Preventing mold from house plants

October 16, 2009 6:26 PM

Is there an easy way to keep mold spores from potted plants at bay?

It's getting cold, here in Ithaca, and we've brought our recently acquired house plants in from the porch. Shortly after that, I started coughing a lot. I think it's mold from the plants' soil. The coughing is worse if I hold one of the pots up to my face, so I'm pretty convinced that's the cause. I'm wondering what solutions there are, short of getting rid of the plants.

I've heard of sterilizing the soil, but that seems like a short-term solution: there's still a nice, moist environment for the mold to grow back into. I would trust it more if you could mix the soil with some kind of anti-fungal, like the one in krud kutter. Is that possible?

I've also heard of covering the soil with aquarium gravel. Does that really work? It seems like there would be plenty of interstices for the spores to escape through...

I've also thought about wrapping the pots in some kind of filter fabric, with holes for the plant stalks. Anyone ever tried something like that?

posted by Coventry to health & fitness (3 comments total)

Try this. They've got a time-lapse video of a strawberry getting moldy without this, and another one of a strawberry staying perfectly mold-free with it.

It isn't cheap, but it appears to be amazingly effective.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 8:26 PM on October 16

An easy, organic solution that my research greenhouse uses is to sprinkle cinnamon all over the soil. Natural anti-fungal.
posted by emyd at 8:32 PM on October 16

Thanks, Salvor and emyd. I'll try the cinnamon first. Sounds very promising.
posted by Coventry at 10:04 AM on October 17