Waste not want not..

There’s an old Yorkshire saying that goes ‘where there’s muck there’s brass’, and it’s never truer than down the garden. So if you’re at a loss for something useful to do over the winter, spend a few hours constructively recycling everyday household rubbish for horticultural jobs.

Old newspapers have 101 uses. They make a brilliant insulated liner for a home-made compost bin (which is easily made by knocking four posts into the ground and nailing wire netting round them to form a ‘cage’). If you already have a bought plastic composter it’s still worth lining the inside with newspapers. The paper will slowly disintegrate over the winter, but meanwhile it’ll house woodlice that help to break green waste down faster.

Newspaper also makes great temporary insulation for plants being kept in the greenhouse for the winter; on the coldest nights, drape several layers of paper tent-like over pots of bone-dry pelargoniums and fuchsias, with several more fixed flat against the glass – it’s often just enough to give vital frost protection. (But it’s safer keeping cuttings on the windowsill in the utility room or a spare bedroom, if you can spare the space). Flower pots stuffed with screwed-up newspaper make good earwig traps, in summer, placed on top of canes amongst tall flowers such as dahlias.

You can also turn old newspapers into paper pots, which are a great ‘green’ alternative to peat pots for raising baby veg plants next spring. All you need is a wooden gadget you can buy by mail order from organic suppliers (Suffolk Herbs 01376 572456, www.suffolkherbs.com ). Simply roll a strip of paper round the ‘former’ then press it into the shaped base to complete a pot that holds together without glueing or stapling. It’s the sort of job you can sit and do indoors on a cold wet day, and feel you’ve used your time profitably as you pile up stocks.

Another good ‘indoor job’ is cleaning used plastic plant labels. A quick wash in a bucket of warm soapy water followed by a light rub down with some fine wire wool or a Brillo pad cleans them up a treat. You can reuse the same labels for labelling seed trays or marking rows in the veg patch for several years till they get too brittle. Keep a large plant pot in the greenhouse and use it to ‘file’ used labels during the gardening season, and you’ll soon collect a worthwhile horde. 

 By the same token, it’s well worth washing up used plastic flowerpots. It’s more hygienic than reusing dirty pots as it removes risk of passing disease organisms on to your next batch of young plants, and it’s so much nicer to use clean dry pots for sowing seeds or potting rooted cuttings. When you’ve washed a stack, let them dry naturally outside in the sun then pack them away in plastic carrier bags with the handles tied, hung up in the shed, so they’re ready to use come the new propagating season, next spring.

Patio pots troughs and tubs are also worth cleaning up now, whether you plan on reusing them this winter or you’re storing them till spring. They’ll clean up better, too, if you do it before the dirt’s had time to sink in.

Oh recycling won’t save you a fortune, but its very green – and every little helps.