Use, Re-Use, and Use Again

Here in South Florida, our vegetable growing season is drawing to a close.  While those of you in the South and up North are planning and starting your gardens, we are winding down.  We really only have two seasons here, dry and rainy.  We grow our traditional vegetable gardens in the dry season that starts in October.  Many of the vegetables that you have been eating this winter were grown in far south Florida, far south Texas, and southern California.  Our rainy season usually starts no later than the 3rd week of May.  Once the rainy season starts, temperatures soar, humidity rises, and it rains at least once a day.  Now that doesn't mean that it rains all day long.  It means it usually rains sometime around lunchtime and then again around 3 or 5.  The rain doesn't last long, but that rain along with the heat and humidity is enough to discourage most vegetables from growing.

So, we are busy planting our okras and southern peas because they are about the only edibles that can survive. However, there are lots of non-edibles that keep a gardener busy in the rainy season.

As I go through the season transition process I am taking things down and finding new uses for them.  For example, this tomato cage is no longer needed for its Mr. Stripey resident.  I will be using it again in the fall when I start my soil tomatoes again but until then it is out of a job.

Re-Purposed Tomato Cage

Or maybe not!  As I was walking to put it away, I thought why couldn't this cage
support one of my ground orchids that started to run out of control.  I recently
thinned out my ground orchids and put some of them in pots (keep reading to
find out about my re-used pots).  One of them was so gangly I wasn't sure what to do with it.  It was healthy, so I hated to toss it, but it had a terrible growth habit.  I potted it up and sat it where it could lean on a plumeria while it got its act together.  So, enter Mr. Stripey's tomato cage.  Instead of putting the cage away I paused with the cage in my hand as I walked past that pot.  I ended up putting that cage around the pot with the gangly orchid in it.  So, that plant has all rainy season to get its act together and get some roots long enough to support it.  Come fall that cage has got to get back to its real job of supporting a tomato.
Use as designed, re-used off-label so to speak, and then use again for its original purpose.  Works for me!

Basket lined with fronds

Another thing I have been doing is lining hanging pots with dried palm fronds.  I have way too many palm trees.  This means way too many palm fronds.  I used to buy liners made from coconut hair for my hanging baskets.  Then I decided why should I do that when not only did I have palm hair but I had an excess of palm fronds in my yard.  I found that through trial and error that the fronds from robellini, cats paw and areca palms made the best liners.  It was simply a matter of cutting the main vein from the fronds and then forming them inside the basket.  I trimmed off any excess frond to make it neat.  Then all I needed to do was fill with soil and plant.  The fronds hold in the soil.  Just like to coconut hair, they slowly decompose.  When they are done, all you have to do is dump them in the compost pile and they are already partially decomposed. 

Frond line basket

Lastly, if you didn't notice in the ground orchid picture, I use pots over and over and over again.  I have been known to buy a plant on "Death Row" (the discounted plant rack) just because I want the pot.  Even the cheap plastic grower's pots are great for starting out plants.

And of course almost all components of our aquaponic gardens are off-label.  We have used cement mixing containers for grow beds and Rubbermaid storage containers for fish tanks!

What crazy ways do you re-use things in your garden?