Gardening is one of the most rewarding home hobbies you can do. It's fun, sustainable and you get healthy, tasty results. A lot of people like the idea of gardening but find excuses like it's too time consuming, it's too expensive, they don't have enough space, blah blah blah. There's no room for excuses when going green, all you need is a little initiative and a little ingenuity to overcome these so called excuses. Here are 10 killer garden hacks that can help you save time, space and money while satisfying your green thumb...
1. DIY Vertical Garden with Reclaimed Gutters
Vertical Gutter GardenWhen Suzanne Forsling moved to Juneau Alaska from Iowa, she found that it was a little bit harder to get her garden to grow. Frustrated by cold soil, scarce sunlight, hungry slugs, root maggots, porcupines, cats, bears and ravens she got resourceful. She got her crops off the cold ground and into the light by afixing gutters to the wood siding of her house on the sunny side and using them as planters.
2. Used Tired Raised Garden & Tree Ring
Reclaimed Tire Garden
If you have some old tires laying around that you don't know what to do with, you could burn them... if you hate the environment, or you could put them to work as cool looking raised garden beds. Now this is pretty self-explanetory, but I highly recommend you read the tutorial first becsause if you don't know what you are doing you can get yourself into trouble trying to cut up a steel belted tire.
3. DIY Earth Box
DIY Earth Box
An Earth Box is more than just a box with soil. It's a self-contained system that regulates irrigations, facilitates the delivery of nutrients and does all of this in the most efficient way. These are great for people who don't have the room for an in ground garden. You can buy an Earth Box or there a ton of resources to help you go McGuyver Green.
Check out this post on Crafster.org that will show you how it's done (via Crafting a Greener World).
4. Self-Watering Garden
Self-Watering Garden
Instructable user AskJerry discovered that his central air conditioning system disposed of approximately 350 gallons of water down the drain each year. To put this water to better use he built this great Self-watering garden that reclaims the AC waste water and evenly distributes it to his vegtables in this quaint garden box. Now if you don't have central air, you can still use this tutorial (with a few mods) with a rainbarrel, or greywater system. Check out the tutorial at Instructables.
5. Upside Down Herb Planters
Upside Down Planters
I wrote about these space saving DIY hanging planters from Urban Organic Gardener a few weeks ago. Limited to a tiny fire escape platform to do all his gardening, Mike Lieberman has been forced to be creative in order to satisfy his herbivore urges. He uses reclaimed 2 liter bottles to create hanging upside down planters to make the most of his limited space. Check out his how-to. (Continued on page 2...)
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P-O-T-A-T-O. Unless you’re Dan Quayle.
And beer is made with barley.
I didn’t even make that connection. When he applied for the ghost writing position the name on his application was James Danforth Quayle. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I fixed the problem and had to let Danforth go. Back to the job boards, believe it or not there’s barely anyone out there willing to work for beer.
More garden & DIY hacks:
Use old shower doors (tempered glass):
Coldframes
skylights
greenhouse walls & roofs
backdoor awning (used them mottled one instead of clear)
Our local Habitat ReStore sells them as does some of our thrift stores– clear, a mottled privacy one, smoked glass, etc
Old windows & storm windows can also be used to make greenhouses
That AC water waste is pretty slick. I think I may look into more uses for this type of runoff. Not that I have an AC, my apartment would probably exlpode under the strain since my electrical system is 100 years old.
I love that mini greenhouse! It sort of reminds me of a terrarium.
I was reading your post and just wanted to see if you’ve heard of the Grow Box? I’ve tried it and it’s actually a bit better and a whole lot less expensive! They hold about a gallon and a half more water. Check it out at http://www.agardenpatch.com
Happy Gardening!
Вот про это я почитал с превиликиминтересом. И с удовольствием прочитал бы еще больше! Планируете ли дальше писать на эту же тему? Спасибо
I really like the beer option! Seriously, great article.
Great DIY advice–will forward this on to my landscape design clients–especially good read for winter. katherine brooks
Beer acts as bait. Pour it over the fence into the neighbors garden, not your own. BTDT.
Want to kill slugs? (And who doesn’t?) Sprinkle raw (cheapest) coffee grounds liberally over the garden as soon as you decide that the damage is getting out of hand.
The damage will stop overnight. Bonus, earthworms like grounds.
No … used grounds won’t work.
A wonderful collection of simple gardening solutions, particularly appropriate in today’s economic and ecological climate
I like the tire idea, but am wondering what kind/amount of chemicals might be leeched into the soil. Is this something that I should recommend to my landscape design clients?
Good Morning i read your website often and thought i would say all the best for 2010!