Well, i like things to look nice. Its bothered me for 3 years that my garden cage sags. I had a handyman come this spring and add supports. It looks better, but not attractive.

An old chicken cage wire?

We are building a chicken tractor so we can move our hens around. But, right now I'm going to use the current chicken coop as a trellis, and the old coop i have smashed in front to keep the chickens away from the seeds.
So here are my rattlesnake beans:



and here are the lemon cukes;






It solves 2 "lets do it the easy way" problems:
1. Not having to move the chicken manure:
2. Trying to straighten out the chicken wire so it can be reused. Its no trouble squishing it up.

Bunch of eggs?

I feed our older eggs back to the chickens. 8 daily. But, we still have way too many in the summer, just enough for us winters. So, when i got a new freezer, and have no tomatoes yet, i decided to freeze eggs for the chickens this winter. They thaw like hardboiled eggs.

I had absolutely no idea you could do that with eggs! (freeze them, that is)

I never eat them myself, but they might be ok.

Any of you who have some ideas about recycling old things, you are welcome to add them here. I would enjoy seeing them.

I'm using empty feed sacks for a lot of veggies this year as the sweet potatoes did so well last year. So, i mix compost and garden soil and put in about 6". I add more garden soil as needed each week. This one has grown about 6" from last week:



I use a hand troll and add soil around the edge of the bag until its as tall as the plant, then shake the bag edges, and it leaves about 2" of plant above the soil:




when the soil gets 2" from the top, im adding a few marigold seedings:

This is an old quonset hut we converted into a chicken coop:


And this is an old TV stand I had made, and always hated. It is now a nesting area:




Today we put wire around the bottom edge, and a roost. Tonight, we move the hens

TK, you are definitely the bomb when it comes to repurposing !!

Still would like to read what others do to recycle.
So, what can you do with an old deck railing and unwanted seeds?
Well, @green posted an (#854076) interesting website that showed pictures of a very fancy chicken yard. I decided to make my own raised platforms and grow things the chickens can peck at when it grows thru the wire but cant dig up:


i dug up the chicken dirt, and put it around my asparagus, covered an old deck railing with wire, flooded the hole, and put the wired railing over the hole. I bought a big bag of wild bird seed, and mixed it with all the garden seeds i dont like.

Well... I don't always have time to post but enjoyed following your thread. I was piddling with the tomatoes this morning and thought of this recycling thread.

I do some things...
These held cooking oil from a restaurant. I cut off the bottoms and use the pour spout for drainage. Second year for growing tomatoes in them. They work well.


This bed was made from untreated tie ends. These get split and used for firewood but I borrowed some for a raised bed. I like them and want more now!

These were from coir lined baskets which don't work well for me because the plants dry out too quickly. But when I turn them upside down, they protect seedlings.



These stakes hold the baskets in place...



The stakes came from this which is pegboard accessories. I broke them off to use as stakes.




Those baskets also work when attached to pots and manage to keep the cats from trashing the catnip plants. Although the plants look pretty pitiful this year.

Like everyone, I save ties and these came off of heads of romaine lettuce but enjoy a second life supporting my tomato vines.



Old tent stakes keep the dogs from stretching out in the cool, moist soil of a raised bed.




I also use those pegboard stakes as dividers in the raised beds.






I got this idea right here at ATP. Used canning jar lids to label the different types of plants...

These herbs look a little tired. They spent the winter in the greenhouse in this olive oil tin.

And one last one, my favorite. Recycled containers for rainwater harvesting. I intend to connect them and hide them behind lattice but for now two out of three are full.

Clever ideas! Thanks for sharing.

Thanks Mary... I don't think of it as clever, just frugal. I am proud to say one of my pleasures comes from how little it costs me to play with plants. My Mama would have been proud!

Glad you posted all your clever ideas, @pod. I was going to let this thread die out as i was the only one posting.

Great job of upcycling, Kristi !

TK, I love your thread, even though I haven't contributed any ideas... I'm going to have to think a little harder about this, there must be something that I do that would fit in here, given that we never seem to throw anything away

Please do!