Who Barter / Trade / Scrounge's for garden supplies and what was it?

Just a random question. One of my favorite things to do is barter and scrounge when I can. Why buy new when you can recycle old stuff...usually for FREE. That's another thing of mine...FREE!

I was just curious as to how many people are also into this? Supplies for your garden, etc. And what did you scrounge up.

Here's my list of goodies for my garden:

FREE 30 landscape ties (used as borders for the beds)
FREE county mulch (used in the walk ways around the beds. We loaded the bed of our '79 Dodge by hand with shovels and took us about 20 minutes, but it took the kids (both young teeneagers) about 2 hours to unload it!
FREE horse manure from work. Using the Dodge again to bring it home...though I used the front end loader on the tracter to load it into the truck and the kids and shovels to unload it...I kept telling them they'll build character and muscle that way! They didn't and still don't believe me! LOL
FREE labor (2 teenagers) ... I do my fair share....
Oh and FREE hay chaff for the hens and Guinea Pigs...we get alot of that at work too.

NorthWoodsFever wrote:
One of my favorite things to do is barter and scrounge when I can.
Why buy new when you can recycle old stuff...usually for FREE.

Good for you! that you have a Pick-up, a Tractor, with a Front-end loader, teenagers (or any relatives), Free manure & county mulch, etc, etc, forever.
Us with NONE such, could get really depressed , were we to let it.
As a currently-disabled person, I had 3 ideas today. I hope nobody laughs at this. You know:
the 2-liter Pepsi-bottles, cut in half (no, I don't drink Pepsi), and
the clear 2-lb. cherry Tomato-boxes: could they be used to Sprout... seeds inside? - I have lots.
and
the sturdy cardboard boxes, the 5 lbs. of sweet seedless satsumas are sold in at the grocery: 11-in.long, by 7-in.wide, by 3-in. high. Wonder if they could be used to grow things in. - also have lots of pots, from previous plants, and a fair amount of various potting soils, and some cloth used to deter weeds, & some bricks, & tiles, & later ample sun. - Do you think encasing the boxes in plastic-bags, could have them serve as intermediate SFG-boxes, for one season. What do you think?

LittleGardener wrote: the 5 lbs. of sweet seedless satsumas are sold in at the grocery: 11-in.long, by 7-in.wide, by 3-in. high. Wonder if they could be used to grow things in. -

I picked up 8 of these today, from the cafeteria at work. I know they will last one season where I live. I plan on lining the interior of the box with burlap then growing flowers in them. The boxes were free and the burlap is from coffee bean sack from the local coffee roaster.
Last year, there was some major infrastructure work going on up the street, A major sewer upgrade. I procured more than 100 'sewer brick' which were actually the brick supporting the old pipe. These I let stay out in the weather for a few months, then used them for a border of a flower garden I had built. I picked up 2 blue barrels at the transfer station, they contained a citrus based something or other; they came from the water treatment plant in town. There was still paperwork attached to one of the barrels so I can do some research on what was inside.
I am a fan of free oak pallets. I also scored some nice wooden shipping crates from a local manufacturer. They receive machine parts in the crates. These I do use for growing vegetables. Here I am getting ready to plant leek seedlings. The leeks did well.
I am always on the look-out for stuff near dumpsters. I picked up a crib last year and used parts for trellising. If I see something I want I can usually muscle it into the back of the wagon.
I have traded extra seedling for other plants. I am hoping the bees do well this spring so I may use honey for barter as well.

Our county has a wonderful recycling program at the dump, so no free mulch there. Just really nice stuff for cheap. Keeping that in mind I just got a nice size load of mulch/wood chips from a neighbor who got several trees trimmed. I have gotten 2 free mostly dead benches for plant stands on the front porch. 3 aged wheel barrels, which have been painted yellow with orange and purple ladybugs, as planters and a red ladder as a focal point (it did not survive the last hurricane. Had a neighbor who moved but used to divide things in her yard and put them out near the curb with a sign of what they were. Got a few flowering bushes that way. Unfortunately she has moved, but I did curb side recycle a few gardening shed items. I trade plants with a different neighbor and my mother-in law (do not know if that counts.) You are not alone in the curbside recycle business, some years are better than others. (also running out of space.)

Patty in Yorktown

I am always on the look out for free things. I have found things that are in great shape sometimes perfect shape and someone just threw them out. I hope to do this with the garden this year. I am in need of bricks and such. SO trash day Im on the hunt. I do look at thing to make sure clean or not broken. also they get a good cleaning when they come home. also thinking about going to some of these new home comunites and seeing if they have extras they do not need

The plastic berry and tomato container make great miniature greenhouse sprouting boxes. I've used them for years. Last year I used some thin styrofoam packing and divided them into 6-8 sections, put them on aluminium foil lined cookie sheets. After they sprout up, just open the tops and let them keep growing. Kept the roots from tangling.

