Snowy Day on the Farm

My office is closed today because of the snow storm.  Nice to sleep in for a change.  But, just because it is snowing doesn't mean there is nothing related to the farm to do.   We are avid recyclers.  We habitually recycle plastic, aluminum, steel cans and glass.  We also recycle the plastic pots that we used for bedding plants last year.  We grow our tomato, pepper and basil plants from seed. (More to come on that in a few weeks).  We sell many of these at the Farmers Market and the rest we set out in our garden.  Instead of throwing away the pots after the plants have been set out, we save them to be reused.

This year we had a couple of years accumulation of used pots.  Several hundred, in fact. 
Below is a picture of some pots stacked to dry after they were washed.

We have a small bathroom with a tiny shower just off the laundry room.  The shower is just big enough for one person to take a shower in and has one of those detachable shower heads that is attached to a long hose.  But, it works great for our pot washing project. 

First I put a large plastic tub in the floor of the shower and fill it with warm water, add dish detergent and also bleach (for sterilization).   About 30 pots at a time go in to soak for a few minutes before being washed.  Tom has already dumped out any excess potting soil left over from previous use.  We learned the hard way that this was an important step!  The floor of the shower is sunken into the concrete floor of the bathroom a few inches, so it is easy to sit on the floor and put one's feet in the shower while doing the actually pot washing.  I use a long-handled kitchen brush for this.  There is enough room in the floor of the shower to put about 20 washed pots while they wait to be rinsed.  Once I get about 20 pots washed, I take the shower head and rinse them good, put them on a towel where they await Tom's expertise in stacking them into the pyramids that you see above.