Grow Your Own needs your help!

[RuthC]

Does anyone recycle unusual items for use on the plot? Household things/kitchenware perhaps or outdoor activity/sports equipment? The more innovative or eccentric the idea or tip, the better! Thanks.

[pdblake]

I used my sons old cot ends, sides and base for bean supports

I've also used the bases and ends of an old bunkbed for the same and turned the sides and safety bars into greenhouse staging.

[FionaH]

There are quite a few posts on here about this sort of thing already, a quick search should bring them up

[rustylady]

I think most of use use whatever comes to hand. Hard pushed at the moment to think of specifics, but will get back to it.

[Snadger]

• Old hockey nets for covering brassicas,
• Old bath as a sunken pond
• Reinforcement heavy duty mesh for growing peas up
• Used bricks for bed surrounds
• Packing case for a chook hut
• Eight old doors for an octagonal chook coop
• Flower buckets for tomato pots
• Gallon bleach containers for peppers
• Pallets for compost heaps
• Stone sinks for water and sand for chooks
• All wood offcuts burned in home made woodburner in greenhouse
• 1000 litre plastic tanks for water storage
• Old wheelie bin for feed storage.
• Old drainpipes for growing carrots and parsnips
• Scaffold boards for bed surrounds
• Old stone fireplace remade into greenhouse bed surround
• Metal framed tables as greenhouse staging
• Debris netting as windbreaks

If I think of anything else.........I'll let you know!

[Scunny Zeb]

I have a few old curtain rails that I use as cloche hoops

[Eco-Chic]

I decant grit and sand into 6pint milk containers rather than lug the sacks through the house.

I have 3 single mattresses which I got from Freecycle and will strip them down and use the springs to make a fruit cage (I may need to net inside). The stuffing and ticking can be used for re-upholstering chairs but mine have been in the garden and may be mouldy.

I got the idea from a Freecycler who had placed a double springs against a white painted wall. It had rusted and made an attractive architectural feature.

[Sue]

Hi Ruth
From what I can remember, I've got the shelves out of an old fridge and the oven for use as cloche supports or to cover raised beds against fox damage.

Old weights used as mulch on pots along with all the broken china I manage to accumulate. I've got an old fire guard for use as a plant cover.
The central pole of my dressmaking mannequin is in use as a plant support and the remaining bits of body are under the rockery with an old plastic box to give some shape to the rockery. The rockery is constructed out of bits of old concrete path that had been dumped.

I've got an old one tonne plastic square bag that held gravel in use as a compost bin and plenty of old dustbins and large containers to collect water.

Any unwanted kitchen items that can be used get taken up to the plot, anything from wastepaper baskets and microwave bowls in use as pots, old tins as plant pots, a kitchen cabinet on wheels made it up the allotment as shed storage and took the glass doors off my kitchen cabinets to use as cloches. My old wheely basket has been split in half, the wheels bit makes for use as a carrier and the bag bit is used to store fleece. Old cat litter trays go in the greenhouse as pot trays.

Any old clothing that's suitable gets used in the compost or as hanging basket liners. Tights, used bits of elastic etc make good plant ties.

best wishes
Sue

[SueA]

I think I've probably posted these on here before but I have used lots of odd bits & bobs in my garden as containers including an old tin bathtub, galvanized buckets & watering cans, a belfast sink, old casserole dishes etc. & have made a decorative mosaic on an old satellite dish. I have in the past used old plastic hoola hoop rings fastened to the fence for ivy to grow round & on the top of canes with fleece draped over to protect plants in winter but have since bought 'proper' plastic hoops & tunnels.

[voddybabe]

I recycle everything in my garden, My raised beds are made out of old pallets, my tomatoes are grown in old buckets, i also grow things in the recycling buckets the council give out. I use my sons old goal posts as canes.My greenhouse is even made out of old door and windows from a factory that was closing down. You cant beat using someone elses old "rubbish" and giving it a new lease of life as something else. Recycling all the way for me.(and usually its free!!).

[HayleyB]

I have an old wheelbarrow which will be sporting strawberries from this year the last season was garlic.

Polystyrene boxes used by fishmongers are brilliant for growing and moving around, sturdy and strong but very light, also the polystyrene gives a little added protection for overwintering..

[FionaH]

Check this out
http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...ead_30193.html

[Two_Sheds]

lol @ Fiona

[janeyo]

I use my milk bottle tops, and those little foil trays that mini cakes come in for making dangly bird scarers. And old cds for hanging off my fruit trees. It makes for very sparkly plot!

[Hans Mum]

old baths for carrots, blueberries, strawberries..........