container question regarding bleach (plus free bucket idea)

Tue Jul 26, 2011 9:59 pm

Recently I went in to eat at my favorite restaurant (Jason's Deli) and I remember reading somewhere on this forum that pickles generally came in buckets, well I asked and sure enough they gave me two free buckets, humongous 5 gallon buckets.

Well, I asked and they tried to clean them out with bleach (and they still smelled like pickles lol).

My question is, how unsanitary is the bucket for growing organic container plants and is there any way to efficiently clean the bleach out of it for my plants?

Does anyone know how to handle this or have any suggestions? Thanks

Tue Jul 26, 2011 11:39 pm

Chlorine dissipates very quickly. Once the container is rinsed thoroughly and allowed to air dry, the chlorine is gone. Odor residue from the pickle brine or the bleach wouldn't affect the veggies.

Wed Jul 27, 2011 2:09 am

good to know. i was avoiding free containers with bleach in them. but im a still leery of bleach containers. i thought it had other chemicals then chlorine?

Wed Jul 27, 2011 2:49 am

bleach is made out of chlorine? I did not know that... so basically I should give the buckets multiple good rinses because I'm OCD like that and I have myself a good free bucket...

thats great to know.. Free buckets at Jason's Deli by the way guys, and delicious organic food (especially the salad bar)

Wed Jul 27, 2011 2:54 am

The active ingredient in bleach is sodium hypochlorite, NaClO. The reaction with water and various other substances is shown here.

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

Wed Jul 27, 2011 7:30 pm

Just read through the article.. I couldn't quite figure out though if rinsing it out with water would be a good thing and make it safe though.. At least not from what I read I had a bit of a hard time understanding the implications

Wed Jul 27, 2011 9:37 pm

Rinse it out good and put them in the sun for a couple of days that should take care of the problem (environmental engineer at you service). They probably didn't use that much bleach in them, unless they were using them for bleach storage.
If you are going to use them to grow things in you will need a lot of soil or soil substitute. Also you will need to drill drainage holes in the bottom of them before you can use them or the soil will sour and you plants will get water logged. There is a way to use the two together to make one self watering container, just thought I should mention that too.

Wed Jul 27, 2011 10:18 pm

CharlieBear wrote:Rinse it out good and put them in the sun for a couple of days that should take care of the problem (environmental engineer at you service). They probably didn't use that much bleach in them, unless they were using them for bleach storage.
If you are going to use them to grow things in you will need a lot of soil or soil substitute. Also you will need to drill drainage holes in the bottom of them before you can use them or the soil will sour and you plants will get water logged. There is a way to use the two together to make one self watering container, just thought I should mention that too.

ah put them out in the sun, good call.. ill do that

Yeah, I planned on drilling holes into it

Good thing you reminded me though, im about to leave the town im in and my brother in law has a drill..

ill look into the watering container thing

Thu Jul 28, 2011 12:20 am

self watering whaaa/??