I also use the zipper plastic bags that sheets, comfortors and drapes come in as mini starter houses. I slide a tray of pellets into them and set them on a heating pad. Keeps my heating pad dry and clean until the seeds sprout and need to get out into the air to prevent damping off.

Check with the grocery store and see if they have some wax coated cabbage boxes. I received 3 boxes full of cabbage outer leaves by being in the right place at the local recycle center. After putting the leaves into my compost pile, I left the boxes in the back of the truck for later disposal. Well after 3 days of rain, those boxes were not soggy and held up enought to bring home some horse manure. So I put them into the garage for future scavaging trips.

Kay

I also scored some nice wooden shipping crates from a local manufacturer. They receive machine parts in the crates. These I do use for growing vegetables.

Lol. I have a buddy who unfortunately just got laid off from Komatsu. He was giving me crates very similar to those that I will be using too!

I bartered a week's worth of homemade bread, soups, stews and cookies for the building of three additional beds. The barter was with my college-aged son! Worked out GREAT!

Mamachibi wrote:I bartered a week's worth of homemade bread, soups, stews and cookies for the building of three additional beds. The barter was with my college-aged son! Worked out GREAT!

A most excellent trade! Well done!!

Every spring (late April to mid-May) the city has a City-Wide Clean-up, meaning ANYTHING you put out at the curb will be picked up on the trash runs that week - no extra charge. Instead of your regular trash day, they tell you what days to have wood, metal, or yard waste, etc. Since everyone knows the schedule, it is easy to pick when to go hunting! It is basically a one-week free-for-all checking out all the neighbors' cast-offs. There are always some serious garden goodies out there for someone with a creative eye. This year I am going to look for some novelty items to use as trellises. Last year I spotted a matched set of metal head & foot boards that I was going to snag for my garden but by the time I got home and got my truck back there I was too late!

GG

I love all these ideas! Now that I am home full time I will have to find out what my community recycle program is and if I can scrounge some good trellis materials there. On another post someone listed a link for using wooden pallets for vertical gardening. I love that idea too! I could probably find some of those around town for free. happy hunting to all for this next growing season.

I found a woman who runs a farm and produce stand who will grow the tomato seeds I give her. All I need is one plant of each of the 17 varieties she's growing for me and she'll keep the rest to sell.

Nice deal I think.

We built our greenhouse primarily out of reclaimed old windows and door (have a second door, several more windows and nothing to do with them yet) from a group of very old houses that were being torn down or burned as practice for the fire department training. They were free provided we removed them ourselves.
I've repurposed parts of old dog ex-pens for one of the lattices in the garden, and also for 3 of the four sides of two compost bins.
My herb garden wheelbarrow was a cast off from a business that had bought a new one, and the strawberry barrow is one we killed (holes in the bottom of each one... SCORE!)
I have an old wire bin (don't know what it was for) that I scrounged that's now the window box for the greenhouse, old buckets and coal scuttles used to house annuals, and a garden bench that were being pitched by someone.
I've traded yard work for various things, and have arranged to rake someone's leaves (and take them two totes of same) in return for alpaca poop.

As for the cherry tomato boxes being used to start seedlings. I started our celery seed in one this year, and will be using them to start some of the annual flowers that need to be "pricked out" to transplant.

I also use empty soda bottles (any size) to fill the bottom of extremely deep pots or planting boxes so they're not as heavy if they need to be moved. I always leave enough room for good soil at the top for whatever is being planted. I use the cut tops of 2 liter bottles as mini cloches (remove the cap) and the bases as water 'saucers' for small pots.

I get free coffee grounds from a local cafe thanks to a girl I know that works there part time.

Free horse manure from a coworker. She even shoveled it and brought it to me at work in a huge plastic tote!

Got about 250 small untreated boards from where my dad works. His job was going to toss them, and he was going to use them for campfire material lol. Currently working on turning them into a bin for all the free compost stuff I have now.

I have some sort of fiberglass jacuzzi type tub that was on the property when I moved in. Used it to mix my MM in. Be using it as its on raised bed eventually.

Also have some chainlink fencing that Im debating the use for. Free, barter, reclaimed, im all for anything that requires less of my money.

I'm starting to get all the vegetable scrapes and peelings from a couple of our local schools.