smelly Soil? any good?

[OROZCONLECHE]

So I have a 10gallon pot but it doesn't have a drainage hole, the pot was full and muddy, more water than soil, the plant is dead I'm going to drill holes for drainage but, the Soil smells like sewer, I want to put a new plant but is the Soil good to use?

[PunkRotten]

Nope, sounds like it is unhealthy soil. Good soil is supposed to smell earthy. Drainage holes are a good idea. I would just put new soil. You can do like 1/2 potting soil, 1/4 dirt from your yard, and 1/4 compost. Or do 1/2 compost with 1/4 potting soil, 1/4 dirt.


People don't like to put dirt/clay into pots, but I think if it is in small amount it is not that big of a deal for some plants.

[Kisal]

Personally, I would compost it before using it again. If I recall correctly, the smell is from anerobic bacteria, which are bacteria that grow in the absence of oxygen.

If you want to, you can sterilize the soil in your home oven, but be advised that it will stink up your house terribly. I've sterilized soil this way, but I wouldn't recommend it, unless you can have all the windows and doors of your house open for airing the place out.

Sterile soil is essentially dead soil. After it has been covered with foil and heated for a couple of hours, then allowed to cool completely, it should be mixed with fresh potting soil or compost, to replenish the good bacteria and microbes.

It's much simpler just to toss the used soil on your compost pile, if you have one.

[OROZCONLECHE]

Well I'm out of Soil, the pot is Ceramic and its imposible to drill a whole, The soil smells bad, its full of old roots, so maybe I can let it sit and re use it or is that bad idea?

[rainbowgardener]

That is a bad idea. Sorry, but you are likely to just rot out the next plants that go into it or infect them. It can't be that hard to come up with one pot's worth of soil.

If you don't have something else that you can use for a container and put drainage holes in (be creative, an old watering can, a 5 gallon paint bucket or pickle bucket which you can often get free at stores, etc), you could use your ceramic pot as a cache pot. That is get a smaller, cheap plastic pot. Put a layer of rocks in the bottom of the ceramic pot and then set the plastic pot with drainage holes on top of the rocks and fill the plastic pot with (fresh) soil. That way when water drains out of the plastic pot, it will stay in the ceramic pot, but the rocks will lift the plastic pot up so that it won't be sitting in the water (just be sure you don't put so much water in that the drainage water level hits the bottom of the plastic pot).

[OROZCONLECHE]

I guess that is what I'm going to do then, Just for the sake of the next plant, and The Ceramic one might just be sold in craigslist for some money towards some soil.

[Kisal]

You can drill holes in glazed ceramic, but you need a special drill bit for the purpose. A masonry bit will work fine for unglazed pots, but glazed ones are fired to a higher temperature and are much harder. Look for a bit made especially for drilling ceramics. You can probably find one online or in a store that sells ceramic tile.