4 Ways To Create A Kitchen Garden Using Upcycled Materials

 

Whether you live in an apartment and have no yard space or are just enchanted with the idea of growing a bit of food in your own kitchen or on your porch, creating a kitchen garden can be fun and rewarding. There are, of course, a host of kitchen garden pots, planters and other tools available for purchase, but why not create your kitchen garden using upcycled materials? What better way is there to be kind to the environment while enjoying home-grown food straight from your own kitchen?

What to Grow 

A number of plants are suitable for a kitchen garden, but it is important to take into account root depth, sunlight requirements and more. Below are a few suggestions of plants worthy of consideration for your kitchen garden.

• Strawberries: Nothing quite beats the romance of picking plump, red berries off your own personal plants. Because they are shallow-rooted plants, they adapt well to container growing.
• Lettuce: Incredibly easy to grow, lettuce is a top candidate for kitchen gardens, especially if you choose a cut-and-come-again lettuce blend. There are some fantastic seed blends with a wide range of leaf textures and colors and tastes that vary from bland to spicy.
• Herbs: The best chefs use fresh herbs. Join their ranks by planting your own food seasonings such as chives, basil, rosemary, parsley and thyme.
• Tomatoes: Be cautious when selecting tomato plants. If you have limited space, you will want to look for patio container varieties. These will stay a bit more contained than some of the bigger garden varieties. You can also grow tomato plants specifically for indoor growing, as they don't require bees to pollinate them. Although the pollen naturally drops from one flower to another, some growers suggest gently shaking your tomato plant to encourage pollination.
• Radishes: Their compact size and bursts of color make it a no brainer – it must be included in the kitchen garden!
• Dwarf Carrots: While your average carrot is too long for many containers, the more compact, ball-type carrots work well.

These are some of the easiest to grow and most popular plants for a kitchen garden. Of course, you can grow many other things, but keep in mind that plants such as watermelon and squash need a lot of space! Once you have decided what to grow, it is time to get down to the business of finding containers in which to plant.

More Awesome Ways to Upcycle Junk into Bird Houses

Kids love crafts and making stuff with them is also a valuable time you spend together with your dearest.

We  featured a few cool upcycled bird houses last year but here are a few more awesome ideas to get you inspired for this spring!

Here's a long instruction on turning a plastic bottle into a very pretty bird house:

 

Here's another one that involves more painting:

 

Here's a bird feeder made of recycled milk carton:

And even more milk (or juice) carton bird houses here:

Good luck! have fun with your kids and get prepared for spring!

By Annie, author of these kids' party ideas.

Plastic Bottle into a Bird Feeder

Bird feeders are always fun to make as you can easily enroll your kids into the process. It is awesome to watch birds coming and it also teaches your children to care for the Nature (which, in turn, makes them kinder, more responsible and eco-conscious).

Here are a couple of nice-looking useful and smart ways to re-use your old plastic bottles into bird-feeders:

1) For this one, apart from a large plastic bottle, you will also need two wooden spoons that work as actual feeders. The wholes above the spoons will let bird seeds out, but not too much:

2) I fell in love with this one: the roof looks fantastic! And your kids will love the idea of "Welcome home" message. It must really feel at home there:

Plastic Bottles into Upside Down Herb Planters

If you love planting and adore original designs and ideas, you will find this idea simply awesome! Plant herbs upside down and use old plastic bottles for this!

• These save plenty of space;
• They look amazing and fun (your guests and friends will love it!)
• That's an awesome way to reuse old plastic bottles.

Here's the detailed instruction as well as another way to implement the idea.

More ways to re-use those plastic bottles:

• Recycle a Plastic Bottle into a Box
• Plastic Bottle Sand Watch
• Build a Greenhouse of Plastic Bottles
• Plastic Bottle Candle Holder
• Sandals for the Beach Made of Plastic Bottles

Do-It-Yourself New Year Round-up!

I am sorry I haven't been updating my blog for a while but I felt obliged to post at least something to round-up this exciting year.

Great winter holidays DIY projects: enjoy!

Plastic Cups Snowman

This snowman will never melt and it will serve as the holiday decoration for your home throughout many years!

Recycle Gift Cards into Christmas Tree Ornament

I am sure it is fun to create too! And depending on your gift card providers, can be various colors!

