What can you re-use in the garden?

[inishindie]

Use polystyrene beads from packaging to mix with your compost when filling containers, they create pore spaces for water and allows air to flow, it will make the containers lighter too.

Make an interesting addition to paths walls and borders by incorporating bottles. Push the bottles into the ground or wall until only the base is showing, use different colours for a pleasing effect. There is crushed glass on the market at the moment, these look like shiny pebbles and are effective in pots as well as the garden.

Combine broken concrete, old bricks, wood and natural stone to form walls with texture and form in the garden.

Old railings can be turned into fences or trellises

If you have old paint in the shed this can be used to paint the railings or any old furniture that raised beds are made from.( I can’t think of anything else to do with old paint that would be safe)


Don’t discard your old bathroom, plant up the old toilet with petunias or turn the sink into a birdbath. The bath could make an interesting water feature; it would make an ideal home for a water Lily

any more??

cheers

Ian

http://inishindie.blogspot.com/

[Scarecrow]

Originally Posted by inishindie

The bath could make an interesting water feature; it would make an ideal home for a water Lily

Hey Ian
Out here folks frequently take old bath tubs and turn them into worm farms see this link here

We've used the wooden frame off the kids old bunk bed as the strawberry bed edging, old net curtaining is re-used for netting to keep the bugs off the vegetables and soft drink bottles are used to get water to the roots of plants and not wasted by run-off.

Back in September I ran a series of blog posts for 9 weeks called Tuesday Re-Use Days these included things like:
Old fridges we use them for benches and storage but again they are made into worm farms too See Here
Door frames
Washing machine inner tubs as planters.
Margarine and yoghurt tubs for seed trays.

Not very much gets thrown out here as you can imagine...
...I've just brought 5 big bags full of shredded paper home from the office at work. I'll put this in the chook run and let them scratch around in it for a while then use it as mulch on the garden beds.

Cheers
Scarecrow

[inishindie]

Great stuff Scarecrow!!

All it takes is a bit of imagination. I tried the washing machine tub as a planter for spuds one year, it was very productive and looked really industrial in the veggie plot too.

Someone I heard about actually mad a path out of old CD's thinking that they would stay shiny!! The surface wore off really quickly and they were left with a pretty messy path.

I do like the idea of pushing bottled into a wall,path or border though to give a good effect. It reminds me of the Stig of the Dump book I read years ago!

Cheers

Ian

http://inishindie.blogspot.com/

[aalina]

you can use certain ideas like Make an interesting addition to paths walls and borders by incorporating bottles. Push the bottles into the ground or wall until only the base is showing, use different colours for a pleasing effect. There is crushed glass on the market at the moment, these look like shiny pebbles and are effective in pots as well as the garden.

[claire2965]

why not try using upturned plastic bottles for cloches too. saw this in a magazine gonna try it out to see if it works.

[amzie]

Those little plastic punnets you get fruit and veg in at the supermarket are perfect for seed starting or using as plant pots. You can use them to fill up the bottom of a very deep planter too if you're only going to need a shallow amount of soil.

Sticks and fallen branches are perfect for DIY trellises, wigwams etc. If the sticks are too short, tie them together with some twine. Looks cute and rustic as well! I build all my wigwams this way. It's great to build a climber to keep brambles neat and tidy as well.

I've found chipped plastic office tidies etc on the side of the street and have used them to plant up peas.

Broken mirrors can have their edges neatly taped to make them safer and can be used to reflect light back onto a plant. It's great in the greenhouse or just attached to a fence/wall behind a plant pot.

Plastic bottles/milk jugs aren't just great for cloches/plant pots, theyre great for mini watering cans. Pierce holes at the top, near the cap and a small carb hole at the bottom, fill with water whilst covering the hole, screw the bottle top back on and then when you want to have a spray of water, simply turn upside down and remove your finger from the carb! Perfect for the greenhouse or tabletop garden.

[Peapod]

Will someone please explain the bottle concept in a bit more detail? I'm not quite sure how a buried bottle will give me a glistening effect.