I wish I'd thought of that earlier...

[annew]

It was a Homer Simpson "DOH!" moment. I was really not looking forward to the horrible job of washing a couple of hundred plastic pots I needed for seeds, and suddenly I realised - they don't need to be clean(=with no dirt on them at all). They just need to be clean( = with no fungus/bacteria etc on them). Clean dirt is OK! So all I needed was a very large bucket filled with hot bleachy water, stick the pots in for a few hours, then rinse off roughly and throw into big baskets to dry off. No more scrubbing 

Any more glaringly obvious tips from other forumists?

[Martinr]

DOH Why didn't I think of that

[Tim Ingram]

Ditto. We have a huge number of old pots in innumerable sizes, but try to keep re-using as many as possible. And PS: any more update on your 'stegosaurus' bed? It must be good conditions to plant now.

[arillady]

Anne I realised the extra work too in cleaning them out completely this year. I just put them in a bucket with some bleach/water and then let them dry. So much easier.

[Pennine Wanderer]

Which is better Jeyes Fluid or bleach?  I use the former.

[Martinr]

I prefer bleach, less lingering smell and cheaper!

[David Nicholson]

Which is better Jeyes Fluid or bleach? 

Well, given the choice I'd prefer bitter

[Margaret]

I've been using bleach for a few years for pots and for capillary matting. Some of the matting must be six years old and looks pretty tatty but still does the job.

[Gene Mirro]

I don't clean pots at all between uses.   I also don't sterilize or pasteurize my potting mix.  But I don't have any nasty pests or diseases either. Your situation may be very different.

[Lori S.]

I don't clean or sterilize pots or soil either.  I also re-use potting soil from year to year.  As I plant seedlings , I knock a lot of the soil off and just put it back into bins to re-use the next seed-starting season. 

[annew]

Interesting responses! Another forumist suggested using Formaldehyde solution instead of bleach. I do recycle old bulb compost, but not on bulb seedlings or precious stuff, just in case. I don't sterilise my potting mixture, as I hope the microscopic organisms in it will be mostly friendly.
Will take pictures of the Stegosaurus bed and post later on.
Any obvious-when-you-think-about-it tips on any other subjects?

[Maggi Young]

My worry with sterilising composts is that the "bad" bacteria are  likely to recolonise much quicker than the beneficial ones and so the process will be self-defeating.

Common household  bleach is cheap and does the job of cleaning pots -  the easy "solution" in my mind .
 

[Tim Ingram]

I don't think that is true Maggi - I'm not sure you should regard soil organisms as either good or bad, it's more a balance that occurs. Fungi like armillaria occur naturally in woodlands but don't sweep through and damage many trees because there are plenty of other soil organisms competing with them. In our gardens (and nurseries) we are rather more sensitive! The JI composts were formulated after a lot of trials and research. Unsterilised compost is likely to have weed seeds in it, the build up of moss and liverwort spores, fungi like pythium and phytopthera and plenty else which could be a real problem when sowing seed particularly. I'm not too concerned about sterilising pots for nursery plants but always use new pots and sterilised JI compost for sowing seed, because seedlings are much more vulnerable. It is only soil based mixes that really need to be sterilised - peat, bark and other more uncertain organic based composts are pretty sterile anyway, which is why they are not necessarily the best thing to grow plants in!(except ericaceous and epiphytic plants that grow naturally in such 'soils'). Now lots of people will come back and say how well they do with the sweepings from the bench(!), but I think the bigger problem may be not quite knowing what the compost is made up with, especially now we are strongly castigated for using peat. Fine grade composted bark seems a good alternative, but not so available.

[johnralphcarpenter]

I use orchid compost from Ratcliffe Orchids for ericaceous and epiphytic plants that require perfect drainage, e.g. vireya rhodos, nepenthes etc. "ORCHID MIX - ready mixed for use, suitable for all kinds of mature orchids. Consists of medium bark, charcoal and perlite, 5:1:1". 70L for £27.

[annew]

Another "DOH!" moment. Why am I getting no seeds set on my best form of Cyclamen purpurascens??? Answer =It lives in a greenhouse from which bees are excluded!!! This year it sat outside through the summer and has masses of curly seed pods. Honestly, I frequently question whether my brain is the size of a planet after all...