The Great 'Re-use from the house into the garden' Hunt

alex£

Got any beer left over from a party (or Friday night!)?
- Save left over beer to use in slug traps- place into a small plastic bottle with a cut out window near the top and the lid on (stops rain entering) and half bury in the ground. Slugs love beer and they drop inside the beer mixture and die happy!

Broken crockery, pots etc can be used to make drainage in the bottom of pots.

Cats digging up your newly planted plants? Use sticks or left over plastic forks etc to stick out of ground- cats don't try to "make toilet" when they get their bottom prodded on sticks etc!

Possibly not everyone's choice, but, believe it or not, slightly diluted FRESH human urine is a great excellerant for compost heap. Also, diluted with 3 parts water makes a high nitrogen plant feed and is unlikely to smell if put on good soil diluted. But do not leave it long in a container as it will smell as it becomes ammonia!

heather99

I have tons of used heat pads. There's a lot of carbon in there but I don't know if anything in there is toxic. Never managed to find anything on the internet about this. Do you know?
Tea bags are my favourite recyclable - for rhododendrons, camellias etc. Plus the remains of shop bought cress - pure compost I believe.

Alison_Cross

Hi there - you know the plastic cartons that hold baby-wipes? Prise the lid off and put your garden twine in there, feed the free end of twine through the wee hole that the wipes were pulled out of and you have a non-knotting, waterproof dispenser. Can be used in the greenhouse, the garage and in the house too!

nodwah

heather99 wrote:

I have tons of used heat pads. There's a lot of carbon in there but I don't know if anything in there is toxic. Never managed to find anything on the internet about this. Do you know?
Tea bags are my favourite recyclable - for rhododendrons, camellias etc. Plus the remains of shop bought cress - pure compost I believe.

Eh, what's a heat pad?

pedro3gb

Cut the legs off old wellies and keep the remaining bits by the back door - useful when you just need to pop down the garden in wet weather or peg washing out.

tenuissent

I haven't tried this yet, but you can use an old fridge/freezer as a hay box. Bring your casserole up to boiling point, put it in the fridge and shut the door, and the insulation should keep the casserole gently cooking.

Wiggly_Worm

Washing machine drum into brazier: Um, you just take it out and it's a brazier! Very simple - you'll see. We couldn't get the back off ours (the frame bit that holds it onto the back of the machine), so our brazier is on a stand Looks very posh :rotfl:

zombiecazz

We use an old stainless steal sink as a fire pit. Great for the cooling summer evenings in Scotland

full-time-mum

Deb_Williams wrote:

I drink a prio-biotic each day. The little bottles are ideal for the tops of pea-canes etc - saves taking someone's eye out!

:T :T :T

I use corks - not quite so healthy a fraction more aesthetic.

Wiggly_Worm

OK so DH tells me I got it completely wrong :rolleyes: To turn a washing machine drum into a brazier yes you take the drum out (obviously), but then you take the fan belt thingy OFF - but carefully, it's molded and brittle, so doesn't like hammers - and turn it round, then put it back on. Apparently. Have a list of the appropriate swear words and make sure you know how to use them correctly.

Heck I dunno, I must have erased that particular encounter from my memory. I'm sure it's fairly self evident when you take it all apart... :rolleyes: Works OK to burn things in anyway