Recycled Items for Gardening Purposes

[Phaedra]

This year I kept a lot of plastic packs (for meat) and small wooden boxes (for fruit) from the supermarkets.
The plastic packs are used as dripping trays or carriers for young plants ready to be transplanted.

Small wooden crates are used as standers to make those module trays closer to the extra lights or storage.

Another thing I like very much and used a lot from last year is the yogurt cups - they can be used as small pots or cut into strips for marking.

What do you recycle for gardening purposes?

 

[flowerbug]

This year I kept a lot of plastic packs (for meat) and small wooden boxes (for fruit) from the supermarkets.
The plastic packs are used as dripping trays or carriers for young plants ready to be transplanted.
View attachment 47999 Small wooden crates are used as standers to make those module trays closer to the extra lights or storage.
View attachment 48000

Another thing I like very much and used a lot from last year is the yogurt cups - they can be used as small pots or cut into strips for marking.
View attachment 48001

What do you recycle for gardening purposes?

almost everything organic gets recycled via the worm buckets or buried in a garden or used as a mulch to help smother weeds.

some plastic containers in the 1 quart size i'll keep for reusing. everything else is normally put out for recycling that gets picked up once a week. we don't do much seed starting here other than direct planting so that cuts down on container keeping that i used to do. mainly because i don't have room for them all. eventually all the plastics will start to get more brittle and crack so they need to be traded out for newer containers after several years. the more exposure to sunlight the faster they'll degrade.

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. but there is one use we have for a nice sized metal can and that is for burning oily paper that comes from changing the oil for the lawn mower or doing other things with oil and gas. i keep that can around for that purpose.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I have long realized that the re-sealable plastic containers a lot of takeout food is packed in make excellent seed incubators/mini greenhouses. So much so that there is sometimes a competition in my family over who gets them, me, for my seeds or mom, for food storage (there probably WOULDN'T be such competition if mom thought long term and didn't keep taking most of the containers we get over the winter (when I am not using them) and tossing them in the recycle bin because "there are too many for me to store."

Takeaway soup containers also make dandy thing to ferment tomato seeds in (since they are also re-sealable, and so don't spill if the cat knocks them over.)

disposable chopsticks make pretty good short stakes/poles for seed labels.

 

[meadow]

My favorite blueberry picking container is a quart-sized plastic deli container with a red handle from Brent's delicatessen in the San Fernando Valley (California) circa 1980-ish. I miss their potato salad.

I think the most used recyclables for me are from Costco: heavy duty aluminum trays (I mean, these suckers are solid!!), probably from meatloaf or something at the deli? And then the rotisserie chicken containers. Wish I'd saved the tops for mini greenhouses as @Pulsegleaner mentioned, but the bottoms are great watering trays. I've even poked drainage holes in some for seed starting trays too.

Quart-sized yogurt containers are used as pots. I have tons of lids that will probably be cut up into labels.

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

All containers from grocery - deep plastic pie rounds. Foam trays from meat. Certain yogurt containers. Domed precooked chicken containers.

 

[Phaedra]

A small germination box

 

[baymule]

Y’all are way more inventive than I am! But I did dumpster dive at Lowes one hot July day and got probably a couple hundred 4” plastic pots of dead plants. Dumped the soil and dead plants, got lots of trays to put them in too. That was several years ago, still use them and gave some away.

 

[meadow]

Y’all are way more inventive than I am! But I did dumpster dive at Lowes one hot July day and got probably a couple hundred 4” plastic pots of dead plants. Dumped the soil and dead plants, got lots of trays to put them in too. That was several years ago, still use them and gave some away.

That's brilliant!

 

[ducks4you]

I think we are ALL here a little bit "Amish"!
In the USA, if you have a Monical's pizza, you can reuse their clear salad container (that you get with a family pleaser order, as a nice and deep seed starter. Some have attached lids so you won't lose the lid. I have leeks now growing in two of them.
IF I had the time I would list a whole BUNCH of stuff that I reuse!!

 

[meadow]

I think we are ALL here a little bit "Amish"!

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