There's tiny bugs ALL over my cooking soil!!!

Went to check the moisture on my soil that is 'cooking' and i found these tiny bugs crawling all over it. There are tons of them. They are very small mostly dark red with some smaller and white. Im supposed to be using this soil in a week or so. Please tell me im not screwed. What should I do? They are too small to take a pic with my phone. Im freaking out.

This soil is loaded with ewc, bokashi, fresh vermicompost, ect. So i know its bug heaven!

run some mild dish soap threw it to kill the lil bugs

sound like red mites

Trust me, they belong there and don't go fucking up your soil trying to kill them. They will go away, or at least reduce in numbers when all that fresh food gets more broken down.

Wet

Dish soap?? That wont hurt my soil? How much should i use? I have 80 gallons.

Wet knows his stuff!!!

Wetdog said:

Trust me, they belong there and don't go fucking up your soil trying to kill them. They will go away, or at least reduce in numbers when all that fresh food gets more broken down.

Wet

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So it will be ok to transplant plants into this soil?

Wetdog said:

Trust me, they belong there and don't go fucking up your soil trying to kill them. They will go away, or at least reduce in numbers when all that fresh food gets more broken down.

Wet

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What are they?

FamMan said:

Dish soap?? That wont hurt my soil? How much should i use? I have 80 gallons.

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WAY DILUTED, like 1/4 of a teaspoon per qt of water, or Safer soap, which works on most mites that I know of, but for true organics, you probably won't want to use it. Little red things on the soil is confusing though. Do they fly?

I just read red mites dont like moisture....my tubs have alot of moisture. And the lid usually has water drops all over the inside of it. No they arent flying. Thanx everyone for the quick responses. I appreciate it!

This is totally organic soil. Greasemonkey man helped me put it together. Hoping to begin my no-til with this.

FamMan said:

So it will be ok to transplant plants into this soil?

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But of course. BTW, I use a bit of soap when hydrating a fresh mix (peat based), and it doesn't hurt a thing. Ivory used to be the old standard, but Dawn seems to be the new favorite. No anti-bacterial of course and only a few drops per gallon, enough to break the surface tension of the water.

Jimdamick said:

What are they?

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I have no idea. Saw a great illustration of over 200 'bugs' that were all in one CC of soil and all were beneficial. Trying to identify more than a few is college level stuff.

Wet

Thanx Wetdog! Appreciate the help.

Wetdog said:

But of course. BTW, I use a bit of soap when hydrating a fresh mix (peat based), and it doesn't hurt a thing. Ivory used to be the old standard, but Dawn seems to be the new favorite. No anti-bacterial of course and only a few drops per gallon, enough to break the surface tension of the water.



I have no idea. Saw a great illustration of over 200 'bugs' that were all in one CC of soil and all were beneficial. Trying to identify more than a few is college level stuff.

Wet

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You hydrate the soil with soap to kill bugs??

No, to get the peat hydrated for the first time. Dry peat actually repels water, but once wet absorbes quite readily.

Think dry mop vs moist mop.

I only use soap as a surfacent (?), not for bugs.

Wet

Do they look anything like this?
This is a video of the mulch in my no tills.

These are hypoaspis miles, predator mites, they eat any pests like spidermite eggs, fungus gnat and thrip larva. they're definitely beneficial. If the white ones are as fast, but smaller, they're probably just immature, if they're slow moving and look like eggs, they're the type that feed on decaying organic matter and are also nothing to worry about.

An important thing to note is that if the bugs are feeding on decaying organic matter, or feeding on the bugs feeding on that matter, it's highly unlikely that they will attack living plants. Bugs that like living plants, don't like dirt, they like sweet sap and vice versa.

I know you can get pests from bagged soils and compost, but I think these invade during poor storage conditions. I doubt they'd invade a homemade soil mix while it's cooking.

Yeah, that ^^^^^^^

Wet

FamMan said:

You hydrate the soil with soap to kill bugs??

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you can, it'll do the same thing that the "coco-wet" does, the same stuff we were talking about in the PM.
And @Wetdog is a VERY knowledgable grower.
You can take his advise on growing to the bank, me and him have VERY similar growing styles and techniques.
Good guy
And like he said, it's totally normal.
If you were to take a microscope and looked at compost, vermicastings, cycling soil, anything like that, and it'd be like horror movie, all the little creatures that are dwelling in there.
Bottom line is this, if the "bugs" are eating your soil, they won't hurt your plants, the exception being fungus gnats of course, or thrips.. but i never get either of those

FamMan said:

I just read red mites dont like moisture....my tubs have alot of moisture. And the lid usually has water drops all over the inside of it. No they arent flying. Thanx everyone for the quick responses. I appreciate it!

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you can also put a couple pieces of melon in there, and it'll attract those mites, if you really are "bugged" by them..
heh.. see what i did there...