Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat

Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: Christine on June 03, 2009, 21:26

Title: The endless pot washing
Post by: Christine on June 03, 2009, 21:26
For weeks I've been planting out veg from trays and pots calabrese, broccoli, lettuce, pease, marrows, courgettes, cucumbers, runner beans ...). It's taken more time to wash the pots and trays than to plant the full allotment.

OK so maybe not everything needs to start off this way, but it's what works on my plot. But better done in small doses than having a festering pile to do at season's end.

Does anyone else have the continuous pot washing all season?
Title: Re: The endless pot washing
Post by: Bozwell on June 03, 2009, 21:33
Try using loo roll tubes or richy's paper pots.
They'll biodegrade in the soil and no washing pots to do after.  :D
Title: Re: The endless pot washing
Post by: RichardA on June 03, 2009, 21:40
I have a water tank (like the cold water tank in house roofs) with a wooden cover. I keep water and a spot of cleaner (jeyes fluid) in it and dump pots in it as and when. Occasioonally I fish them out and give them a quick wipe and put them in a hammock made of debris netting that hangs betwen the shed and the greenhouse. Alternate rain and sun rinses off and dries and I put them away when I feel like it. Easy.Wooden cover on tank is just the right height for potting, making hanging baskets, sawing bits of wood etc and sitting on for coffee. Perfect.
R

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Title: Re: The endless pot washing
Post by: shaun on June 03, 2009, 21:49
put them in the dishwasher  ;)
Title: Re: The endless pot washing
Post by: Christine on June 03, 2009, 21:50
I do - the sink is my dishwasher  :D
Title: Re: The endless pot washing
Post by: shaun on June 03, 2009, 21:53
I do - the sink is my dishwasher  :D
put them in the washing machine then  ::) ;)
Title: Re: The endless pot washing
Post by: SnooziSuzi on June 03, 2009, 21:53
well,  my OH kindly fitted this into my shed:

(http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc275/SnooziSuzi/Allotment032.jpg)

The tap isn't plumbed in, but I get water from the tap outside my plot and I boil it up with my camping stove and leave the pots to drain or dry them with an old tea-towel that I keep at my allotment.

 :tongue2:
Title: Re: The endless pot washing
Post by: Christine on June 03, 2009, 21:56
Try using loo roll tubes or richy's paper pots.
They'll biodegrade in the soil and no washing pots to do after.  :D
I inherited a squillion pots with the allotment (they were hiding in the cold frame) so I use them  :lol:

I also grow a lot in tubs as I have a concrete hard standing and an area that won't dig (don't ask about it's history, you don't need to know).
Title: Re: The endless pot washing
Post by: mumofstig on June 03, 2009, 22:02
Quote
(don't ask about it's history, you don't need to know).
ah go on do tell ...i love a good story :D
Title: Re: The endless pot washing
Post by: Trillium on June 03, 2009, 22:30
You wash pots?  :blink: Mine are lucky to get stacked in a corner to let the rain wash them out.
Title: Re: The endless pot washing
Post by: compostqueen on June 03, 2009, 22:58
I did loads in my dishwasher  :D
Title: Re: The endless pot washing
Post by: blackbob on June 04, 2009, 00:11
I did loads in my dishwasher  :D

why?

no need you know ,keep you water for seedlings clean,and you have the job cracked.
as not comming for dinner either :D
Title: Re: The endless pot washing
Post by: Christine on June 04, 2009, 08:05
Quote
(don't ask about it's history, you don't need to know).
ah go on do tell ...i love a good story :D
The allotment site may have been an allotment site for 40 years but in days gone by no-one wanted allotments and all sorts of things happened on them. The present association secretary took one of the plots on the site many years ago and found he had to dig out a buried car.  :wub:

So an undug area on what was a garage site and which has been used for pigeon loft followed by compost heap, cold frame and greenhouse previously on a plot which has a hard standing that was once used as a working garage leaves one worried. At least the compost heap grows marrows and courgettes and the cold frame holds a squillion pots and the hose pipe out of sight of passing people may well be best left to its present uses.  But any archaeologists on the site are welcome to bring up their tools and clear the area to see if there is anything of interest under it  :D :lol:

But it does explain why I wash out pots rather than make paper ones - idle bones rule. Except that I have to wash them.
Title: Re: The endless pot washing
Post by: mumofstig on June 04, 2009, 13:26
Quote
found he had to dig out a buried car.   
:ohmy:

No wonder you'd rather leave it 'as is' :lol:
Title: Re: The endless pot washing
Post by: Trillium on June 04, 2009, 14:39

But it does explain why I wash out pots rather than make paper ones - idle bones rule. Except that I have to wash them.

You'd have made an excellent employee for a big Victorian manor house garden :D They had thousands of clay pots to wash.
Title: Re: The endless pot washing
Post by: Noodles on June 04, 2009, 16:09
I never wash my pots (with the exception of the ones I had tomatoes in that got blight last year). Do they need washing  ???