Top repurposed or reuse ideas for the garden
Tables or Desks
We recently found a table that was free that we repurposed into a potting table that cost less than $20.00 for all the additional boards we had to purchase.
The stain that we used was a mixture of old stains we had and old paint to complete the project.
Before:
After:
Eggshells
Did you know that you can salvage all those eggshells you have been throwing away to use in your garden? The first thing is to dry them out in the sun or bake them for 10 minutes in the oven at 300 degrees to allow you to grind them up into a fine powder and to keep them from contaminating the soil with salmonella.
Once you have ground them up you can add them to the hole when planting your vegetables to provide additional calcium to the plants and you can spread them around the base of plants to add nutrients and also provide a barrier to keep slugs and snails away from your plants.
This is not a quick fix to add calcium back in the soil but over time it will improve the calcium in your soil.
Stale Beer
Don’t dump it out! This can be used to attract and rid your garden of slugs and snails by pouring them into a shallow container that you place in your garden or flower bed. Slugs and snails will come to drink the stale beer and will drown in the suds.
Coffee grounds
As much as you love that coffee in the morning your plants also love a lite mix of coffee grounds added to the garden soil. You can add to the compost material that will add to your compost acidic material. If you want to use it directly in the garden first you need to know which plants like more acidic soil, next you want to use it sparingly. Not only will it help to change the PH in the soil it will also aerate the soil attracting earthworms and improving drainage and water retention.
Here are a few of the plants that like a more acidic soil and would like coffee grounds mixed into the soil. Blueberries, hydrangeas, azaleas, carrots, and radishes.
Plants that do not like an acidic soil include tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers.
Bedsprings
They can be stripped down and repurposed into a garden shelf to store tools and planters.
Epsom Salt
Epsom salt is made up of hydrated magnesium sulfate which can enhance the color of your plant making leaves a much deeper green, adding to the shrub’s thickness of plant growth, and improving the flowering of the plant.
You can use Epsom salt directly in the hole mixing 1 Tablespoon in the soil before planting your plants or you can mix 1 Tablespoon into 1 gallon of water to directly spay on the plant’s foliage.
Plants that love Epsom salt applied to them are tomatoes, peppers, beans, and roses which add magnesium to these plants for the growth and production of fruit and flowers.
Read more at Gardening Know How: Information About Using Epsom Salts For Plants https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/soil-fertilizers/epsom-salt-gardening.htm
Old Milk Jugs
Milk jugs can be reused by cutting out the bottom of the container and placed over the top of new seedlings in your garden in the early spring to protect them from cold overnight temperatures. These repurposed milk jugs act as a mini-greenhouse for the plants.
Lunch Bags
Paper lunch bags are a great way to store and keep the seeds from your garden for next year’s planting. Not only are they a great way to save money vs other options they can hold a lot more seeds than the smaller options.
Coffee Filters
Old or new coffee filters can be placed in the bottom of small pots and planters that have holes in the bottom for drainage to prevent the dirt from falling out of the bottom.
Children’s Pinwheels
Not only are these pinwheels great color and texture additions to your garden but they provide a great way for you to keep your garden safe from birds and other animals wanting to eat your fruit and vegetables. The best pinwheels to use are reflective ones to reflect the sun. You can also take the old reflective ribbon and attach it to stakes to place in the garden where the wind and sun will work to deter birds and other pests.
Paper Towel rolls & Toilet paper rolls
These are a great way to make your own biodegradable seed by starting planting pods, that can be directly planted in the garden once the plants are large enough to plant.
Old Plastic Vegetable trays and pots
These products can be reused after cleaning them with bleach water for planting and starting your own seeds.
They are also great to take up space in the bottom of larger pots to keep the planters from being so heavy once they are planted and to save on using so much potting soil saving you loads of money.
Wood Pallets
There are many uses for wood pallets and the nice thing is that companies are glad to get rid of these for free so they are not difficult to find.
First, they can be used to build a planting wall to grow all kinds of herbs or plants to decorate your garden and provide herbs for cooking.
They are a great windbreak that can be used in the garden where you can attach a trellis for plants to grow up.
The wood can be removed to make shelves for a greenhouse or garden shed.
You can make a rack to attach to the back of your shed to store garden shovels, rakes, and other larger tools.
Shells from Walnut, Filbert, and other nuts
The broken-up shells work great in the garden for many uses. They can be used as a decorative mulch around the base of plants that helps to hold moisture in the soil and can protect the plants from many pests since the sharp edges of the shells are not liked by cats and other small pests. They can be used for walkways as a decorative way to add to your garden.
Fountain/Bird Bath
We created a Fountain/Bird Bath from a hot water heater tray.
See the feature photo for the completed project.
This is a very inexpensive way to make a fountain, all you need to purchase is the tray, a plug, and PVC glue, salvage some rocks that you have collected, and purchase a solar fountain to repurpose this into a beautiful fountain that the birds will enjoy.
I hope that you have enjoyed these ideas on the best repurposed and reused ideas to grow the best garden using old items into useful ones.
