Recycled Pet Water
- When giving fresh water to my pets, I empty the old water into my flower garden.
- —Guest annette
Easy Composting
- I get 6 newspapers every day. I don't even bother to shred them, but put them down in thick layers between vegetable rows. By the following spring, they usually have decomposed completely. I also have huge black trash cans that we throw all kitchen waste other than meats into. I use 4 of them and have compost year round.
- —Guest MidMom8949
Take Cuttings for More Plants
- Get a head start on summer, plus save money & time by making cuttings of your favorite plants by rooting in water over winter.
- —Guest lyn sieffert
Reusing Onion Bag Netting
- My dog's water bowl turns into a Robin's birdbath in April. Dumping the muddied water and refilling her bowl repeatedly became a nuisance. I used a net bag from onions and stretched it halfway across the bowl, tucking the tail below the bowl. This leaves 50% of the surface exposed for the dog to drink but prevents robins from fitting into the water bowl and ruining it. Now the robins and the dog and I can more peacefully coexist in the Eden that is my garden.
- —Guest wakingdream
Winter Composting
- I put all my veggie and fruit skins, egg shells, even orange skins and paper, all shredded very tiny, into my compost. All go into an ice cream bucket along with old flowers and leaves. At first I use this to mix some soil for potting little plants and then everything goes out after winter, into my veggie garden.
- —Guest Amy Jooste
Recyling Water Bottles for Garden
- I take quart size water bottles or larger. With the smallest drill or heavy pin, make 1 small hole just below cap. Fill with water and shove down into root zone of any plant. Saves water and our precious environment.
- —Guest charles
Coffee for Acid Loving Plants
- I put used coffee grounds at the base of my azaleas and hydrangeas.
- —Guest Becca Goodwyn
Recycled Mulch
- I use my shredded paper as mulch in my vegetable garden.
- —Freilah
Repurpose Old Grill as Potting Table
- My husband took the old grill apart and saved the frame. He put boards across the empty space and now I have a table for planting or just working in the garden, it already has wheels.
- —Guest meg12451
Tomato Warning
- If you don't want tomatoes in your garden don't add tomatoess to your compost! The seeds just never seem to die and you will have a bed full of toms.
- —Guest JOK
Compost
- I was cleaning out a space between my rose garden and the neighbor's fence; the fence made a trench that was full of old leaves and soil. When I removed it, it was full of beautiful mulch and earthworms. I transported all this loveliness to a growing patch of broccoli, mulched my plants with it, and watched everything take off. Hopefully, the worms stayed!
- —lva1021
Auger for Planting and Digging
- I use a 5 inch plant auger (spiral digging tool) in my cordless drill in the garden, for bulbs and flowers. Also take a 3 foot 3/8 inch metal road and weld a 3/16 x 5 inch crosspiece about 2 inches from the sharpened end and you have a great weeding too. Great for briers and loosening dirt.
- —SECURET1
Kitchen Container to Hold Compost Items
- I use a large margarine container to collect my kitchen scraps for composting. The margarine container sits in one side of my sink and I take it to the raised vegetable bed daily (even in the winter months). I collect potato peelings, coffee grounds, onion skins, cabbage leaves, tomatoes, etc. Hubby takes a pitch fork and turns it into the soil periodically. One spring, we had unusual vines growing....looked like potato vines. Sure enough...I had an assortment of tiny red potatoes, tiny baking potatoes and tiny white potatoes; about 2 gallons of potatoes! We had about 10 nice tomato plants too.
- —Guest Virginia
Recycle Plates
- I go to the thrift store & purchase pretty plates (various sizes, designs, colors) & tuck them into shrubs & flower gardens. I have a plate with an Italian theme (vegetables/herbs) tucked in by the rosemary plant. The tea cup and sauce can be a real treat to put in a large container pot as a decoration (filled with some stones). Around my patio table, I have a collection of (large) pretty seashells. I call my attempts at decorating "Yard Junk"...others call it "Yard Art".
- —Guest Virginia
Broken Ceramics as Garden Art
- If you have a broken ceramic vase, you can put the pieces on the earth in decorative way.
- —Guest nada
