5 gallon bucket projects?

1. Fill with extra feed corn, place lid and shake....voila a giant maraca (sp?)
2. Put a bucket high peice of PVC pipe in center and surround with concrete. makes a good garden umbrella stand.
3. Make a bucket high u shaped peice of rebar, fill with concrete, tie a rope to exposed rebar.....voila cheap boat or salesman anchor..lol
4. Fill with water, add a peice of round styrafoam with holes cut in it, put used disposable cups tightly in holes. (fill cups with growth medium and holes around base)....voila hydroponic garden with minimal cost. Can use indoors in bad weather.
5. Mini culvert for under a walkway if bottom cut out
6. Hard to tear reusable grocery totes...Aldi, need I say more?
7. Laundry hampers for easier clothing sorting for kids
8. Little bitty toy containers...leggos etc.
9. Bang a 2 by 4 on it to scare away aggresive animals
10. take 3 to the city, sit on one, leave one open for tips and play with some drumsticks on the third which you place upside down in front of you
11. Good for charity car washes to hold soapy water
12. Eco friendly, reusable gift boxes. Have the kids decorate.
13. Almost indestructable moving boxes and stack well if have lid
14. Cut top off to use as oil drain pan
15. hide treasures in them and bury
16. Fill with water and place over someones door for a prank
17. Generic ice chest for parties
18. Cut a hole in the lid for a sturdy piggy bank


If they are food grade there are 10,000 things you could do like brew wine, store bulk items, store water etc.

Drill a small hole in bottom. Put next to a tree or plant. It will slowly water the plant.

One Christmas each of my children were or had just moved. For the youngest son, I filled a five gallon bucket with 6 pkgs. of ramen noodles, two plastic soup bowls, four plastic spoons, 2 rolls of toilet paper, a few bags of candy, a 2-liter of Coke and a spare set of keys to his house and car! The eldest son's bucket had cleaning products, a few rags, roll of toilet paper and bag of candy. Unlike his brother, he's a great cook but, hates to clean! Their sister's bucket contained shampoo, conditioner, TP, deodorant, toothpaste and brushes, hand soap, etc.

We have buried "treasures" in 5 gal. buckets for safekeeping. Just remember to WHERE your hidden cache is!

We fill buckets with kindling for the woodstove and use others for storing cat litter, dog food and bird seed. Keeps the critters out.

I can't believe noone posted this idea~~SAUERKRAUT!!! :baby04: Send me a PM if you want the recipe with pictures. This is the exact time of year to do it.Get a few heads of cabbage, kosher salt, that's all you need.

Fill with soil and build protective walls if there's a nuclear event.

I made a shelf from milk crates and shelving boards, should work with pails too. We watered trees with them, drilled holes in the bottom. Quick picnic benches, two pails and a board screwed together. We store bird seed in one too. I've used them as a quick step stool.

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Remove lid.

Cut "U"shape from top to about half way down on one side of bucket.

Upholster round peice of wood that will fit snuggly in bucket at the bottom of U shape.

There ya go! A kiddy chair with a handle. And the kiddos can store toys/picnic food/camping treasures. Makes a great little chair for them to tote along on cmaping trips, around the yard or in the playroom.

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"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ordinary Days

I grow potatoes in some around here. Drill holes in the bottom, put in dirt and a few potato pieces. Let the vines grow, when they die off, kick the bucket over and pick up the potatoes. Put the dirt back in the bucket and add more potato pieces.

We have a lot of plants in buckets but after a few years they get brittle and break if you aren't careful.

Had another bucket that was a camping shower. Put a thru-hull fitting (you can get them at boat supply stores) and a hose bibb on the bucket, fill it with warm water and use a block and tackle to hoist it up over a handy branch and you have an outdoor shower. That one had a garden sprinkler attachment on the end of the hose bibb so it came out more shower-like.

If they are clean buckets, you could put together fill them with rice and dried beans and things and sell them as TSHTF buckets.

If you could get some REALLY BIG PVC pipe you could use the buckets as bullets and make a bucket cannon. Kinda like an overgrown potato cannon. Fill the buckets with water and use them in a trebuchet although then there would be bucket fragments all over the place.

Mostly we store stuff in them, haul stuff in them and plant things in them.

Didnt even think of SAUERKRAUT
and I was just looking at cheap Cabbage the other day.
I bet alot of us would like to see the pictures and the recipe.
If you dont want to post it here PM it to me please.

Thanks also everyone for all the suggestions you are giving them as I am writting them down also

Appway

We use them to cover tomato plants to protect them from the surprise late frost when the plants are too big to be covered by the plastic hot-kaps I use when I first plant the 'maters. I need about 30-35 for them.

Plastic buckets can be fashoned into inexpensive and more productive worm farms similar to the Can o' Worms designer decor worm farms in about 2 hours using a drill and a handful of plastic screw molliies to keep the top two buckets from suctioning to the sides of the buckets beneath them in the 3 bucket stack.

Buckets make a great weedless container garden that maximizes watering , eliminates all large hand and machine garden tools and creates a super accessible Square Foot Garden layout garden when organized on the unused section of driveways and walkways.

Buckets make a mouse proof pantry.

Buckets make dove hunting stools and bird and shot shell storage when painted camoflage pattern and a padded cushion is added to the lid.

Buckets of different colors can be made into toy storage stools when combined with a decal covered yard sale coffe table as a kids activity table.

Buckets can be modified with circular holes as house cat activity towers.

A bucket with lid stored in the trunk of a car or tied in the bed of a truck can be used to store a homade road breakdown pack.

These are a few of the uses I have used 5 gallon buckets for over the years.

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"I didn't have time to slay the dragon. It's on my To Do list!"

Saurkraut is okay but..... Kimchi pots got more character

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"I didn't have time to slay the dragon. It's on my To Do list!"

we have an endless supply of these white 5 gallons buckets with lids.. we put them out at highway dept in winter and people take them to put sand, friend of mine cut off all the handles and crammed them all together and made a culvert. They make pretty seat for children, craft buckets and for tool shed.

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Where are getting the buckets? I would love to find a source for free clean buckets.

Ours are free, but in various states of wear and most need a little bit of a clean-up.

We have a really great neighbor who operates a metal scrap yard. A lot of times people bring their metal scrap to him in plastic buckets and don't want to take the buckets home.

Plastic is no use to him and is a hassle for him to have to get rid of. The buckets are great for us though.

These aren't all pretty perfect brand new buckets. They are all different colors and with different printing on them and most have seen some utility use and have some scratches and weathering - like they've been used around other folks houses and yards before making their way to the scrap yard. We pick out the ones we want and leave the ones that are too beat up to be useful to us.

Lynda

Thanks Lynda. I doubt there is anyone around here like that.

You can cut a 3 inch hole in the bottom and plant a tomato plant coming out the bottom, then hang it in the sun.

That's a good one,I forgot about that use. I thought of another today,I use a 5 gallon bucket to mix up homemade laundry soap. If you make 5 gallons worth,it lasts quite awhile.

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When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee ~ Isaiah 43:2

I like the idea of a "Safety Kit". You can get a list of stuff to have off the net and put them all in the bucket. I'm willing to bet that if you do it right you can make some bucks selling them at craft fairs. Paint the can in a cute design, etc.

Line it with a clean trash bag and use it to brine a turkey in.