Waste little and use what you have available.
Two simple things that have helped me to do a lot with a little over the years. I try to find purpose, utility, and use in things before chucking them in the trash. I'd rather bring new purpose by misusing objects than to discard them. There is great value in junk - we just have to try to see it in different ways.
From trash to treasure
If you have junk - you might have everything you need and not even know it! I'll show you some examples of how I seek out ways to use the junk that sits around. This is a second year Plant House, as we call it, that I rebuilt again. I took it down last year and almost tossed it out. I needed some space for more tomato plants, so I rebuilt it again this year. I'll drop a bunch of images below for you to see some other examples of my "Upcycling Shenanigans".
A QUICK REMINDER BEFORE I BEGIN:
RECYCLE / UPCYCLE / REUSE / REPURPOSE
I use things that I source directly from my own property and things that I acquire while helping others. The saying holds true: "One man's trash and another man's treasure"
Old pallets, barrels & drums, buckets, appliances, scrap materials (*see how
put an old refrigerator to good use here!). I reuse coffee cans and carryout food containers to sprout seeds, make shakers for soil amendments and I don't need to - I like to. I also use professional equipment, but if it has a use, I'm using it - regardless if I bought it or found it next to a dumpster. Of course, common sense is required when reusing these things for growing food.
How to Identify a Pallet:
IMPORTANT NOTE: DO NOT use wooden pallets that have been treated chemically - they will leach toxins into your soil. USE ONLY HT / HEAT-TREATED wooden pallets, that are clean, when using them in or around your growing environment. This goes for plastics and many other materials that may be toxic. Use your head and also refer to the ISPM 15 before reusing wood products and packaging.
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Solar Panel Pallets - Cost: $0 - Second year being repurposed
MATERIALS USED:
• Pallets (x4)
• Handful of screws
• leftover burlap from wrapping plants
• old tarps (my parents were discarding these, so i brought them home)
It protects our tomato seedlings from harsh weather and wind
We get some serious wind here and in the past week have gotten nearly 7 inches of rain! It was pretty brutal for the plants, even with the protected space.
It is even fun for the kids! They are learning to see purpose in things by using creativity, imagination and resourcefulness to repurpose them to achieve a greater utility/function.
Time well spent! My children love to observe things and I can already see the result of these sort of projects and how they are attuned to 'seeing' this way. Not everyone has the desire to see things for what they could be, but rather only see them for what they are. It's not always about what it is - it is sometimes about what it CAN be!
Another example of some 'real utility' is how a few scrap pallets turned into workspace for me
Workbenches that I use all year around!
When these are not holding plants, they are holding grilling tools, yard tools, and sometimes even a garden gnome or two.
Here is a little compilation of some other things I have built with pallets:
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