Recycle old socks and Soft drink bottles

Instructables.com would have to be one of my favorite websites, as it encourages people to get out and create things from stuff that is laying around. I would love to be a teenager again having plenty of spare time and all of my fathers tools to get stuck into a couple of projects each week.

A simple search for Gardening revealed hundreds of different projects for you to build. Here are three that jumped out at me today:

Scrooge Bottle - A great water saving device built to plant beside water loving plants. It is simple to make and cheap to construct, and is a great way to recycle old socks and soft drink bottles.

Pipe tools - creating a great planting trowel / shovel out of some steel water pipe is the best and cheapest way I’ve seen to create gardening tools.

Easy Garden labels - a thrifty student has used plastic spoons to make sturdy and long lasting plant labels.

So how about we all get out there and start creating things from old materials to make our lives in the garden easier.

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Water and lack thereof is a huge talking point in this day and age of “Climate Change”. By changing your watering technique you can improve your watering effectiveness, save you time and save some money in water bills.

Over the past couple of months we’ve been adding to our new large garden bed. We’ve put in plants such as Passionfruit, a lemon tree, Moses in the cradle, honeysuckles, ponytail tree, marigolds, vinca, lavender etc. All of these plants have different water requirements, but to help preserve what goes on, it has all been mulched with hay, and some parts have been covered with horse manure to help the hay break down into a nice rich topsoil / compost / mulch.

I’ve been using my standard watering sprinkler which puts out a whopping 990 liters per hour over a large area. It takes 4 moves of the sprinkler to get the whole area covered, and it is easy to forget to move it, and some areas get neglected from time to time.

Working with small scale irrigation systems is quite easy, even for the first timer who has no experience. Your basic setup requires a few key materials and a little common sense.

For our setup I bought fifty meters of 13mm hose, two T pieces, a hose adapter, a filter (to stop the drippers blocking) with pressure reducer (keeps it at 100 bar), and some drippers.

Overall it only took 30 minutes to install. The first step was to lay the hose out in the desired pattern, cut and fit joiners where required. Next attach the hose and fill with water, take the hole making tool and start installing the drippers.

Each of my drippers run at 4 litres per hour, I used these on the larger plants such as the lemon tree, passionfruit vine and other larger dedicated plants.

To make placement easier, I used some smaller 4mm flexible hose to attch to the main 13mm hose. This allows me to move them around the base of the tree as required.

Over my anuals (which will be replaced with perennials when the current perennials grow to be a bit bigger) I used a small rotating sprinkler head. Using upright raisers to get them above the mulch, they spin around distributing water over a larger area. The exact water usage from these is unknown at the moment, but should they begin putting out too much water, I can easily add taps to their raisers and they can be turned off.

The best part of creating your own drip irrigation system is that it can be modified at any time for little cost, once the initial financial outlay has been done.

By completing this job, my household water consumption should drop significantly thus reducing my water bill. Along with the installation of the low water toilet bowl and dual flush cistern in the bathroom, I’m taking the first step top making my house even greener.

For more information on DIY Watering systems you can visit:

• DIY Network
• Irrigation Tutorials
• Gardening Australia

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It’s finished… All I need to do now is paint again and put the mirrors on the walls.
Let me tell you it has been a harrowing experience, one that I’m not in a hurry to repeat any time soon.
But I will say that the troubles that we went through saved a lot of money, overall it cost me just over $4k, not bad when you look at the cost to get someone in to do it for you.

Now that it’s almost done, I can shower, go to the toilet, and most importantly get back to blogging here. Photo’s to follow when the product it completely done.

It’s been 6 days now since we began renovating our bathroom… They say that slow and steady wins the race, but I’m beginning to wonder.

It has been fantastic to have my father and one of our family friends come up and stay with us to do the job. What we’re spending in time we’re saving twice that in labor costs. All we have to do is provide food, bed and beer to keep these workers happy.

Day 1 was destruction.
Day 2 was cleanup and trips to the dump.
Day 3 saw construction of the raised floor.
Day 4 was more floor and some plumbing.
Day 5 (Sunday) was a day of rest, sight seeing and bbq at the lake.
Day 6 has seen the plumbing finished and the walls taking shape…

I hope that we’ll have the rest of the walls up and the shower fitted on day 7, ready for tiling on day 8.

From top Left to bottom Right.
Before destruction, After Destruction, Maggie the Cat inspecting, Feeding the peacock at the lake.

Remember Mr Squiggle? “Upside down Miss Jane…”


If you’re not from Australia then maybe not.

Anyway, I saw a link the other day to an upside down tomato planting system. Being a commercial version it cost around $27 to get one delivered.

I thought that it was a great idea, but it looked like it would only last one season of growing due to it’s flimsy plastic design, I quickly forgot about the planter.

Yesterday I was browsing through Instructables.com and found there was a post on how to build your own Inverted Planter for next to no cost.

The idea of an inverted planter is that there is no need to tie your tomato plants to a trellis, as gravity holds them hanging down freely.

