What are your best 'resuses?

[DidymusAmbrosius]

I'm trying to make a bigger effort to reuse things for the garden, rather than buy new/specialist items. e.g. I've found that 6 toilet roll pots fit into the cut-off bottom of the milk carton neatly to make mini-seedling trays.

Hoping to steal some top suggestions from you all to aid me...

What unsuspecting items do you find most useful to reuse in the garden?

I cut 1.5 litre water bottles in half snd use them as mini cloches to protect lettuce seedlings. I don't buy much bottled water - some are years old.

The coat hanger idea for string is great!

Great ideas here, the people who lived here before left so much garden related detritus I'm surviving well on that. The end of the garden seems to have been their personal landfill, but many pots/seed trays salvaged.

Cutting up old tights to use as ties. Used paper hankies are best fire-starters for incinerator. Polystyrene at bottom of large tubs instead of broken crockery.

I've reused all my tomato compost from last years used tubs.

You need a big handful of potash and a big handful of fertiliser.

Then it's good to go again another year.

Saved me a fortune.

I also reuse plastic milk bottles and cut them into strips for plant labels.

I use the tall parts of trimmed shrubs and trees to use to grow sweet peas up.

The other thing I do each year and had a lot of success is when I'm pruning roses, I'll trim the off cuts, dip them in rooting powder and stick them in the ground near the parent plant. 8/10 grow.
I have lots of old roses from David Austin that all seem to grow from cuttings very easily.

I collect water in water butts to save the water meter.

For seed trays I use an Amazon cardboard box, cut down (it makes two) and then a bin liner cut in two to line it.

It's not glamorous but it costs a few pence.

I plant up the seed from the tomatoes in my fridge. They grow really well. It's all free or cheap!

@senua

I also make plant labels from milk cartons. How do others mark them? - I use a Sharpie but it tends to wear off when exposed to the elements. I also make plant labels from ice-cream sticks.

A soft graphite pencil if the plastic is dry seems to work.

Toilet rolls for growing long root things like beans and sweet peas you can plant them straight in and they’ll compost.

Old boxes for no dig gardening, keeps the weeds down too

Fruit cartons for propagator lids or seed trays the other way up

Dismantle old lft covid tests to make labels (there’s a YouTube clip of this)

Obviously home made compost

Old fleece blankets to put the seedling pots on, soak them to keep things moist

Old broken crockery and pots to add drainage

Everything compostable gets composted, from cardboard to milk and cereal. The hens eat all other scraps. Infact I have 3 Addis 5 litre lidded tubs, one for citrus peel which keeps away pests and nourishes the soil, one for hen scraps, one for banana skins and teabag contents and a bucket for all other compost.
All plastic tray type things are used as trays or cloches. Milk bottles 6 pinters, make upside down tomato planters.
I love the snail shells for cane guards.

Just to say, I've been using toilet rolls , for a while, to grow my sweet peas in but this year, the toilet rolls unravelled in just a couple of days.

I'm wondering if they're made of flimsier stuff.

How do others mark them? - I use a Sharpie but it tends to wear off when exposed to the elements.
A soft graphite pencil if the plastic is dry seems to work.

Thanks @beautifullymad.

Old tyres to grow your veg in.

Old bath mats are ideal as kneelers, especially the ones that are rubberised on the bottom. Stops the damp coming through.

The wooden stirrers you get from coffee shops & McDonalds etc are good for plant labels.