Turn Trash Into Useful Items for Your Garden

I'm a reuse fanatic. I admit it. I love saving items that are destined for the trash, and making them useful again. I love the money I save by being creative instead of just going out and buying some ready-made doodad.

Happily, I am not the only one. Here are fifteen awesome reuse ideas for your garden, some from me, some from my garden blogging friends, and others from sites that I just enjoy reading. These ideas take the most boring trash items (garbage bags, toilet paper rolls) and some not so boring items (old benches, shopping bags, and silverware) and turn them into really useful items for your garden. Enjoy!

15 "Trashy" Ideas for Your Garden

1. Cut up a plastic milk jugs to make plant markers.

2. Make a planter from a reusable shopping bag.

3. Turn a plastic five-gallon bucket into an upside-down tomato planter.

4. Turn a plastic storage bin into a self-watering container.

5. Grow potatoes in a black plastic garbage bag.

6. Reuse vinyl window blind slats as plant markers.

7. Turn old silverware into plant markers.

8. Make garden cloches out of two-liter soda bottles.

9. Reuse mesh onion or potato bags in your garden -- they can do more than you think!

10. Make a handy irrigation system for your potted plants with a plastic water bottle.

11. Reuse common items for indoor seed starting.

12. Make seedling pots from toilet paper tubes.

13. Reuse milk jugs in your garden as cloches, scoops, even to provide water for the birds.

14. Turn a food container into an upside down pepper planter.

15. This is too cute -- turn a garden loveseat into a planter.

These ideas prove that if you want to, you can find a use for just about anything. Have fun reusing in your own garden!