A Pot Washing Party!

Hey, let's have a pot washing party! What images does this conjure in your mind? Well for the Two Block Diet club it's a group of gardeners getting down and dirty to re-use our plastic plant pots. It's mid April, the lilacs and cherry trees are blooming and it's time to get serious about seedlings. (Well, actually we're a bit late, but who's counting?)

Garden experts used to tell people not to reuse plastic pots because they might carry plant diseases but now in the era of ecological awareness they admit if you wash them out properly and sterilize them with a bit of bleach (9 parts water to one part bleach), it's better for the planet to reuse your plastic pots. Sterilization is particulary important for those plants that are more likely to carry diseases such as tomatoes and brassicas. The prospect of scrubbing my 70 or so small pots was very daunting so I was very happy when Kate and Dawn picked a time an a place and we did it together. DIT as opposed to DIY. Any pots (with a number 5 recycling rating) that were broken beyond use ended up in the plastics recycling depot that Kate has set up for things that can't go in our regular recycling stream.

Another neighbour lent us a big black basin, I brought some rubber gloves and Kate got out her bleach. A few of the neighbourhood girls set up an impromptu sidewalk sale and mostly bought from and traded with each other. The older kids set up a giant game of manhunt. We washed and scrubbed and caught up each other's news. It was hard work. My back was strained, I must admit I was in pain, but it felt good to bond together over dirty pots and to get the job done.

In fact a couple of days later Dawn helped me do another job--cleaning bags of used clothing, books and toys out of my front porch that needed to go to the thrift shop. I don't have a car, so we used her mini-van. What does this have to do with food? Well, not much, but it's an example of how the two block diet meetings and events improve the quality of our lives.