[Christine]

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?

[Bozwell]

Try using loo roll tubes or richy's paper pots.
They'll biodegrade in the soil and no washing pots to do after. 

[RichardA]

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

R

[shaun]

put them in the dishwasher 

[Christine]

I do - the sink is my dishwasher 

[shaun]

I do - the sink is my dishwasher 

put them in the washing machine then 

[SnooziSuzi]

well,  my OH kindly fitted this into my shed:



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.

 

[Christine]

Try using loo roll tubes or richy's paper pots.
They'll biodegrade in the soil and no washing pots to do after. 

I inherited a squillion pots with the allotment (they were hiding in the cold frame) so I use them 

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).

[mumofstig]

(don't ask about it's history, you don't need to know).

ah go on do tell ...i love a good story

[Trillium]

You wash pots?  :blink: Mine are lucky to get stacked in a corner to let the rain wash them out.

[compostqueen]

I did loads in my dishwasher 

[blackbob]

I did loads in my dishwasher 

why?

no need you know ,keep you water for seedlings clean,and you have the job cracked.
as not comming for dinner either

[Christine]

(don't ask about it's history, you don't need to know).

ah go on do tell ...i love a good story

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. 

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 

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

[mumofstig]

found he had to dig out a buried car.   

No wonder you'd rather leave it 'as is'

[Trillium]

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 They had thousands of clay pots to wash.