Great idea! But I thought Grove was a wetter part of the state? But just with better drainage.
Thanks for starting this thread. That too was a great idea.

Barbara

Barbara, Grove is most assuredly one of the wetter parts of the state, so it may not be relevent for those that are drier, but it helps me. I may have even learned it from Dawn or someone on this forum. I don't remember why I started doing it, but I do know that it worked well for me so thought I would share.

Carol, I don't know if you learned it from me or not, but I've done it for years. Here in our notoriously hot and mostly dry area, if I don't get pumpkins and winter squash up off the ground, the pillbugs and sowbugs eat them. In a rare wet summer like 2009, they'll rot even though I have several inches of mulch between them and the ground.

I've learned to never throw anything away because sooner or later it comes in handy in the garden.

One of my favorite recycling-for-the-garden projects is that I save old mini-blinds and cut the slats into smaller lengths to use for plant labels, especially when starting seedlings. You can get years worth of plant labels from one miniblind.

Dawn

Dawn beat me to the window blinds trick.

Great idea on those Daisy trays! Those things are worthless as far as I'm concerned except for holding garlic and onions to cure. Glad to have another use for them!

I can't think of anything else to add...

Diane

Putting a tied-together bunch of 7-10 lavender branches in your bird bath keeps the water from getting green and slimy for about 2 weeks. Change the lavender every 10 days or so.

Marcy

Drying potatoes and onions in those trays is a great idea Diane. Right now my potatoes are in the coolest spot in my house, except for the refrigerator. They are on sheet pans on the concrete floor of the storm shelter. Oops, except for the ones we dug this morning. I need to go spread those out.

Marcy, If I had lavendar, I might try that. LOL I had two small plants last year that I managed to get through the summer, but they disappeared over the winter. Could have been the winter or could have been the shovel of a worker. LOL I need to try again.

Supposedly, you can also throw a few pennies in the bird bath and that will keep it clean forever....

I use anything I can find for stakes, like old broom and mop handles, wood pieces and old slats I find lying out on big trash day. And I save a lot of old limbs that fall from my trees, the straighter the better so I can make tepees out of them. And, I use limbs cut from my Contorted Mulberry as stakes. They resemble those metal swirly tomato stakes they sell in garden stores.

I also pick up cardboard boxes out of trash receptacles to use underneath the mulch, or to just lay over ground for a season to smother the weeds and grass.

I also save the styrofoam peanuts from boxes I get in the mail, to use in the bottom of containers for drainage.

Great ideas, everyone!

Susan

You can also use aluminum cans in the bottom of large containers so you don't need to use as much potting soil. I just turn them upside down so water doesn't stand in them. Use slats from mini blinds to make plant markers just like several others do . And now for my biggest tip which does involve spending money but is well worth it to me. I use the sunscreen material, like they use over the plant areas in the big box stores, to make curtains for the east side of my screen porch. It really does make a huge difference in the temperature. When it's 100° outside it's only about 90° in there! It claims a 15° difference in temperature and I believe it. Use the leftovers to make a tent for the plants needing a little relief from the sun so no waste.

It's been awhile since I've posted because of health issues but I am feeling a lot better and have been reading the different threads and wanted to say "hi" and I'm still around and also tell Susan the seeds I received from her have made me a pretty butterfly garden. Oh yeah here is my hint. I store my onions in pantyhose. I cut the legs off of a pair pantyhose drop an onion in and tie a knot above the onion then drop another onion in and tie a knot above that one and so on until the leg is full and I hang them up. When I need a onion I just cut below the knot on top of the onion and save the piece of hose and use them for plant ties.

I've gotten all my short-cut, helpful ideas here but one I haven't seen posted I'm borrowing from Ilene (who hasn't posted since...oh, April?) I don't think she'd mind me passing this along. In fact...she may have said something about it here...or maybe it was her blog?...ANYWAY..use old eye liner/brow pencils (or cheap ones!) to write on your plant markers! They resist rain, don't fade and you can scrub it off and re-use the marker for another named plant!

We also re-use tatered, ripped deer netting or even the scrap pieces of landscape fabric. A package of zip-strips and these pieces are a great tool to make slings for our melons we grown on fence panels (which means MORE garden space!).

Paula

Love these hints. Mine is back when I wanted a sustainable, clean stand of watercress I bought a bunch of rooted gourmet watercress at the grocery produce market, knowing it would multiply rapidly if placed near a water source. Then I planted strands of it in a jardenairre, which caught excess water from the bird bath just under an outdoor spigot. It spread like crazy, spilling over to the soil all around the outdoor spigot. Most has just gone to seed which will replenish my supply.

Barbara