Today was a beautiful spring day, and I decided to give all my empty plastic flowerpots a good wash. ( with soapy water). I do this every year, and no matter how nice the weather is, it's still a bit of a bore. There are hundreds of them, or, so it seems Once this chore is done, I can look forward to planting all my seedlings soon. (still in the making at the moment 8) ) Natural soap & hot water ( photo / image / picture from gardenelf's Garden ) Oh, and the apple is for the blackbirds! Flowerpot wash-day ( photo / image / picture from gardenelf's Garden ) This isn't even a fifth of all the pots.....
Gosh you're keen!! I just give the outside of mine a rub over to make them look better. They're stored in a plastic bag in the greenhouse so they don't get really mucky once they've been emptied - that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
Scrub-a-dub dub three pots in a tub How do you think they got there Twas the day to be washed with good soap and water Now they're as clean as can be. Jerry P.S. It's been that kind of day.
Jerry, that little poem is so funny, thanks! Eileen, ehhh, I wish washing my pots was indeed being keen, unfortunately it is not quite: a few years ago many of my home-grown plants suddenly got some nasty fungus & died. Someone suggested it could have come from one of the old flowerpots I had used, hence the birth of what I now call my flowerpot wash-day! PS, I'm not done washing yet, today my stone & clay pots get their annual bath. No soap for them, though, as this would absorb into the clay. This little job I hate even more, because those pots can be rather heavy
Its something we really should all do,..or sterilize them if they are stored for very long periods,..alas i only wash them to make them appear clean rather than thinking of washing off harmful spores and the like,..but i will be keeping washing in mind from now onwards,..prevention is better than cure.
Yippee, almost done, just a few large pots to go. Now comes the fun bit: filling them with plants for the summer, to brighten up my tiny garden :-D Loads of potting-soil to buy, and as I don't have a car, this means that my poor boyfriend will be making many trips to our local garden-centre, bless him!
spray them all with rubbing alcohol. If they disenfect hospitals and your body before a needle why not pots. I've been doing this for years and it works.
Donna, what a brilliant idea, I'll definitely give that a try when it's time to clean my pots again next year. Thanks!
Garden Elf... You are my hero. I have heard others..(not on here) "I never sterilize my pots, why would you? They never pick any diseases up from last years use"( yeah right). So, silly me, I didn't wash everything this year and wouldn't you know, I had damping off in my seedlings, even though I used new seed trays and unused potting mix. I must have somehow contaminated one batch of my seeds. Maybe I was moving stuff and picked something up that had spores on it from last year. I sure don't know, myself, or perhaps it was my potting mix left over from last year. It is very frustrating not to mention wasteful or perhaps expensive to loose a batch or two of seeds. I was looking at putting in some greenhouse cukes and tomatoes this summer and the seeds were $1.00 EACH ($1 euro = $1.32 dollars). That adds up fast if you are growing commercially.
