Recycled Items for Gardening Purposes

[seedcorn]

Today I learned that the Amish use pre-packaged food and may even eat at fast food restaurants. They even use battery powered lights! Who knew?

Most have generators hidden in back supplying electricity. Several communities of Amish also use tractors and skid loaders. Good luck finding an Amish without a cell phone.

 

[ducks4you]

The American Amish are selective in what they will/won't do.
The make excellent products, so we buy from them.
NOT cheap, either, just quality.

 

[seedcorn]

The American Amish are selective in what they will/won't do.
The make excellent products, so we buy from them.
NOT cheap, either, just quality.

Again, that is subject to your clan and your definition of quality.

 

[meadow]

I had a large skein of burnt-orange yarn that never made it to the donation bin before lockdowns, and is now being used for pea trellising. The color is beautiful against the deep green of the peas (now 3 feet tall!).

My Great Uncle used to use his wife's leftover yarn for bean trellising. He'd say that he was "knitting up some beans."

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I actually often use yarn on my beans as well, but for a different reason. Due to having such limited space, it is typical for me to have several bean plants growing in the same pot, which may or may not be (or appear to be) the same kind. In such a restricted area, I generally don't need a trellis; a pole is good enough. But since I save my seed on a plant by plant basis, and the plants tend to climb over EACH OTHER as they climb up the pole, it can be hard to tell which plant a pod is actually on (and hence, into which pile it's seeds need to go). So I tie a short piece of colored yarn at each free area on the vine, with a different color for each plant, so I can tell which is which.

 

[Phaedra]

My greenhouse peas - with the twigs and hemp stings, they are growing into a kind of...ART!

 

[digitS']

I am offering a caution regarding using string in the garden.

Cotton string may hold up in the sun okay for your trellising but it will not deteriorate in a compost pile quickly.

One of the worst advice that I ever gave was to a whole roomful of gardeners. I said that I used cotton string in the garden and just composted it with the plants at the end of the season. In the real world, I had just done this and didn't know the results. What a Mess!

After leaving it to compost for a second year, it was still a Mess.

I suspect hemp string would compost more quickly. I don't use hemp string because it can only remain intact for a couple of months, probably because of our intense Summer sun. However, I'm assuming nothing on composting string after the Mess that I made for several seasons.

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

I had a large skein of burnt-orange yarn that never made it to the donation bin before lockdowns, and is now being used for pea trellising. The color is beautiful against the deep green of the peas (now 3 feet tall!).

My Great Uncle used to use his wife's leftover yarn for bean trellising. He'd say that he was "knitting up some beans."

i have some old blue cotton yarn that i've used for making netting for beans or peas. now that i'm staying away from climbers i've not had to mess with it. peas i'll block plant and let them climb against themselves. i'm late with planting peas this season. i better put a reminder down for that because i'm obviously not getting it done. for me the best way to remind myself is to send myself an e-mail and leave in my inbox so i see it until the task gets done.

 

[Marie2020]

Okay this isn't for plants but I found a lovely little abandoned children's playhouse, this is perfect for my chickens garden. It's a great cover for so they can be outdoors in the rain or sun plus I'm going too add sand inside so it can become a Sand bath for them. I now want to find a good branch to add inside for them branches make great perches.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I am offering a caution regarding using string in the garden.

Cotton string may hold up in the sun okay for your trellising but it will not deteriorate in a compost pile quickly.

One of the worst advice that I ever gave was to a whole roomful of gardeners. I said that I used cotton string in the garden and just composted it with the plants at the end of the season. In the real world, I had just done this and didn't know the results. What a Mess!

After leaving it to compost for a second year, it was still a Mess.

I suspect hemp string would compost more quickly. I don't use hemp string because it can only remain intact for a couple of months, probably because of our intense Summer sun. However, I'm assuming nothing on composting string after the Mess that I made for several seasons.

Steve

I wonder how raffia would hold up? I usually have some of it lying around as a byproduct of my beadwork (a lot of African beads are traditionally strung on raffia for export). Since that is just flexible straw more or less (well actually palm leaf, but functionally straw) it should biodegrade fairly rapidly (the question, of course, is will it rot TOO rapidly!)