Organic Gardening: 7 Things You Can Recycle to Use in Your Garden

You can save a lot of money by recycling items you would otherwise throw away and using them in your garden. Instead of paying $10-20 or more for a large pot, throw down an old tire and fill it with soil. This article lists seven things you can recycle for use in your flower or vegetable garden.

Don’t throw away that old tote bag! You can use it in your garden. Save the earth and a whole bunch of money too by recycling common household items to use in your garden. From milk jugs to old tires to 2 liter soda bottles, here are seven things you can recycle to use in your garden.

Milk Jugs: Plastic milk jugs have many uses in the garden. You can cut the tops off to use them as planters for small plants such as herbs or cut the bottoms off to make miniature greenhouses that you can place over plants when there is danger of frost. You can even cut them up to make plastic plant labels to identify your plants.

Old tires: You can use old tires as raised beds for flower or vegetable gardening. For plants that require deep soil, such as carrots, try stacking two tires on top of each other. Tires are great for growing potatoes because you can throw another tire on top as the potato plants grow and fill it up with more soil. This makes it easier to harvest the potatoes in the fall because the potatoes will be in the tires, not in the ground. Just remove the tires to get to the potatoes.

Tote Bags: Old tote bags and cheap reusable shopping bags can be used as hanging planters to make use of wall space. This is great for people who don’t have a lot of land. You can fill the bags with potting soil and hang them on a fence or wall. Since they hold quite a bit of soil, they can even be used with larger plants, such as tomatoes.

Cement Blocks: Discarded cement blocks can be used to build raised beds, create an attractive vertical garden, or keep your compost contained. Even new, you can often get concrete blocks for around $1 each or a little more. However, if you watch Craigslist, you can sometimes pick up used blocks for free.

Bricks: Sometimes you can find people giving away old bricks too. These are great for creating borders around the edges of your flower or vegetable plots. You can also use them to pave your garden paths. Paved paths keep weeds and grass from growing between beds, eliminating the need for mowing.

Tin Cans: Remove both the tops and bottoms of tin cans, set them on a try, and fill them up with potting soil. Use them to start your seedlings indoors. You can fill the trays with water to water the plants from the bottom. When you’re ready to transplant, you can plant the entire can or gently tap the can to knock the dirt loose and slide the plant out.

Foam Meat Trays: Save the foam trays you get from the supermarket when you buy chicken, beef or pork. Wash them up and use them as trays underneath the tin cans you start your seeds in.

Use Your Imagination

There are a lot more ways to recycle everyday things to use in your garden. Before you throw something in the trash, think about how you might be able to use it. Would it make a good pot? Could you use it to stake your plants? Could it be composted or used to make a garden bed? Use your imagination to think of creative ways to recycle the things you would normally throw away.

If you are looking for some more information on this container gardening ideas check out best organic gardening and see if it’s right for your gardening needs!