A Different View of Waste 2
Om Amriteshwaryai Namaha
Welcome to the Amma UK Greenfriends Blog.
This is the second of two articles looking at how waste can be reused, this time in the garden or allotment, or in any growing setting.
As Amma has said,
“it is wrong to waste due to our lack of care and attention. Every object has been created to be used; every object in creation has a definite purpose.” From 108 Quotes on Nature by Amma.
There are many different waste products which can give a new purpose to in the garden or allotment, once their “official” purpose has ended. We will be looking at a few of them below.
At the beginning of this blog is an example of the use of a plastic bottle in creating a mini greenhouse for growing seedlings. It has been placed on its side with a section cut out for putting the pots in and watering.
A greenhouse can also be created by using clear plastic and sticks. How many times have we had something delivered to us inside clear plastic? Well, here is the perfect use for it!
When we sow plants we use pots generally, but some crops seem to work well in toilet roll holders, like beans, sweetcorn and peas for example. We fill the toilet roll holder with compost as usual, and very gently compact it. We then moisten it from below so as not to disturb the compost, and sow the seeds into it. These bean seeds were soaked for a few hours before sowing.
Old plastic milk bottles, plastic water bottles or plastic tubs of a similar size make marvellous plant protectors. We cut the bottom off and they can then be cut into cylinders roughly 15 cm tall, and placed around plants.
To an extent they form useful protection from slugs (any protection from slugs is a cause to celebrate!) as long as the plants are not too small. For courgettes we wait until the plant has grown 3 or 4 proper leaves at least (not the seed leaves, which are the thick rounded leaves these plants first produce).
Also, when we water the plant, the plastic collar also helps direct it straight onto the plant and its roots. We use these protectors for courgettes, squash, pumpkin, beans, sweetcorn, cabbage, kale, leaf beet, so quite a few crops benefit from them. They will however, degrade over time, as plastic does in sunlight, and become brittle, and so will need to be replaced after a few years.
Kale seeds have been sown in these protectors.
Cardboard boxes are a very, very useful products if you have a garden or alloment. We cover beds through the winter with a number of things to protect the soil and opened up cardboard boxes are one of them. Afterwards it can be placed into your compost bin as a very useful fibrous material, to give the compost body, and to stop it becoming too slimy and sludgy. Just a word of warning though. Cardboard boxes are normally safe to put in the compost, but cardboard from food packages may not be. Some of them are covered in plastic layers (you can tell this if they are shiny). These are not safe for the compost bin, and are best put into the recycling bin at home.
Cardboard also makes a useful weed suppresent, as here around our raspberries. If you want things to look a bit neater, you could always cover it with woodchip.
Old bath tubs can be used as water storage. We have a number on our allotment. One of them has been colonised by alot of wildlife over the years, so we just surrendered to the situation and gave it to the frogs, newts, damselflies and all the other beings that like living there! In return we get so much joy from watching the life it harbours. We do have a couple of others that still do what we intended them to do, and these ones do need to be covered to stop animals falling in, or they need something to act as a ramp to help them climb out. The “wildlife bathtub” below has a ramp of wood at the back to help animals climb out, a pile of rocks for frogs and other creatures to rest on, and sticks acting as ladders for insect that fall in.
Old carpets can be used as heavy weed suppresents. We don’t use them as much as we did when we first had the allotment in 2001, they were really useful back then for covering land for a year or two. This killed all the weeds and made it much easier to dig. We still use them in some places, like around the fruit tree shown below. Again, like the cardboard around the raspberries, If you want things to look a bit neater, then just cover it with woodchip.
Building material like bricks can be useful, we were given the bricks in the photo below. They have been through several reincarnations before their present one in our tomato and pepper planter.
This blue water butt was an old chemical container then has been thoroughly washed and now holds a decent amount of rainwater off our greenhouse roof. You always have the option of painting and decorating these kind of items if you wish.
We here given this old water tank from a loft, which now works well to grow carrots in. We cannot grow carrot successfully in our soil as it has too much clay, but in containers like this with some sand added, they do quite well. Again, these can be decorated if so desired.
So as you can see there are lots of ways to reuse things in the garden, allotment or in a growing setting. We hope you have enjoyed reading this. Love, health and joy to you all.
Richard and Kaivalya
Om Amriteshwaryai Namaha
