Grow Your Own Magazine

What article either household or other have you recycled for use in your greenhouse/garden/allotment. It strikes me that gardeners are an ingenious lot and very good at seeing an alternative use for all sorts of articles. I use a small office trolley with wheels on it (originally used for stationery etc) for keeping my trowels, gloves, string etc in it. Everything is kept together and it's light and moveable. What have you recycled?

I use a plastic colander for sieving compost to cover small seeds. Probably lots of other things too, but I'll have a think and get back to you.

I have a bag, orignally designed as a nappy change bag that I use to carry my seeds, gloves, knife, trowel, plastic bags and whatever else I decide I need up to my allotment. It's great because it's all plastic, so easy to clean.

My Dad used an old UPVC window to make me a brilliant coldframe.

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Imagination is everything, it is a preview of what is to become.

I've always wanted to plant a fig tree in an old washing-machine drum.

...and I'm collecting old windows to build a bespoke (read 'Heath Robinson') greenhouse!

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Resistance is fertile

Does an old wardrobe used as a potato clamp count?

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

paul; i've got my drum at the plot waiting for the tree , but also using an old double mattress with the cover taken of so just the springs showing to grow my suger pod peas up ( matress laid on it's side )

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---) CARL (----
ILFRACOMBE
NORTH DEVON

a seed planted today makes a meal tomorrow!

www.freewebs.com/carlseawolf

now in blog form ! UPDATED 01 / 04 / 08

Pee-ing in the bed, as it were?

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Resistance is fertile

ha ! ha! very funny

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---) CARL (----
ILFRACOMBE
NORTH DEVON

a seed planted today makes a meal tomorrow!

www.freewebs.com/carlseawolf

now in blog form ! UPDATED 01 / 04 / 08

If you have heavy weed infested soil then a small stick of dynamite works well.

Not the usual way but boy does it turn over the soil.

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Eight Little Green Men or Eight Legged Grove Machine?

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Absolutely!

Paul I'm assuming their is a logical reason why you would want to plant a fig tree in a washing machine drum

8LGM I think that would a recycling step too far

Figs fruit heavily if their roots are tightly confined - you bury the drum and plant into it. It even has ready-made drainage holes!

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Resistance is fertile

When my old gas cooker gave up the ghost I saved the oven shelves as I thought I'd fix them to my shed with cup hooks and hey a very strange trellis!

One of my cats lept on my shoulder as I was carrying a bowl of dirty washing up water - result water everywhere, kitchen carpet ruined, now have fitted carpet in allotment shed...

Kitchen cannisters make their way up to the allotment to store bird seed etc and I eye up any cracked china to smash up for the area in front of my shed.

Sue

Polystyrene Fish boxes - left them out in the rain for a month to let the smell of Norwegian Cod disappear then sowed Flat leaf Italian Parsley and Rocket in them, the boxes actr as great insulators so I overwintered in tunnel and am currently croppping it just now - not bad for 35 miles north of Inverness.
Car tyres - I am going to plant out my courgettes and then place a car tyre round each one - will keep down weeds, protect the young plants from the wind, and the black rubber should absorb heat during the day and keep the plants cosier at night !
Blue Plastic Barrels - cut the lids off, filled with rainwater, net bag of locally collected seaweed in each barrel - lid back on held in place with a large stone - wait about 6 weeks - seaweed feed for my plants.
Pallets - compost bins, cold frames, fence, windbreaks, firewood etc etc etc
Old spade handle - ideal dibber for leeks and young plants raised in plug trays.
Sure there are more but at the moment that's all I can remember

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Rat

British by birth
Scottish by the Grace of God

Blog updated Wednesday 17th September

I use the hard plastic fish boxes - they can be found washed up on the East Coast. Have usually only brought home the good ones - got 2 filled with garlic at the moment - but with the lottie I can foresee using ones with no bottom as a little netted bed to keep the villains off!

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Earth laughs in flowers. Ralph Waldo Emerson

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com

Updated September 29th - Bean drying.

I have an old folding clothes airer that I plan to hang my drying onions on ... maybe tied by their leaves, maybe pegged for that full-on, eccentric-lady look

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

Is this true though? How come figs planted out fruit then? Is it perhaps constrained growing conditions ie lack of nitrogen/nutrients leading to fruits rather than leaf growth?

Here's a quote from Dave'sGarden.com

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

I use:

* Muller light yog pots for planting seeds into
* Sports drink bottles (spare ones as I usually refill what we do have) as a mini watering can for seedlings
* Yeo Valley large natural yoghurt pots as containers to freeze my garden rasps and back alley balckberries in
* Make my own compost
* Newspapers will soon be getting turned into seeding pots too

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Shortie

"There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children; one of these is roots, the other wings" - Hodding Carter

Car tyres - I am going to plant out my courgettes and then place a car tyre round each one - will keep down weeds, protect the young plants from the wind, and the black rubber should absorb heat during the day and keep the plants cosier at night !

In Barbados there used to be someone who did a lot of this in a big way - I have thought about it for spuds as I reckon you could layer them up like he did, as they grew... anyone have any thoughts on this?

I've always assumed this is the case, but am prepared to stand corrected. I guess it's quite a good evolutionary advantage - throwing your energy into seed production when vegetative growth comes to its limits. It works though, in my experience. Your soil quality point makes sense too.

Spud57 - it can be tricky to get hold of car tyres these days. The tyre shops are under the (mistaken) belief that they are not allowed to give the old ones to you. The fact is they are allowed to, but they should explain that the 'duty of care' (in terms of disposing of them safely) is now yours.

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Resistance is fertile

Yes, I was thinking that even if you 'contained' the fig but then gave it too much food supply you'd be partly defeating your original aim.

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

just sawed up a load of pallets my mate keeps giving to me to make into a raised bed, just planning on useing the rest to make a 3 stepped raised herb bed ( if you can understand that ) butter containers i save for collecting seeds in, 2 litre bottles cut cross ways and with the bottoms off, looks like im growing them sometimes hehe

[quote=Paul Wagland;194386]I've always wanted to plant a fig tree in an old washing-machine drum.

oooooooooooo i did that with my spuds but i couldnt get the spinner off as it had rusted so i had a twirly one