reusing containers

Same here (from a former city girl). We recycle and reuse everything we can. My husband even has an in with a guy working at a local chicken plant - we utilize the large 100 gallon tanks they discard, for collecting rainwater for our garden. Small milk jugs filled with sand make great weights to hold tarps and such. The only item I will not recycle or use is pickle jars... bad memory as a child of a christmas candy jar my mom made for us all kids... she even recycled and used the lids. Nothing like eating choclates that smell like pickles

I do use my pickle jars but put plastic wrap between the lid and jar that way my milk wont taste like pickles...lol...I love mine...

Be careful she doesn't go bananas and rip the deck (and anyone standing on it) off her apartment building. It can happen.

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www.glimmercroft.com
The basic message of liberalism is simply: The true measure of a society is how it treats the weak and the needy. A simple Christian message (Matthew 25:40). -Garrison Keillor

It would be a good idea to use very light (mostly vermiculite/perlite) potting soil, if growing on a balcony. Will have to fertilize a lot, and water a lot, but it should work.

I re-use and recycle everything -- I thought everyone did! My feed scoops are tin cans, washed out. My buck has a braided baling twine collar on (haven't been able to find a collar big enough for him). I use tin cans, recycled milk jugs, and other plastic containers to start seeds in. We re-use plastic containers in the house for left-overs, and as compost buckets/chicken food buckets (scraps go to the compost bin or the chickens). The dogs eat out of old saucepans. I re-use egg cartons, mostly for eggs, but also sometimes for storing sorted buttons, or beads. Newspapers are used mostly for a weed barrier in the garden. Old clothes become cleaning rags, or quilt squares, or anything else I can think of to re-use the fabric/buttons/zippers.

You have to be careful and frugal, and re-use everything you can, or you are wasting money and resources, IMO. Adding to the amount of stuff that goes to the land fills, and all that.

Kathleen

LOL he asked her what was next, tilling up their postage stamp back yard. LOL

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A small Goat farm in East Tennessee
http://www.freewebs.com/rockytopsis/

I get excited when I can find a new use for something "old". I can't imagine buying everything new... yikes!

I not only re-use my stuff, I rootle through my boss' recycling and steal his yogourt containers. They make dandy feed scoops, and since I have goats, we don't buy yogourt!

A lot of my water pails used to hold vegetable oil. Got them from the Chinese restaurant. If they get broken, who cares? If I break a $15 bucket from the store, I get rather annoyed.

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"Crivens!"

Half Caper Farm - breeding Saanens, Boers and Nigerian Dwarfs

Around here we put feed portions in cottage cheese containers. One time I brought my grandson with me to Trader Joe's. "Hey Grandma I see you bought some new feed containers." He wasnt trying to be funny it was just logical to a 7yr old.
We never throw out old feed sacks either there are a million & one uses. Just the other day there was too much mud in front of the barn to navigate the wheelbarrow safely. Out came some feed sacks.
When guests come over & try to sit on the still wet milk stand. "Pull up a feed sack & have a seat!"

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Bob and Nancy Dickey
Laughing Stock Boer Goats
"Seriously Great Bloodlines"
and the meat goes on....
Near Seattle

I use cans for grain scoops and containers to carry things in, I made feeder for the goats and cows out of pallets that we got for free (they work great!), I made a milking stanchion out of scrap lumber that was (mostly) here when we moved in, I made a shelter out of an old picnic table, my dad and brothers made a shelter for the cows out of pallets, I also have this thing about saving bailing twine, thinking I will someday find a use for it, but I haven't yet, so I throw it away every couple months.

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Patience is a virtue.

A few years back, our little local gardening club was asked by the huge club in town to open up a few "country" gardens for a Country Garden Tour Day. There are some truly magnificent gardens up here, so it was no trouble getting a few proud volunteers. Now, as nice as some of these gardens are, they are still very much casual country gardens.

Our garden is pitiful in comparison (though I have a good feeling about this year ), so hubby and I helped out where we could. We're at one of the "tour stops" and the large group is making their way through what has got to be one of the top gardens on the entire tour. One lady scans the area and asks her friend if she's been able to figure out what the "theme" of this garden is? Over by the greenhouse, a few ladies were chatting amongst themselves when one of them looked down at the bed, turned to her friend and asked "Is that.... hay???" They both leaned forward, seemingly perplexed, and went in for a better look. You would have thought they were looking at a caveman exhibit at a museum. We had to share this with the other garden members! Everyone had a good laugh...