In the spirit of recycling, what garden project are you most proud of?

[blurose]

Well folks, I've been here for a little bit now and have been also trying to read past topics. I've heard many referrence garden "projects" i.e., recycling garden innovations that just hit you on the head one day, which you made real for your garden. So, I'm gonna ask you all to relate to us the project you are most proud of doing. I'll start with my customized, 6-drawer cedar dresser potting bench. I started with an old 6-drawer dresser that was originally covered in what appeared to be white formicatype stuff, popular in the 60s I think, and that I painted white with stenciled on dark blue vining cabbage roses. I used this dresser for years but it was damaged in my move from Sacramento CA area back to Oregon. Anyways, I took this thing outside, cut a hole in the top big enough to give complete access to one top drawer. You coulda dropped a sink into it but I didn't have one. I lined that top drawer with a vinyl shower curtain and replaced it in the dresser. I placed a lid to a rubbermaid tote over the opening in the top. This was my potting soil storage. I then removed all of the rest of the drawers and placed in boards to make shelving for my extra pots, fertilizers, soil ammendments, sprayer and insectacides. I hung my child-sized garden rake and hoe, my trowels and my cultivators from hooks on the end of the dresser. I used the removed drawers as planters for strawberries. As they were cedar lined I was able to get three years of strawberry use out of them before they fell apart on me.

 

[sparks]

When the kids got bigger and we took our "recycled" pool out, we used the deck boards to build a walk-in cold frame. Covered it in plastic for several years. Last year we were given a lot of nice windows and my DH framed it all in. Also put recycled siding on two sides. It really grew some great seedlings this year. Now I am putting small plants in for a fall harvest too! I love it when things come together like that. :happy_flower

 

[Tutter]

That's very clever!

You sound like me. I needed a tallish, thin dresser for a corner, and found one painted horribly. So I painted it white, as you did, and I didn't use a stencil, but painted a vining plant with lavender/purple flowers on it.

Then I found small, glass, antique drawer pulls in a beautiful blue, and replaced the wooden ones with it.

For the top, a piece of marble slab was afixed. I thought it came out really well! I didn't make a gardening project out of it, but I was proud of it, anyway!

Okay, a garden project in the spirit of recycling? I don't think I've ever done anything really clever...let's see....

I've made large, old, bathtubs into planters.

A 6' x 18" tall pool into a garden.

Nope, nothing very clever for gardening, just older containers into planters, cans and things into watering stations, and yogurt and sour cream containers as starting pots etc. Most of my really good ideas for recycling aren't gardening related; especially since I'm super restricted in what I can use in the garden, or near the plants. If I remember anything, I'll post it!

 

[Beekissed]

Not entirely imaginative, but I recycled lumber from an old building that needed torn down at a friend's house, where I also got the benefit of tearing down and keeping about 100 ft. of chain link, the posts, and the gates. All this was carted over the state line to my house and became raised beds, a wood shed, and my new 65 ft. x 10 ft. chicken run. Then I spied some decomposing round bales, in another friend's horse pasture, that had been fenced off. Carted those home for compost in my new raised beds. Then spied a utility company wood chip dump site and carted home several loads for mulching my permanent pathways and my flower beds and landscaping.

Oh, and a couple of weeks ago I recycled my sister's unwanted 12 wk. old roosters and one eggless hen into delicious BBQ using my old galvanized washstand legs under an old hog trough, covered with scrap fencing as the "grill" (yes, I covered the wire with tinfoil, folks! ) You wanna see a redneck BBQ, grilling chicken over an old hog trough in your front yard is reeeeedneck, y'all!

Blurose...sounds like your potting bench is a cutey! Would love to have one like it! I used to have an old porch swing mounted on the side of an outbuilding, at working height, for a similar purpose. The slatted seat allowed for the spilled dirt to fall through into tubs for reuse. Also used it to work with our fair rabbits. Mounted hand tools on the sides like your dresser....came in real handy!

 

[Nubsmum]

My recycling has been small scale for sure but I have "reclaimed" about 30 buckets-some 3 gal, some 5 gal-for earth box buckets. So far the plants are doing great. Next year my plan is to plant all my hot weather crops in them. Tomato, pepper and cukes and melon. I wish I had started these earlier. They keep the plants much warmer and in the Pacific Northwest, we need all the help we can get here.

