Many people don’t give much thought to cleaning their gardening items… the pots and containers you enjoy year after year or the tools you use. But soil-borne parasites and funguses can live in your pots and on your tools—spreading disease to your plants. And keeping your items clean will extend their lifespan.

The most critical cleaning is your garden tools. I don’t just mean the once per year cleaning, either. You want to regularly remove dirt from your tools. If you’re using a set of pruning sheers, make sure to prune plants and parts of plants you know to be healthy first. Then if you prune diseased plants or plant parts, you should have an alcohol solution with you to wipe the blades after each cut. When you prune a plant, you could be transferring any illness on that plant (or on that part of a plant) to another plant (or to another part of the same plant). It’s a good practice to wipe the blade of your pruners or loppers with simple rubbing alcohol after each cut.

Any tools you use on a regular basis should be cleaned immediately after use. If you think there is nothing to clean, give it a good once over. My grandmother had a push-mower and after every mow, she would flip the mower onto it’s side and use a wire brush to remove the excess clippings that were stuck to the underside of the mower. This kept the moisture of the fresh-cut clippings from rusting the underside and dulling her blade.

Pots and containers that are used year after year should also be sanitized. If you change plantings in the container, it should also be sanitized before the new planting. Brush all of the loose dirt from the container and rinse it out. Then take a soft brush or an old rag (a retired washcloth or part of a retired towel works well) and rinse out the remaining dirt that is clinging to the inside and outside of the container. If you still can’t get the dirt off, soak the containers in cool water for an hour or so.

Then take a bucket of water with just a small amount of bleach added. Immerse the smaller containers in the mild bleach solution and use the rag or brush to wash out the larger containers. Make sure you follow this up with a thorough rinsing.

Be sure to take extra care at the end of your growing season to clean and condition your tools so that they are ready to use the following growing season. That means cleaning and where necessary, oiling them to seal the metal and lubricate moving parts.

Keeping your gardening tools and containers clean helps ensure that your plants are healthy and your gardening time isn’t wasted on a yard contaminated with fungus (among other things). Take care of your stuff and it will take care of you!