The following is taken from the commercial version’s website:

Tags: gardening

Whilst out gardening the other day I found a large wet spot in my garden. After a little investigation I found that it was coming from the pipe that connects the water main to my house.

A few things went through my head, termites love water and they will be attracted to the spot right next to my house, how much water was I wasting, how long had it been running and how much extra was my water bill going to be.

What made me mad was that the leak was coming from a repair somebody had made to the pipe after they had stuck their shovel through it prior to us owning the house.

Being black Poly pipe it is relatively cheap (~$4 per m), yet they went to the trouble of making a clamping device, lining that with tyre tube rubber and clamping it over the hole.

After buying two meters of pipe ($8) I dug the pipe up and found that there were connectors on both ends of the offending section ($25 cost saving in connectors).
All it took was to unscrew the broken pipe, trim the new pipe to length and screw back together.

As far as I’m concerned it was a simple and cheap repair made difficult by somebody trying to save a dollar making a clamp.

Tell us about any dodgy handyman  repairs you’ve found in your house.

Tags: plumbing

It’s tomato time again and the seedlings that I prepared in the post Grow Tomatoes from Seed in the pots that I prepared in the Newspaper Pots have grown into the planting stage.

One of my cherry tomatoes is growing slowly, but happily, in the open garden bed while the pride of my seedlings (the big truss tomato) is in a large 75 liter pot in full sun and has tomatoes as big as grapes already!

I’ve got one more plant to put into the garden and I will be experimenting with a new Trellis support for it.
In the past I’ve used stakes, cages and other various support methods, but after doing some research I’ve decided to combine the best ideas from a couple of them and make my own.

Here are some of the best systems that I found on the net:
Simple Garden Trellis
Tomato Tee Pee - The Suburban Farm
Tomato Support Ideas

My biggest problem is subterranean termites, should I put any wood into the ground and keep the soil moist (as a tomato needs) they will be sure to invade and eat my trellis.

As you can see in the photo, I’ve adapted the garden trellis to be built from two steel poles I recycled from my neighbors bird cage and pieces of garden hose that had a hole in it.

After banging the poles in on an angle and leaning them against the fence, I used tie wire to connect the hose across the poles.

As the tomato plant grows up through the trellis the hose will support any branches. Any strays will get trained onto the trellis or cut off. I will also be able to tie any branches onto the hose or posts.
Behind the ‘ladder’ is a mesh fence, this will also help to keep the plant supported.

Next year I hope to put a whole row of tomato bushes in. I will probably work something along this theme, but it will be longer and able to cater for more than one plant.

Tags: tomato, trellis, gardening, vegetable

This weekend has been a great time in our garden. I managed to get five fence panels from my boss to grow some creepers over to create a green screen in our yard.

The panels were going to go to the rubbish tip as he had no use for them, so I gave him a carton of beer ($40) and he helped load them into my ute. Beer may not be an important part of your culture, but this small is an Aussie gesture of thanks. Beer can also be a form of currency when you get your mates to help out with the labor! This is the first of many recycling projects over the coming months.

I had to purchase three star pickets to hold them up ($30), and a roll of tie wire to hold everything together ($8). The plants which we placed at the bottom to grow up the fence are variety of Mandevilla called Sun Parasol ($8 each). We chose these as they like part shade, which is what they will get since they are under the Mango tree.

All up this only cost me $94 and kept me amused for half of the day. Now I can’t wait for the screen to grow, then I’ll hang my hammock from the Mango tree and no one will be able to see me reading my book or sleeping.

Tags: recycling, garden screen, mandevilla, beer, creeper, vines

Insulation is one of the most important products to keep your house warm in winter and cool in summer. Did you know that up to 37% of the heat in your house is lost through your windows?

The best way to prevent heat loss is to install double glazed windows through your entire house. Like you, I am not made of money! So after searching the internet for a while I came across a site that suggests using Bubble Wrap as an insulation product for your windows.

The steps are quite easy:
- Cut the bubble wrap to size
- Mist the window with fresh water
- Stick bubble wrap to the window, bubble side out

They suggest that you use clear bubble wrap to let the light in, but if you wanted a change you could always use green or red semi transparent bubble wrap to change the mood of your room!

Check out the full page at: Build It Solar

You could always just pop the bubbles… Virtual Bubble Wrap

Recently we moved to a much warmer climate than the area where I grew up. While the thought of being able to grow fruit such as Mango and trees such as palms,the challenges of getting plants to grow in a hot climate have taken the toll on some of my plants.

While at the local garden centre, I was discussing the best way to grow plants in a garden bed along my fence. After telling her that I had a large backyard with a galvanized tin fence, she recommended that I buy a length of shade cloth or brush fencing to place along the portion of fence that is directly behind my plants to insulate them from the reflective heat in the mornings and the radiant heat in the afternoons.

Generally it only needs to be for the first summer, but depending on the plant it may need to be for a bit longer.

I’ve installed some shade cloth at my house, but my partner would like to see us use a brush fencing to cover the tin over the other fence.