Is there a better way?

[K.C.]

This pot washing took me 6 hours, and that was after a month of soaking in dish washing detergent and water. This is a part of repotting I just don't like. Getting all new ones just seems like a waste. Any better ideas out there?

[katrina]

Dish washing soap won't sterilize/disinfect.

I have to be very careful of chlorine bleach (I'm allergic so I use heavy duty, tall gloves through the entire process)...but I soak all my pots in bleach water overnight. After a good long soak, I scrub them really well and then rinse thoroughly...then let them dry.

The clay pots I allow to dry outside in the sun for a couple of weeks before I use...to allow the chlorine to dissipate/out-gas. This drying phase is virtually impossible to do during the Winter so I tend to let any clay pots pile up until the temps warm in the Spring.

Even when it's warm...I'm bad about staying on top of them so, yea, I usually have a few hours worth of work to get them done. Kind of a PITA for sure...but I'm not pitching perfectly good pots that I can reuse.

[quiltergal]

I agree that dish soap and water will not sterilize your pots. I give them a bit of a scrub with a brush and then soak overnight in bleach water and rinse. I don't tend to let them pile up. I like to sterilize them as I go. So after a repotting session I sterilize the used pots.

[james mickelso]

I think all that is a waste of time unless you are a commercial grower. A quick dunk in bleach will be just fine.

[K.C.]

I like the quick dunk in bleach though, but it dose not work with my obsessive compulsive personality, I wont it all off. I use about 100 pots in the spring and 50 in the fall. I miss the days when $25. would get a box of pots on the back porch.(UPS)

[Dart21]

Quick dunk in bleach solution followed by a scrub if necessary and/or spray down with 70% isopropyl alcohol will be more than sufficient (if it works in mycology it certainly will work for orchids and other plants no matter how sensitive).

[stonedragonfarms]

If you are a super clean freak, recycle them at your local garden center and get new pots; if not, follow what the others have mentioned with a bleach dip; alternately I would imagine you could soak them in Star-San or one of the other cleaners that are used in commercial beer/food production and accomplish the same thing. Are you using these for orchids or..?

[weederwoman]

I worry about bleach staying in the clay pots even after rinsing. Would soaking in physan 20 work as well and be safer than clorine?

Laurel

[Polarizeme]

I soak my clay pots in straight water after cleaning them in bleach. The chlorine leaches out with the water rinse. I've never had a problem with my plants after cleaning this way.

[RJSquirrel]

the plastic pots are so cheap it cost more to spend 6 hours washing them than replacing them...
I enjoy my time off too much to spend it washin plastic pots...I recycle and buy new ones.

I dont have enough of a orchid herd left anyway and all I have are empty pots.