Here’s one I made earlier
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NYONE of a certain age who regularly watched Blue Peter as a child will be well aware just how much can be done with some sticky-backed plastic and the cardboard tubes from the middle of toilet rolls.
The late, great Geoff Hamilton had much the same approach to gardening on his early appearances on Gardeners’ World when he crafted all sorts of useful gear out of old pairs of tights, timber offcuts and used cups from vending machines.
Today there’s a lot to be said for bringing some old-fashioned thrift to bear again. So next time you’re sorting household rubbish into “recycling” or “not” set aside any items that’ll come in handy around the garden.
Those cardboard cylinders from the middle of toilet rolls make perfect sweet pea tubes and if you start saving now you’ll have some by mid-October in time to sow seeds this year. They’ll save a few bob and they’re biodegradable.
Yogurt pots and soft fruit punnets are brilliant for sowing things in small quantities since you can afford to throw them away after one use. It’s good sense in these days of costly seed as it means there’s no risk of plant disease spores lying around waiting to kill off your seedlings.
All those plastic trays in which supermarkets sell meat, fruit and tomatoes make brilliant windowsill trays that hold several square plastic pots, ideal if you are raising salad leaves or trendy “micro salads” on your kitchen windowsill.
Then reuse them for standing your yogurt pots or second-hand soft fruit punnets of seedlings in next spring.
Plastic bags – the small clear sort – are worth saving to slip over pots of rooted cuttings on windowsills indoors and plastic soft drinks bottles are invaluable. Cut the bottoms off and turn them upside down to make covers to push over cuttings that you’re rooting outside in the garden or pots of hardy seeds that need a cold spell outdoors before they’ll germinate, such as trees, shrubs, rock plants and wildflowers.
You can also cut plastic bottles down to make funnels, small cloches or scoops for potting compost or bulk fertilisers, among other useful items, so save a few spares to experiment with.
Old tights really do make brilliant plant ties, scissored into strips – they don’t cut into delicate plants the way synthetic string often does and a whole leg makes a brilliant string bag for storing onions or flower bulbs safely.
To keep all your second-hand punnets, bottles and pots tidy while you’re waiting to reuse them, what could be better than a few plastic carrier bags? Tie the tops and hang them up on a nail in the shed..
You’ll be amazed what you can reuse.
Besides saving the planet – or at least space in landfill – you’ll be saving yourself a fortune on shopping for the garden too.
HEDGE YOUR BETS IN FACE OF APHIDS