i haven’t found anyone willing yet despite asking!! I’m always looking for crates and pallets
I found a grocery store getting veggies in corrugated plastic boxes. They work pretty well if you can find them. I cut them down, put a second layer on the bottom and left high sides with hole handles on them.
I volunteer for a Food Pantry and we buy milk from Costco. Like 80 gallons at a time. They give us the plastic crates so I end up with an endless supply.
I know something I am looking for is 48” x 48” cardboard pallet covers
I can collect a few throughout the year, but not enough. I use them under my trees. They’re great weed block
haha instead of creating a dedicated thread, lets just do it here. a good place for peoples creations. what kind of questions do you have?
In addition to metal garden beds I’m recycling pots and heavy duty totes from the dump and free piles etc. I live in an area which had an amazing amount of marijuana farms of all sizes until large legal farms became a thing. Now many of those grows went bottoms up. There are still some out there but not so many now that the wholesale price per lb has crashed. Lots of old grows are on the market and some of the people buying them are cleaning them up and throwing pots away.
I’ve gotten everything from 4 inch pots and 6 packs to 45 gallon pots and one woman gave me a few high quality used 200 gallon cloth grow bags. The totes are what people used to store dried pot in and are heavy duty black plastic with yellow lids. They make great small beds. Have also found a pile of those clear domes for starts; enough to give many away and still have plenty. Those things cost over $20 each! Plus 50 gal barrels used for organic fertilizers like fish emulsion.
I also got maybe 48 yards of free used organic peat based soil delivered from a legal grow my neighbor works for. His boss bought another farm and the soil that was there with perlite is not allowed on that one because it’s too close to a river or something. Which is good, because my soil is contaminated from the previous residents; trash and old cars. 48 yards of trash alone was taken out of here after I got the place. My entire vegetable garden is in large containers and trees are on slopes where there was no garbage.
The dump people are friendly and look the other way. They tend to put pots aside so people will see them. The company that runs the dump saves money if they have less to dispose of. Might be a good option for some people. I find weekend afternoons the best bet..
That’s all awesome! I’m a huge recycler/reuser. My neighborhood is in constant turnover and when the old houses are going to be torn down, I scavenge. Got a ton of great pots up to 20g from a neighbor tear down along with a totally unopened xl bag of holly tone and assorted other gardening things including a standing metal trellis. He had maybe 50 5g pots stocked behind a shed, but clearly the tree workers had all urinated back there because I picked some up and EWW the stench…that was frustrating. I managed to get 10 unaffected.
Sometimes, I get great pots on morning runs on trash day. I try to bee line home running with 5 or so 3-5g pots to drop off feeling like a proud crazy person! I just hate buying plastics and try to reuse any plastic I can.
Home Depot is carrying past colors of root pouches. They’re cheaper than the current stuff. You have to check the bags when you get them as some are really old, stitching is crap or big gaps in the stitching. I got quite a few 15-65g bags because can’t tempt me with a $10 65g and not get it.
when I find the time in the next 2 weeks, I’m going to be burning, linseed oil sealing, and building some pallet beds for strawberries from some nice pallets I picked up this winter. I’ve finally figured out an easy pallet source (hard in the city!), so if they work out, I want to make two small ones for my from door porch for some shade herbs and alpine/woodland strawberries.
Darn, I see now you are on the opposite side of the U.S. otherwise I could hook you up with pallets. ![]()
What an awesome thread! Following.
I love the air pruning poly bags and the black gutter tubing tree protectors. Think I’ll switch to the latter to protect my trees from weedwhackers and rabbits and things.
i pick up used pot growers soil for very cheap and then mix it 50/ 50 with my green chic manure. let it compost for a year wrapped in a tarp and its ready to go. has great drainage from all the perlite in there.
I’ve been making my own grow bags all winter, a layer of burlap, a layer of cheap linen on the outside, cut a circle, cut a long rectangle, sew together (badly) and they hold soil pretty good. they’re ugly.
I’m trying to get rid of plastics as much as i can, with the exception of the strong starter trays, heat mats, and domes i already have.
I appreciate this. Wish I could double heart. ![]()
I am the family seam-sir and sew everything around here. Costumes, hems, torn knees, stuffed animals, to the leather wallet seams. Love me some needle and thread. I never thought to sew homemade grow bags. What a great idea.
I’m real bad at it. my partner he can sew he says the Navy makes everyone a stitcher. my stitches look like a cartoon. but they hold it’s strong thread so i don’t mind
mine aint pretty either but they work. Army taught.
taught my wife how.
Oh, I really like your idea of triple-stacking small pots together to make a big, tall one. What a great idea for deep-rooted seedlings!
I asked my wife to stitch a few insect bags out of some row cover just to see how they would work. I wanted some long sleeves for peaches. Found out I could do the same thing with a glue gun. They’re not very pretty like hers but they work I’m sure she was happy.
I just received an order of mixed sizes if these and love them! I’m using two on a trellis outside the the rest for my garage trellis and mind racing for what else because they are super sturdy and relatively inexpensive for the product. Highly recommend.
my indoor ones I’m not putting holes in. I plan to do a coil of heavy gauge wire at the bottom and then a piece of Hardware cloth to create my own self watering pots of sorts. Adding drainage to the outdoor ones.
what are you using them for on your trellises?
I followed a version of this tutorial How to Sew Grow Bags (Easy Pattern, Any Size) — Empress of Dirt (but I made mine single layer and eliminated one of the side seams) to make bags out of landscape fabric. a $13 3’x50’ roll of walmart-special landscape fabric got me 75 bags between 1-5 gallons in size. Using them to give away things at the local plant swap this year, so was looking for the dead-cheapest plant receptacles I could find after I burned through a year’s worth of recyclable food containers in one digging session.
Was pretty happy with the sub 20 cent price for larger containers, which really rack up in price when purchasing.
Outside: scarlet runner beans (I think that’s the final answer) for a narrow piece of cattle panel I put in an arc at the bottom of my deck steps.
Garage: hanging some panel flat and planning to grow sweet peas, herbs, arugula, other greens, not all decided yet and that won’t be started until fall. Unfortunately, I guessed wrong on sizes for 2. 2qt are perfect for half the garage. The 6qt are pretty big. 9qt for outside will be perfect.
They would work great for attaching to panels for people to put tools in and other just commonly grabbed items in the garden. They’re super heavy duty, really nice.
Anyone have a particular Amazon grow bag that they like and lasts for more than 2 season? I wanna put some stuff in them but will also need to lug them inside in the winter