Correne. I haven't been able to get any coir here, the only stuff I have seen comes 'laced' with fertiliser, where did you manage to get yours? I can get in on line in the form of bricks which you soak, but there is a minimum order of 15 bricks!!! I'm going to see how I get on with vermiculite first, have you tried this?

Val