I only know of one person who seems to routinely sterilize his potting medium. Ken, honey, where are you....? When I was studying at Va. Tech, we used to autoclave large batches of soilless mix on a routine basis, but it was reused from semester to semester. A brand new shipment was never steamed.

If you are using a properly stored commercial potting mix, you shouldn't have problems. These products are steamed (autoclaved) prior to packaging, effectively getting rid of most living things.

If I were paranoid about buggies, I'd throw a bunch of the mix in a CLEAR plastic bag, moisten it, and leave it in the hot summer sun for a few weeks.

Which soil are you contemplating sterilizing? Your Potting soil or the soil in your garden?
Some people routinely sterilize thier potting soil by pouring boiling water on it, or baking it in the oven (a very stinky way to do that) while others of use have not found a good reason to do that at all.
Sterilizing your garden soil may aid, somewhat, in eliminating some of the bad gals but it will alos kill off the good soil bacteria and fungi that you need to feed the plants that grow in that soil. Many of those good gals help control the baddies as well, so after sterilizing the baddies get in and grow faster then before since there is nothing to help control them.

'good gals' and 'bad gals'?

Typically it is only seed starting soil that requires any sterilization. And that usually comes already sterilized although it can be made using a variety of components, often themselves already sterilized (i.e. peat.....and let's skip any arguments about using peat!)

For potting up plants beyond the seed starting stage (those with true leaves), sterilization is not a requirement and most never bother. And you don't even want to think about sterilizing garden soil. Not only is it very difficult to do with any degree of ease but sterilized soil is just that....devoid of life. And a lifeless soil will not produce good results.

Sterilization of the soil, that is the killing of all living things there, decrease soil fertility. It was proven in numerous experiments.

What is needed is to shift microbial population in the soil from degenerative microorganismes to regeneratives.
It is possible. Such is the theory of Teruo Higa (EM-1).
But it is possible in reality too.

Higa claims that using EM eliminates the need for crop rotation when fungus Fusarium begin dominate in continuous monocrop cultivation. EM-1 in soil kill Fusarium and make soil healthy.

EM-1 is relatively new product and highly scientific.
In reality it was a result of contemporary re-thinking of very old practise of using fermentation instead of composting in Japan's agriculture.

So, just water the potting soil with fermented teas (non-alcoholic beverages) and your soil will be healthy again.

Here is a link that might be useful: How to make fermented

Oh so i should leave the idea of soil sterilization..
One of my friend does that..I have no earlier experience of sterilization and now i guess i shouldn't get into this thing
The ideas you people have suggested are far better than the sterilization process

Thanks all :)

You could check out the Container Gardening forum here at gardenweb. From my reading it seems that most avoid reusing container soil because of changes in the drainage/aeration of the soil as the organic part of the mix decomposes. There are also threads there about some having good results combining a portion of used to new to sve $ and making your own mix that could possibly sve some $ as well . Sterilization to me would be more for starting seeds under lights to help prevent damping off.

Best of luck.

above s v e = s a v e

Here is a link that might be useful: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/contain/

Thanks for the link and the information...