Community-garden sanitation and crop-rotation audit — Columbia, MO.

How this work is done

A documented method, so this packet comes out the same whoever does it.

Bring

• A garden map or notebook recording what grew in each bed for the past several seasons
• Stiff brush and water for removing soil/debris from tools before disinfecting
• ONE disinfectant product: Lysol All-Purpose Cleaner, plain household bleach, or 70% rubbing alcohol -- never more than one at a time
• Linseed, tung, or mineral oil, if using a bleach dilution on metal tools
• A shovel and an out-of-garden burial site for diseased plant debris

Steps

1. 1. Map the past three growing seasons of the plot by plant-family group: cucumber, cabbage, tomato, beet, bean, or onion family (per University of Missouri Extension G6202's grouping).
2. 2. Flag any family that occupied the same bed within the past three years as a rotation gap.
3. 3. Where the flagged bed is cabbage-family and carries any prior clubroot or soilborne-disease history, note the extension-documented limit that clubroot alone can persist seven to twenty-plus years and plan a longer break, not a three-year one.
4. 4. Before moving tools between plants, remove all visible soil and plant debris with a brush or water, then wash with soap or detergent.
5. 5. Disinfect with exactly ONE product per its own label: Lysol All-Purpose Cleaner (about 2 minutes contact, no corrosion), a 1:9 bleach-to-water dip (corrodes metal, wipe with oil afterward), or undiluted 70% rubbing alcohol (not reliable on fire-blight-cut wood). Never combine disinfectant products.
6. 6. Remove any diseased plant debris found and bury it away from the garden; never add it to a compost pile, since typical pile temperatures do not reliably kill plant pathogens.
7. 7. Log the season's rotation plan and sanitation practice used, and route any suspected disease sign to an NPDN plant diagnostic clinic or Cooperative Extension office rather than diagnosing or treating it here.

What counts as done

• Plant-family history mapped per bed for at least the prior 3 growing seasons, using the standard's six named family groups (cucumber, cabbage, tomato, beet, bean, onion)
• Tool cleaning and disinfection practice recorded against the cited extension protocol: debris removed, washed with soap, disinfected with exactly one named product per its own label, never mixed with another disinfectant
• Diseased plant debris disposal method recorded; buried away from the garden, never composted
• A rotation plan logged naming the next plant family for each bed, following the 3-year rule of thumb
• Any bed with a documented clubroot or other long-lived resting-spore pathogen history (Pythium, Fusarium, Rhizoctonia) flagged with an extended rotation break beyond 3 years, per the cited honesty limit

Proof is measured against these, not judged by taste.