Recycled Materials in the Urban Garden: The best ideas

Today we will see 10 examples of how to use recycled materials in the garden. We can reuse yogurt containers, egg containers, bottles, drums, plastic bags, old wood… We can even extend the useful life of a broken washing machine if we set our minds to it.

With all these things, which at first glance may seem useless, we can make beds, containers, stakes, compost bins and many other useful things in the garden.

Build a garden with recycled materials

In all this time with Agrohuerto we have visited many urban and ecological gardens, and most used recycled materials for something. In this and the next post we are going to see some super interesting examples. You can try to reproduce them in your garden or they can even serve as an idea to use other different recycled materials.

We will see examples of how to recycle in the garden:

1. a plastic container
2. pallets
3. Yogurt or egg containers
4. a washing machine
5. fruit boxes
6. Old wooden benches (street furniture, garden furniture…)
7. String or plastic bags
8. pumpkins
9. Sticks, pipes, metal bars…
10. Old clothes

1. A PLASTIC DRUM TO GROW STRAWBERRIES

This plastic drum is used by Antonio in his orchard to grow strawberries. I already told you about this huge and beautiful garden at the entrance of the Organic Garden in Navarrevisca: urbanites cultivating, but there are secrets like this drum with strawberries (or the one in point 8 of this post) that I didn’t show you.

2. IDEAS TO REUSE PALLETS OR PALLETS

Small vertical ornamental garden made with a pallet:

Composter with pallets in HuertAula Cantarranas:

Below, a sieve to separate the coarse elements from the compost (also in the same educational garden). They did it with a pallet to which they nailed a mesh. They sifted through compost to add only the finest, most decomposed particles to the soil. The largest pieces were thrown back into the compost bin to continue the decomposition process.

3. YOGURT CONTAINERS TO MAKE SEEDLINGS

As I already told you in the Cultivar Basil post. How to Sow Basil in Pots This was the first thing I did to grow it: make the seedbeds. And I did it by recycling the yogurt cups, although I could also have used an egg cup, the lid of a box as a tray with several dozen seeds, and much more!

4. WASHING MACHINE

In the community garden El Campo de Cebada, in Madrid, they recycled even the casing of a washing machine, which they filled with soil to cultivate as if it were another terrace.

Did they do the same with what looks like a box from another similar appliance? I think it’s a great idea if you have room in the orchard or garden. Of course… I would decorate them so that it would be as cool as the drawing on the back or like these decorated pots for the flowerpot that Álvaro taught us a long time ago.

5. FRUIT BOXES TO MAKE PLANTERS

Well here I am a couple of years ago, again a photo in El Campo de Cebada.A little dilapidated and the vertical garden in recycled wooden planters, but newly built and full of flowers sure looked very nice.

Here is the link to the second part of the post: Recycle in the organic garden. Volume II.

If you click on it you can see what they use in the urban gardens that we have visited recycled materials such as:

• old wooden benches
• Plastic bags
• Old clothes
• Strings or strips made from plastic bags
• hollowed out pumpkins

Do not miss it! (goes with surprise at the end). And you… Do you also use recycled materials in your organic garden or in the garden? You can share it in the comments or even upload a photo about recycling in the garden. Cheers!