Plastic Bottle Candle Holder

These will come in handy for any winter holiday including st Valintine's day and New Year:

And don't forget these CD candle holders as well!

Drinking Straw Light Fixture

I am pretty sure this one can be used as the holiday decoration!

CD Christmas Tree

OK, it is a bit late now but why not save the page for the next year?

CD Photo Frame

A great last-minute February 14 gift idea!

CD Disco Ball

Can also be turned into awesome holiday decor!

LED Lights in a Bottle

Beautiful decor idea for the holidays!

Ping-Pong Balls into Diffused Party Lights

Wow!

Light Bulb Christmas Tree

Made of used light bulbs this tree looks awesome and is absolutely reusable and environment-friendly!

I hope you feel inspired! Happy Holidays and see you in 2011!

Plastic Bottle Candle Holder

What a nice eco-friendly way to celebrate the Earth day for example! Or if you are an eco-friendly couple, you definitely need these plastic bottle candle holders for any celebration you have (and maybe also these CD candle holders for a change).

The green bottle DIY series also includes:

• Plastic bottle coin bank;
• Plastic bottle magazine rack.

Plastic Bottles into a Coin Bank

This DIY project is from the same series as he plastic bottle magazine rack we have just shared.

A plastic bottle coin bank seems a bit harder to make but it looks so much fun! And a nice motivation to save money as well!

Other similar plastic bottle re-uses:

Plastic Bottle Box and Plastic Frog Box (zipped!);
Beach Sandals Made of Plastic Bottles;
Plastic Bottle Sand Watch;

Plastic Frog Box

Do you remember that cool plastic zipped box I've shared earlier, this week I have something even cuter for you: the same thing but much more fun.

This is just the same zipped code made of two plastic bottles but with eyes - this makes the whole thing much lovelier, what do you think?

Pull Tab Bracelet

This project proves that EVERYTHING can be recycled even such useless things as pull tabs.

Ok, this pull tab bracelet may look like nothing fancy and maybe you won't put it on when going to some party, but your kids may love it.

And making it might be fun as well!

Plastic Bottles Spheric Lamps

Most of us have plenty of used empty plastic bottles at home: some of them can be spent on these cool plastic boxes, others (if you have many) - on this plastic bottle chair and if you still have some, consider this cool spheric lamp.

Empty, unlabeled plastic drink bottles create a burst of light and refraction. Besides, you can control the color of light by choosing different colors.

Plastic PET Bottle Lamps

We've seen quite a few lights in plastic so far: remember a nice plastic cups chandelier and a cool drinking straw lamp? And today we are offering another nice plastic lamp.

Plastic Bottle Sand Watch

I have no idea how much sand one needs to make that, say, a one-hour timer, or how to find that out but the watch seems cool, doesn't it?

I imagine playing with various bottle and sand colors, you can create a cool interior decor element...

Recycle a Plastic Bottle into a Box

Plenty of people have numerous plastic bottles which can have various uses. You can create a stylish plastic bottles chair, a useful plastic bottles greenhouse or a cool plastic bottle lamp. Or you can consider this genius idea and make a nice box that can be used to store some tiny things like.

Plastic Bottles Chair

I am not sure how solid this plastic bottles chair is but it looks like a comfortable one. I don't mean it is good for sitting there all day long but it does seem to have some relaxing massage effect we all need at the end of a long day.

All you need is to collect plastic bottles and glue them together!

by Pawel Grunert

Build a Greenhouse of Plastic Bottles

Some ideas just keep amazing me! Now you can put ALL your used plastic bottles to good use: build a greenhouse with them. What's more, the greenhouse stands on a foundation made out of recycled tires.

Via

DIY Reminder Lamp Made of a Plastic Bottle

I have plenty of used plastic bottles at home and I love discovering always new creative ways to recycle them. Here is a cool instruction on crafting a portable lamp from a recycled plastic bottle.

Here's a detailed instruction on how to create lamp by recycling a plastic bottle.

DIY Sprinkler Made of a Plastic Bottle and Ball Point PensB

Here's a nice tutorial on making a DIY sprinkler for under $5 to water your lawn. Materials needed:

• 1 plastic bottle with cap
• 1 universal male hose attachment
• 15 used ball point pens
• Plumbing contact adhesive and sealant
• Electric drill

The detailed instruction can be found here