Recycled Items for Gardening Purposes

[Blueberry Acres]

Plastic takeout boxes as mini greenhouses for starting seeds

 

[Phaedra]

I re-used the paper bags of tulips to store my own bulbs, pretty practical.

 

[SPedigrees]

glass mostly is recycled too but for older or more interesting items we have a glass garden for them and also a rust garden for some pieces of metals. it's just quirky yard art kind of thing not for actual use.

I love this, flowerbug! I'd love to see a picture or 2 of your glass and metal gardens.

Like you, I recycle (or return for deposit) most of my glass bottles but I've used some to mark newly planted trees while they were little, to avoid accidentally chopping them with the string trimmer.

And these ring my perennial beds for protection against overly enthusiastic lawn mowers.

As to metal, the rusted pipe on the left in this picture below, was formerly a corner post in the paddock fence around our barn. When I removed this fence 15 or 20 years ago, I had to dig this post out because the base of it is immersed in a pillar of unremovable concrete. So I stored this behemoth in the cellar with a collection of other metal broken or useless parts awaiting re-purposing. Many times I toyed with the idea of hauling it to the dump with other trash, but then a use for it surfaced. I had to use the shovel a second time to plant this post in the garden, but it now has a second life as a solar light holder, and it is there to stay! It is as immovable as a light post, as it was a fence post. It has a second career now!

 

[SPedigrees]

As a West-coaster, I need a translation. No clue what that is referencing! 😆

The Amish are a religious sect who inhabit farming communities in the east (mostly in Ohio-Pennsylvania). They do not use electricity or telephones or motorized vehicles, but use horses for transportation and to pull farming equipment. They farm without pesticides or genetically modified seeds, and they hand-sew their clothes and bake from scratch. Essentially they live as all our ancestors did back in the 1800s and before.

 

[Phaedra]

Glass is a good idea! I think smaller glass jars are suitable to put on the bamboo canes or any sticks for supporting like what @SPedigrees did, not only for marking, but also for safety purpose.

I used to put plastic bottles for the same reason, but they are too light-weighted and easily blown away. Glass jars or bottles can do the job better.

 

[flowerbug]

I love this, flowerbug! I'd love to see a picture or 2 of your glass and metal gardens.

i have one picture up already on the website that shows the rust garden (in the foreground) and the glass garden (on the mid left there's bits of it showing). it's an old pic from 2012, we can't see much anything any more as the trees have grown so much:

[if you go to anthive com and pull up the decorations project you can get the more detailed picture other than the thumbnails...]


and a part of the glass garden but also from a long time ago so not current... just put this picture up.

 

[SPedigrees]

i have one picture up already on the website that shows the rust garden (in the foreground) and the glass garden (on the mid left there's bits of it showing). it's an old pic from 2012, we can't see much anything any more as the trees have grown so much:

[if you go to anthive com and pull up the decorations project you can get the more detailed picture other than the thumbnails...]


and a part of the glass garden but also from a long time ago so not current... just put this picture up.

These are gardens after my own heart, flowerbug! Also I visited your website and love your water-less lighthouse. Do you have problems with weeds growing up through the gravel areas and ground decorations? If we had moved to Arizona as we once considered doing, I had planned a cacti garden similar to yours with lots of glass and metal features.

 

[flowerbug]

These are gardens after my own heart, flowerbug! Also I visited your website and love your water-less lighthouse. Do you have problems with weeds growing up through the gravel areas and ground decorations? If we had moved to Arizona as we once considered doing, I had planned a cacti garden similar to yours with lots of glass and metal features.

the gravel areas are crushed rinsed limestone that is placed over either thick black plastic or old carpeting that was repurposed for the job. if they had dirt or debris washed into them or on top of them they'd sprout weeds and yes i do have spots i have to weed but on the whole it's not as bad as mowing. there are spots in the front that i hardly have to do any weeding at all because the area is bounded by the driveway, the house or other gardens that have a defined edge which i keep weeded.

any holes through the base get ants coming through and the moles sometimes run underneath. yet in the end long term stability isn't something that nature really does. the gravel in the back is being colonised by some thyme and i weed that once in a while but it's nice so i leave it there - eventually it might all be covered. the big pine tree back there is now dropping tons of needles on it all the time so that is getting weedy.

that swing has been there for 20-something years and i've probably sat on it a half dozen times...

 

[ducks4you]

The Amish are a religious sect who inhabit farming communities in the east (mostly in Ohio-Pennsylvania). They do not use electricity or telephones or motorized vehicles, but use horses for transportation and to pull farming equipment. They farm without pesticides or genetically modified seeds, and they hand-sew their clothes and bake from scratch. Essentially they live as all our ancestors did back in the 1800s and before.

They use cell phones.

 

[ducks4you]

They ALSO don't pay taxes, but charge big bucks for the stuff that they sell.
They are peaceful and kind, but they are a religious sect
We used to have our CW Reenactment tack made and repaired by them,