How to Sterilize Pruning Tools

Pruning out diseased foliage and dead or dying wood is an important way to stop plant diseases in their tracks, but contaminated hand tools can spread disease to healthy parts of a plant and around the garden. Sterilizing hand pruners, loppers and saws is a quick, simple way to prevent this problem. Here's how to do it.

Things You'll Need

• Hand sanitizer gel
• Clean rags

Instructions

1. Prior to pruning, squirt a nickel-sized dot of hand sanitizer gel onto a soft rag. Open up pruners, loppers and shears as wide as they will go and spread the gel over the entire surface of each blade. If you are sterilizing a saw, spread the gel on both sides of the cutting surface. Let the gel sit on the blade for 15 or 20 seconds.

2. Wipe the gel off with a clean, dry cloth, being sure to remove any sap or wood particles from the blade too. Then, wipe the blade with a damp rag to remove any remaining gel residue.

3. Prune out the disease-affected foliage. Repeat Steps 1 and 2 before you move on to a new plant or put the tools away, and after each cut when pruning or sawing out branches and larger stems.

Tips & Warnings

• If you don't have hand sanitizer, you can also use rubbing alcohol to sterilize the blades. Just wipe the blades with the alcohol and allow them to air dry.

• It's a good idea to sterilize pruning tools after each use.

Resources

• DigginFood