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June 01, 2012

Re-purposing~ Getting resourceful in the garden.

If you look around your place, you will find many things that can have a second life in the garden. Here are a few things I use:
Old untreated fence posts were used to create raised beds. Here I have pumpkins and cucumbers planted.
More of those fence posts are used here for a compost bed. This is for chicken manure/straw, grass clippings and fall leaves. When it gets composted enough, I will plant some potatoes to speed it up.
I found 4 of these metal corners used in construction to make a pyramid for the garden. Usually, I put pole beans on this, but this year I have tall pole snow peas. I used garden twine to make supports for the peas as they grow.
I kept all the fruit tree prunings and use some for row markers, some for tomatoe supports. A couple of big ones make great walking sticks. I keep a pile of them handy, they are great for so many things around the place.
To stretch the room in the garden, I put pots of herbs and greens at the end of the rows. I have cilantro, basil, lettuce, and kale all in flower pots. They can be moved around as needed, look good and add a bit of versatility to the garden space.
I used an old under-the-bed drawer (the inside part) to plant garlic in last fall. It was easy to cover it with a bit of chicken wire over the winter to keep out animals from digging in it. It warmed and thawed earlier than the other parts of the garden. Since I have no soil, only rocks and weed grass over this whole part of my yard, all plantings have to be in raised beds or boxes like this.
All these tomatoes are planted in cracked clay pots. One even has a big hole on the side. I put landscaping cloth inside them to hold the pressure of the soil and water, hopefully getting a couple more years out of these pots. The tomatoes seem to love them.
Happy gardening, everyone!