Garden garbage or someone’s treasure?

Tue. Jun. 30, 2020

Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: Garden garbage or someone’s treasure?

I had a listener ask me why someone would put glass in their garden thinking that there must be a reason other than a garbage dump….

Well, turns out many people find all kinds of things in their yards as they dig to plant gardens.  Years ago I moved into a home on 5 acres that had been an old farmstead.  The house was gone and replaced in a different location but the garbage stayed.  We didn’t discover it till the following Spring having moved in just before winter.

That’s me in 2005 and a LOT of barbed wire, but not ALL we found in the woods
Had to hire a bobcat for all the junk

While the vast majority of places never had THAT much junk, still many folks have found some pretty interesting items.  Also among the debris was broken pottery, cheap aluminum pie tins that the put bird seed in and never cleaned picked up!

And then, there’s this! How clever

I talked with other gardeners who found way cooler stuff!  Many folks have turned their garbage in the garden it into a treasure hunt!  With an up-to-date tetanus shot (I highly recommend that), gloves, a shovel and determination these people are out there finding old pottery, children’s toys from 1800’s, pieces of farm equipment that they dig out and then display in their gardens!  Another gardener I know found an old bed frame and put that in her flower bed!

I found a child size bed spring in the garage of the home I bought. Perfect for peas!

As you can see I used bamboo poles to hold it in place.

I appreciate that so many are recycling junk into jewels but I’m really glad that attitudes are changing.  The days of tossing our garbage into various holes we’ve dug in the backyard are dying out.  What have YOU found as you’ve planted?

basil on the right – the metal got a little too warm for the plants, but it was fun to try it
Someone left this wicker shelf on the street corner… so I took it!

It goes with the rest of the porch!

 

early June 2020