Just completed my first hydro grow and this time round I want to throw a few pots in to fill the gaps. Got myself some Westlands multi-purpose with added JI and i'm wondering... do you cook this stuff to kill any potential buglets?
Last grow was pest free so i dont wanna introduce anything from a bag a dirt!

Advice anyone??

what do you mean by cook ? bbq or something?

I've never had a problem with compost that is bought from a grow shop and stored indoors. but i have heard of fruit flies and other pests coming from bags that have been stored poorly from outdoor garden centres.

most/all pests can be controlled or eradicated in one way or another so it's not the end of the world if you were to catch something.

Yeah but not quite as tasty..
Ive read something on here (but now cant find it ) about people putting soil/compost in the oven on a high heat to kill bacteria/bug larvae etc

ive heard of people who have put it in the oven in sum big dish ,but ya can only do abit at a time ,just buy sum b bizz all mix soil as its good stuff,as said get it from indoor shops ,not g/den centers,the allmix costs more but no bugs ..

Cheers smokie but the only place near me is a B&Q hence the westlands..

i (used to, doing coco now) buy the small bags of westlands from homebase, the small bags are kept indoors and are properly sealed. if i you want to cook it, i'd do it on a low heat, at around 70'c any bugs and what have you will be killed off, you don't want to completely sterilize the soil, and high heats will change the chemical composition of the soil, and possibly create a few nasty chemicals, although that last comment is just speculation

Kill any microherd in the soil turning it into essentially a hydroponic medium.

I've read about people doing this, I would only do this with a compost if I was using it a second time and then I would mix it 50/50 with fresh and give it a bubbled compost tea.

Cheers Scraglor and Tutu
I decided to just pot up straight into what i think are 9Ltr pots. Westlands seems to have a pretty reasonable rep so thought i'd give it a go

I use westlands and have been very happy with the results my trials in the garden (Non dope plants) lead me to believe Westlands is one of the better if not best of the major commercial brands. Dope wise can't say as until my last grow everything I did was a disaster, now I seem to have finally got it but growing out 200+ non dope plants really helped.

Growing hydro, you can still kill the microherd off and switch to a chem fertilizer (Don't use hydro nutes) if you wanted and I'm sure results would still be stunning and then you'd guarantee no cross contamination but if you were soil only I'd say it'd crazy mighty as well grow hyrdo.

I'd consider coco hand watered, then you're growing the lot hydro.