Thursday, October 2, 2014

Free frugal planters or a free drum set from the kebab house

Planters can cost a lot of money if you live in a climate where some of the essential kitchen herbs and delicate vegetables should be grown in containers to make the best use of a short growing season.

It took us a couple of years to get used to starting tomatoes in pots, and even that leaves us with lots of green ones in fall when the temperature dips into the 40s in September and tomato plants go from lush to dead brown over night.

Peppers are even more difficult to get to maturity, yet they represent an essential ingredient in our homemade kimchi.

One day, we were strolling through town when the owner of the local kebab place put out plastic recycling, and there they were: 2.5 gallon buckets of food grade plastic, five or so neatly stacked, with handles and matching lids.

Can we have these?

Sure, help yourself.

Two of the buckets were turned into planters, just three or four holes drilled into the bottom, and the habanero pepper plants have space to grow.

Sure, the depiction of greek or turkish cheese on a plant bucket is not normally considered aesthetically pleasing, at least not by posh consumer lifestyle mags like Swanky Homes & Gardens or the German Landlust, a title we admittedly misunderstood the first time we saw it.

However the pepper plants live in buckets that contained pickled jalapeno type peppers.
At least the decoration on the side, as shown in this example, almost perfectly matches our plants.

Free buckets have as many uses as you can possibly think of, and then some.

Once carefully scrubbed and rinsed out, they are perfect for pickling enough kimchi to last a northern winter.

We use ours to transport apples and plums, to store little bits and pieces of fire starter wood for the wood stove, and to keep craft supplies.

If you are a musician, they can be a free drum set, as shown in this video on Youtube.

One practical note:
Empty food buckets typically do not last as long as dedicated planter containers from the store, especially when you use them outside. UV rays take their toll, making them brittle and eventually causing them to break. At which point you put them into the plastic recycling and have another chat with your local fast food operation. 

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