As I mentioned yesterday, and alluded to the other week when asking about how to make a recycling bin thing, John and I have decided to tidy up our garden. “Garden” is quite a grand word for it because it’s really just a small yard that we’ve tried growing things in – but been unsuccessful because it’s north-facing in a not exactly warm or sheltered part of the country.

Over the years, I’ve tried growing all sorts of bits of veg in the not even 2m by 3m soily bit but not had much success because of the north-facing-ness, the resulting slugs of doom and our horrible clay-y soil which even repeated emptyings of the compost bin hasn’t really helped. I’m going to keep growing shrubs and anything else I can keep alive in pots but we’ve decided to “pave” it over so we can use the area in different ways (more space for drying clothes, entertaining friends and having space to do large scale, messy craft/building projects) – at the moment it’s a good-for-little muddy mess.

For obvious reasons, we’re reluctant to use newly cut stone for the job and have been on the lookout for patio flags that other people are replacing – but I’m wondering if anyone has any fun suggestions for us to use instead.

We’ve got some flat-tish pieces of york stone that we salvaged a few of years ago (they’ve actually been used as edging on the soil bed – shown in the picture the day we put it in) which we can use as crazy paving, but we don’t think we’ve got enough for the full job. So any suggestions of things we can use to pad the paving out a bit? Or put between the cracks?

On the “how can I make a bookshelf out of recycled stuff” post a couple of weeks ago, one of our lovely regular readers Alice suggested we should do more posts that way around – how can you do/make something out by recycling or reusing old junk.

I’ve added the idea to our suggestions request page but haven’t had any emails about it just yet, so am posting one from/for me instead.

We’re lucky that we have pretty decent doorstep recycling in Leeds – we’ve got a green wheelie bin for plastic (1 and 4), paper, cardboard, tins/cans etc – but it doesn’t include glass or tetrapak.

Our nearest bottle bank is frustratingly a drive away (why there isn’t one on our low-car-ownership estate is beyond me) so we usually collect up a fair stash and combine it with another trip in that direction. But this means we more often than not have a large amount of glass jars and bottles in our tiny front garden – which is both untidy and a potential safety hazard. The tetrapak stuff is safer but the collection spot even further away so we go there even less.

We need a way to keep this stuff out of the way – and dry: we had a set of plastic drawers out there at one point but they just filled with manky water every time it rained (well, fresh water than quickly turned manky).

So we need a recycling bin/shed thing to hold this stuff in and I’d much rather make one than buy anything. It can’t be too big because we’ve not got that much room and it needs to be reasonably easy to empty too.

Aside from looking out for an old bin (which are few and far between now since everyone’s had council wheelie ones for ages), any suggestions for things to make it from? I’m not particularly handy but willing to give things a go. Any tips on how to keep it from filling with rain or with ever curious cats?

We’ve had an email from Jen & Dave, asking:

We recently moved into a new house that was COVERED in ivy. We’ve pulled most of it off for the sake of the masonry but haven’t got space to compost it all since it takes so long to break down. Any ideas what we can do with the rest?

Sticking to the composting line, your local council tip might have a garden waste area but depending on how they compost it, it might cause regrowth problems there as it does in garden compost heaps.

If it had been later in the year, you could use it for decorating Christmas wreaths etc.

Any other suggestions?

(Photo by Rybson)

We’ve had an email from Sam:

I’ve just cut down a tree in my backyard. I’ll compost the leafy bits but the branches would take far too long to rot. What can I do with them? I thought about getting one of those chipper things but they’re expensive so do you have any other suggestions?

You could maybe rent a wood shredder – and see if any friends or anyone else in the neighbourhood has stuff to chop up and would be willing to share the cost – but it might cost more than you’re willing to spend.

If there are some reasonably straight and not too thick branches, you could use them as plant supports in the garden or if they’re quite flexible, make them a trellis for plants to climb up.

Any other suggestions?

(Photo by Louchiere)