I learned about Earth boxes off another gardening site. They can be made with plastic tubs or buckets.

By the way the three gallon buckets were free from a Tillamook Ice cream parlor and the 5 gallons were pickle buckets from Sweet Tomatoes restaurant. I have them saving them for me. The 5 gallons are great as they have handles and I use them for all sorts of gardening chores.

You guys are really creative with all your ideas. Reusing items is so important. Less in the landfill for sure.

:rainbow-sun:tools

 

[simple life]

I used cedar pallets to make our raised vegetable beds.

My potting bench is an old woodworking bench that I
bought at an auction for 10.00 . Its solid, and has a great work surface. it also has draws and storage underneath.The great thing about it is I can still use it for the woodworking I do, so its multi purpose.

I will turn anything into a planter.
I have an old wood stove that I put in the back yard under this ancient tree. I put flowers in the open doors of it and on top in little pots.
Everyone who has ever entered our yard loves that for some reason.

I have antique flour sifters that I grow herbs in on a table in the back as well.
I have used various antique sugar bowls, creamers and teapots for flower arrangements when I have a social gathering at my house, say a bridal shower.

My husband never knows what I am going to do with anything that I bring home. He comes to the auction house and stands there laughing and he'll say "now what are you going to do with that?" Its usually not what it was originally made for.
My picnic table in the back is actually a big library table.
A library was replacing all of its tables and I got this big sturdy one and refinished it.It looks like a dining room table now. I love it in the backyard though, it looks like the ones they use in the country decorating magazines.

Right now I am collecting things that I can build my garden shed with. All salvage pieces.
I justed posted in a different thread about garden decorations, that I hung some of the original windows from the house on the back fence behind the vegetable garden.
Most of my garden decorations are recycled.

 

[karanleaf]

howdy, My husband & I tried to reused & reclaim what ever we can. A few years ago back in Kansas after we had decided not to fix our old gas bbq grill, I told him I was going to plant flowers in it. He thought I was kidding, but I surprised him... If I can find the photo I will post it . But grill planter has long since been left when we moved from that property. I wonder if the new tenants used it?

Since we moved back home we (he) has build our outdoor furnace room & our chicken coop from reclaimed metal sheeting. The sheeting came from a roof that was blown off his lodge building in town during a storm. We also reclaimed many 2x4's, 2x6's, & some 2x10's that were reused in the framing. We are planning to use the rest of it to enclose the storage area for our newly built greenhouse.

Vic has repurposed some very heavy oak beams for the framing of our raised beds. And we were able to recover 4- 12' & 2- 10' plant tables from the old greenhouse that had closed here in town. I have also been very lucky that folks in our comminuity have been brings me plastic pots and containers for plants.
My grandson Noah & I have made flower boxes out of old barn boards. There is so much items can be reused for.. It great to see what people come up with... :coolsun

 

[mirime]

We also used recycled wood to build a 5-6" tall picket fence around our backyard (about 72x130 ft). Since all the board feet were/are all sorts of widths and heights, we have taken some time to rip them all to size, etc. We're still not really done yet! I want to use the leftover wood to build some raised beds!

I also will be including an old headboard into a little fence somewhere....not sure where yet, though....I have learned that we have to do one project at a time so we don't get overwhelmed!

 

[karanleaf]

Boy, Oh Boy, Mirime, you are not kidding, We have gotten ourselves over whelmed many a times also. Getting too many projects started at one time then not able to get some finished. The past 2 years we have learned to make a list of our projects. Each month check off the ones complete and put the ones needing finished on top of the next months list. My husband said he was going home to fill our raised bed with composed soil from our pasture compose pile. :tools And he still is working on getting his old radio tower up to put his wind generator up and running. We are planning to put together my compost bins with pallets that we have laying around. Oh there I go making a list I got to stop that. Great ideas everyone has been coming up with I love to reclaim and repurpose items Let's go find some more stuff

 

[blurose]

I'm really loving reading all of your great ideas and accomplishments. Keep them coming and thank you. I too have an old gas BBQ that is broken (soft metal tube for gas line coming out from under the pedestal) and I'm just gonna turn it into a charcoal BBQ for now. It will be an easy fix. Just remove the gas line, control knob and the burner underneath the first grate, replace the grate and add the charcoal. VWALLAH, a charcoal BBQ grill.