Most people
think of recycling when they think of the three Rs. Reducing our consumption,
however, is the most effective way to reduce pollution and lessen our need for
incinerators and landfill sites. As organic gardeners, we can help by reusing
materials destined for the garbage bin. In our gardens there are many
opportunities to reuse this “waste” besides throwing weeds, trimmings and other
organic material onto the compost pile.
When starting your seeds, consider using milk, juice or
other beverage cartons. Used upright, these cartons are good for tomatoes, which
will put out new roots if you cover the stem with soil. A few days before
planting, lay the cartons on their sides; the tomatoes will grow towards the sun
again, and you’ll have a long root to anchor the plant. Use the cartons
sideways, with the spout side cut off, to form a bed to start smaller plants in
bunches. You can also use the bottoms of milk jugs and two litre pop bottles for
starting pots; pop bottles also work laid on their sides.
During spring and fall, when night temperatures can slow plant growth, use
pop bottles and milk jugs with bottoms removed as cloches – as mini-greenhouses.
Remember to remove the lids, and once the sun is up and the temperature rises,
lift the bottles away before the plants bake.
When it looks like slugs and cutworms may destroy your plants, cut the
bottoms and tops from milk cartons and ram the resulting sleeves one to two
inches into the soil around the plants. Use sleeves of varying heights
appropriate to the height of each plant. A sprinkling of diatomaceous earth
around the plants inside the sleeves will ensure that no pest that moves on the
ground will nibble on your plants. Mites seem to be deterred by sunlight
reflecting off aluminum foil onto the underside of leaves. Anchor the foil with
some stones, surrounding the stem of the plant outward for a few inches. If you
use intensive planting techniques, foil won’t work once the plants create a
canopy that shades the soil completely.
If you have an area that won’t grow crops, use milk bags as growing
containers to create a movable raised bed. Slit open and wash the bags, fill
them with soil (first poke a few holes in the bottom for drainage), then set
them on the ground. Push the seed into the soil or transplant your seedlings
before you start the next row. With these bags, you can build as large an area
as you can reach with a watering wand or hose nozzle. If pests become a problem,
move the bags until you can reach the infested plants. Due to their exposure,
bagged plants will be more at the mercy of the sun and wind; an observant eye
will be rewarded with good returns.
Harvest
Several brands of spaghetti sauce are sold in Mason
jars; ask family and friends to save them for you for home canning – you’ll need
new lids and rings, but you’ll save the price of the jars. The jars with their
original lids also make great storage containers for grains, dried beans, herbs
and sun-dried tomatoes. If you receive a lot of mail with return envelopes, use
them for storing seeds. They’re sealable, markable containers that also fit
inside freezer bags for cold storage.
Many areas recycle newsprint and cardboard. In areas that don’t, you can
reuse them by creating new beds for next spring. Lay down sections of newspaper
over layers of plant material, enough to create the size of bed you want. Follow
this with flattened cardboard boxes, anchoring it with rocks. Soak, then keep it
damp. By spring, worms and other organisms will have reduced this mulch to a
friable material that will have you dreaming about bumper harvests.
“Capital” Improvements
Old snow fence your town or county is replacing can be used to contain a
compost pile. Slab wood (the first cuts from a log) can often be had for free or
very little cost, and can be used to create paths in your gardens, reducing soil
compaction. Or use them to create raised beds; they’ll decompose after a few
seasons, but you can afford to replace them at such a low cost.
Do you know someone who’s replacing windows or storm doors? Ask for the old
ones. You can use them to top coldframes, or, if you have enough of them, build
a greenhouse at least warm enough to be considered a walk-in coldframe, good for
hardy plants or for hardening off tender plants. You could extend your growing
season – or, as author Eliot Coleman points out, your harvest season – by a few
weeks with a no-cost greenhouse.
Do companies or stores in your area throw out wooden pallets? You can use
them as the walls and door of a compost bin, take them apart and build
coldframes from the lumber, or at the very least, use them as firewood, cutting
down on your heating expense. Even this use is better than sending them to a
landfill site.
Use concrete blocks from a demolition site to build a compost bin (leaving
gaps for air circulation). Do you need a root cellar? Build one on the north
side of your house, then cover it over with earth (NL #50 has an excellent
article on building one, which you may be able to convert to a concrete block
design). You might want to use some professionals to help design and/or build
your cellar to ensure it doesn’t collapse from the weight of wet earth, or leak
during the rainy season.
Canadians have the largest “ecological footprint” of any nation on earth.
Reusing materials, even recyclable materials, just once will reduce Canada’s
consumption of natural resources and fossil fuels, and keep dollars in our
pockets.
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