Got stuff lying around?
Do you ever notice what people place on the side of the road as giveaways or sell cheaply at home garage sales?Perhaps leftover construction materials, do it yourself renovation leftovers, old windows, a shower door, end tables?
Today DIY (do it yourself) projects are hot. Shows like Flea Market Flip have participants pick up rusted, broken down, tired furniture and odd pieces like a file cabinet. With some adjustments, paint and polish, they give them a new life, some sparkle and even attitude.
Earth Day 2017 is here. Many events are happening in our communities. This spring we have been reusing leftover wood, an old shower door with tempered glass, castaway field goals in our DIY projects. Today I would like to share one DIY project we recently completed.
We had an old above ground pool liner out by our woodpile. Something sort of hanging around but forgotten about till this winter. My honey wanted to use it finally since the pool came down years ago when his kids grew up. He came up with the idea to cut the outer frame into circles and create a three tiered planter for our strawberries.
You can measure your liner or material to any size you want. He cut the middle tier first to keep the height, then the second tier and finally the third outer tier to the height we wanted. He secured the ends with screws and used a couple of posts to reinforce the outer edges for support. You may want to measure total length and decide on lengths needed for each tier so you have enough and not short change any tier.
Next we had to decide what to fill it with. These units would need a lot of precious soil. We decided to use brush, leaves, twigs etc not fully broken down. In fact, we did a bit of spring raking and used the material to fill these container sections. We packed them down a bit because they will decompose creating soil as it ages. Next we took about 6 barrel fulls of composted soil to “top” it off. We transplanted strawberries (to make room in the garden beds) into their new home. Rains came yesterday and the strawberries look healthy, perky and doing well. We look forward to upcoming strawberry season.
In summary this project cost us: $0.
- We re-purposed, reused and recycled an old pool liner, the outer shell frame for an above ground pool. This is not the inner liner.
- With some measurements taken for our space he cut the liner for all three tiers.
- The inner circle has the most height and he placed an old bucket (re-purposed, reused) )not being used in the center to take up space.
- We packed each tier with raked leaves, twigs etc.
- We “topped” each tier’s garden bed off with composted soil.
- We transplanted strawberries, from one bed we wanted to free up, to this new “home.”
- The top tier holds pansys, When in bloom they will create a beautiful hat for this container. When and if they cannot withstand the summer sun and lose their oomph they can easily be replaced after seeding.
What do we do about the outside? We’re not sure yet. The outer material has been washed down, seems to be a plastic/fiber material. At the very least the old stripes add a little bit of color like ribbons or icing on a cake. Any suggestions? We welcome your ideas.
Enjoy. Judith
Judith Dreyer, MS, BSN, Writer, Speaker, and Workshop Presenter, Master Gardener.
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