Keeping garden and the house clean... how do you manage?

Realistically, gardening brings a lot of outdoors indoors, soil, mud, bits and bobs. After a long, satisfying day in the garden you just want to sit down, have your cuppa or glass, sigh and enjoy.

And then the Hoover points out that there is an inch of soil on the carpet, windowsills are splashed with plenty of biodiversity and the kitchen sink (where you just scrubbed the tired gardening fingers clean-ish) makes Ganges river look like an attractive spa resort. Oh, and it's nearly dinner time. What's for dinner?

So how do you manage both the garden and the house? Early in the year most of us who don't have a heated greenhouse do our sowing on the dining table, and even outdoors jobs require frequent visits indoors, bringing in all the mud.

Who cleans up? (Disclaimer- anyone saying oh the wife does all that, she's really house proud and enjoys scrubbing after me, bless the little hen harwf harwf will be banned for life. Sorry, that's my inner Nordic speaking. )

 

I've found that keeping lots of those pound store crocs really helps. I have 3 pairs in my size and then lots of big ones for guests. I can switch out fairly often and reduce how much I bring in. Then every few days, mine get washed, and the ones for guests get washed after each use.

My biggest cleanup friend is my kitchen sink. I got my twin tubs replaced with one big 15x30" one and my goodness what a difference it makes. I use a rectangular plastic tub from Ikea for handwashing some of my things that don't go in the dishwasher because filling that sink would be a waste but for rinsing pots and things, it's size and 10" depth is dandy because the mess stays inside. I can even fit my plastic two step ladder in there to clean it

I do have a fold down potting table that hooks up to the hose outside but it mostly gets used for cleaning pots in the fall.

 

Not being ist in any way if I make the mess I clean it up, and quickly, else my life isn't worth living,

 

I try to keep wellies for gardening and a tray just inside the door to take most of the dirt that drops off them. As for washing hands, I do try to use latex gloves UNDER gardening gloves, since ordinary gardening gloves seem to let through lots of dirt. This reduces the amount of hand scrubbing. And you can get a good few uses out of a pair of latex gloves. But garden takes priority over house...

 

My 6 pairs of crocs and rubber shoes do a sort of waltz round the various entrances, so never enter the house, although tiled floors are a doddle. Planned a utility room with attached loo and deep, spacious sink. French houses don't have interior windowsills, so no seed trays indoors. The gardener isn't the housework-creator here...the 4 cats are!

 

I wear Wilko's garden clogs. There is a mat just inside the front door which I stand on when I come in. There's another small mat that I put the clogs on, after taking them off and changing into slippers. Same with shoes, but they then go into a cupboard next to the front door. The clogs stay on the mat as I'm "in and out."

All this is necessary as apart from the kitchen, bathroom and toilet, we have this colour carpet throughout the house.

 

I don't do any sowing inside - the younger cat is a fiend for running amok through any soil or plant matter she can find in the house, though she's not at all interested if it's outside Our flat has a very odd layout, so the door to the garden is in the spare bedroom; although there is a doormat it is constantly being rucked up between the bottom of the door and the carpet, so it never does the job well. Luckily being the spare room we don't use it for much other than going in and out, so running it over with the hoover a couple of times a week, and keeping the door shut the rest of the time, is usually enough unless we have people staying!

There's no avoiding the mess when I need to move clippings/waste/compost etc from the garden to the curb however; I dream of one day having a garden with access to the road that doesn't involve going all the way through the house and leaving a trail of mud behind you...

 

After 30 odd years of marriage to a clean freak I am beginning to toe the line.
Muddy shoes stay outside the house. In winter, muddy wellies go in the zip up bag.
If our clothes are covered in mud they go straight in the washing machine. We have hard floors downstairs and any dropped soil / weeds etc are dealt with as they happen with the battery vac.
Tiled floors are scrubbed and mopped, wooden floors are mopped - probably once a month.
Other than that, we will clean a bit every day so that its not one huge chore.

 

My clogs live in the cupboard by the back door. I used to purchase these from Lidl - good and sturdy but a bit heavy. Now I have a pair of these: Stylish Ladies Garden Shoes Sizes 3-8 - Backdoorshoes® which are lovely and lightweight and also nice and durable.

I stick to doing repotting etc on top of the cupboard under the window in the shed whenever possible. That has an old piece of plasticised tablecloth pinned over it, which helps.

Replacing the lawn with gravel a couple of years back also helped.

And a nice bath with Badedas is my favoured method of cleaning myself up, afterwards!

 

Love the clogs. I also have gravel. Also like soaking in the bath. You have all round from me.

 

Oops, forgot to mention my little cleaning helper. If I get potting soil on the floor, or trail in leaves from outside, I let them dry then turn on the roomba. I mainly use the gardene doors from the kitchen to go into the back yard and the kitchen has tile floors. Mr Roomba does a good job.. why Mister? He's the only fellow who helps me hoover.

 

Clearly I have missed the bit of DNA which manages "tidiness" (possibly close by the "label the seedlings"- one). Thanks Parents.

The clogs are a good idea, if they look fun they might actually get used. I'll get the grass pattern ones. Thanks @Clare G

My lifesaver is a wipeable tablecloth, 80p from Tesco. If I remember, I cover the kitchen table with it before starting any messier jobs, and when I finish, just shake it in the garden. Works a treat if I remember to use it, but usually things happen in a rather spontaneous way in this household

Last night I wiped the hard to reach skirting boards behind the said kitchen table. Spraying them with water might have been a better option, surely that amount of soil, dust and seeds would have germinated into a lovely orchard.

 

I get more mess from my Grandaughter eating her breakfast than I bring in from outside. The garden is the most important thing now; cleaning can wait

 

Yep I have gardening clogs at the back door but more often than not early morning I still whizz out there in my slippers..I should have shares in slippers I go through so many pairs.

 

Been hanging on the wall for years, I really dont get the super clean, antibacterial, lifestyle of today, think it brings on all kinds of allergies etc.
A bit of mud never killed anyone, but not so sure about antibacterial cleaners