15 Creative Garden Recycling Ideas

Let’s take a look at the biggest contributors to home waste and how garden recycling might be appropriate for them.

by Sheila Haab

Dig into that trash and recycle bin with these creative garden recycling ideas!

Let’s take a look at the biggest contributors to home waste and how garden recycling might be appropriate for them.

Winter is the perfect time to start preparing the garden for spring. It’s also the perfect time to start diverting items from the trash and recycling bins to reuse in your garden. Let’s take a look at the biggest contributors to home waste and how garden recycling might be appropriate for them.

Food Packaging

Many packaging materials are perfect for garden recycling. Buying in bulk, bringing your own containers and using cloth bags are great ways to lessen the amount of packaging that ends up in your recycling or garbage container, but you may still find your bin full of almond milk jugs, egg cartons, netting from onions and avocados, and foil trays.

A watering can made from a plastic jug takes about one minute to complete, AND this DIY plastic jug watering can works better and holds more water than a lot of those cheap-o watering cans that look cute but cost real money.

1. Wash out large plastic jugs and save for your garden. Milk containers with the bottoms removed and the lid on, create a warm home to protect young seedlings from early frosts—just remember to remove in the morning before the sun gets too hot inside. These same containers can be inverted near your squash or pumpkin plants—filled with water and a few punctures— to provide much-needed water during dry times in your garden. You can even turn a plastic jug into a watering can!

2. Egg cartons provide tiny little compartments to start slow-growing seeds. When ready to plant, just cut the individual paper molded dimple and plant in the soil. The recycled paper carton will slowly decompose.

3. Netting from produce bags can provide a sling to support your vertical squash and melon fruits. Tie the mesh to the trellis and gently cradle your growing fruit. Be sure to provide lots of room and check it periodically—to ensure the fruit doesn’t grow into the pouch.

4. Aluminum trays can be used to reflect light underneath your plants—especially those varieties that have shade-loving pests or could use a boost of photosynthesis for additional growth.

Cardboard and Paper

Have lots of uses in the garden, so don’t put this valuable resource into the recycling bin!

5. Shredded newspaper, toilet roll tubes and wets leaves make a cozy bed for red wiggler worms. Vermicomposting is perfect for apartment dwellers who want to create beautiful worm castings for their potted plants while composting their veggie scraps.

6. Layers of cardboard, newspaper, grass clippings and compost can turn a resource-sucking lawn into a fabulous raised bed.

7. Placing shoe boxes or larger corrugated boxes upside down on larger plants can protect them from a late frost.

8. Paper bags can be used to dry herbs or seeds. Not only does the bag keep the dust off your leaves, but often just shaking the bag will cause the dried seeds to fall to the bottom—saving you time and making little mess.

Food and Food Scraps

If you don’t live with teenage garbage compactors, you may find yourself with leftover food that is better used for botulism testing. And even if you do have some hearty eaters in your family, you probably still have vegetable scraps and fruit peelings that need to go somewhere.

9. Worm composting (or vermicomposting) creates rich fertile worm castings from cardboard, leaves and table scraps. Worms can turn your vegetable and fruit scraps into nutrient-rich castings. But be careful of potato peelings, they often can grow into potato plants in the earthy, dark environment.

10. Build a compost bin and complete the lifecycle from leftover to new veggies. Numerous articles, blogs and books detail the ins and outs of compost bin building. “Just remember to either have an enclosed container (that is pest and rodent proof) or keep your compost bin away from your house. Otherwise you may be inviting unwanted pests into your home” advises Bill Horgan (a pest and wildlife expert).

Think Big

Larger items take up more space in the landfill. So here are some ideas to repurpose those bigger pieces.

11. Old bathtubs can be turned into raised beds.

12. Old windows provide the perfect top for a small cold frame to protect delicate seedlings in the early Spring, or the cold frame can extend your growing season later into the Fall.

Get Creative

When getting rid of stuff, start thinking about how it can be repurposed. A couple of these are more off-the-wall garden recycling ideas, if you’re up for branching out.

13. Almost anything natural can be turned into compost: cotton and wool dryer lint can be composted, along with human and pet hair.

14. Human waste can be turned into beautiful compost. It’s called humanure and is a great way to for humans to avoid pooping in our drinking water. No other land animal does, why haven’t we figured it out yet?

15. Trimmed branches can be remodeled into trellises for climbing beans or supports for floppy pepper plants.

What creative ways have you turned your waste into abundance?

When not looking at garden porn (also known as seed catalogs in politer circles), Sheila Haab explores permaculture concepts, dabbles in fermentation of sourdough and kraut, and immerses herself in the lives of tragic book characters.

A version of this article originally appeared at Sustainablog, republished with permission. Bathtub planter image via Shutterstock.

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