TAKE A HANDY COFFEE SACK CARRIER BAG

Cafe´s often give away coffee sacks free, or for a small donation, and they have all sorts of uses in the garden. The pictured carrier is just the right size to lay on the ground to catch pruning clippings and it works well as a boot liner too.

To make a carrier, unpick the string from the side seams of a coffee sack. (Don‘t throw away the string – it‘s perfect garden twine.) Pick a sack that has a seam down one side and across the bottom so you end up with a square piece of hessian.

Sow sturdy ribbon webbing (buy from Spotlight) around the sides to form carry loops at the corners and strengthen the edges.Sacks are also ideal for storing autumn leaves while they rot down. They are prettier than black garbage bags and come with their own ventilation. I tried growing potatoes in sacks but found they dried out too quickly. Instead I use sacks to disguise grow bags of potting mix and ugly plastic pots. established. Feed with dried blood or tomato fertiliser when buds start to form.

It’s getting a bit late in the season but in warm areas there’s still time to start Primula malacoides, pansies and their mini relatives – violas –from seed in trays. Seedlings are also available in punnets or as potted colour from garden centres. fertiliser. Old books talk about using a 45cm layer of manure and handfuls of woodash. Neither of these are easy to come by in the inner city so I make do with compost plus half a bucket of sheep pellets and a handful of Nitrophoska. Let new plants grow for a year before picking from them.