Following on from last week’s plastic dustbins and Monday’s broken ironing boards, Philip also suggested

Brooms and rakes.

I don’t know why, but people often throw out orphaned handles and heads of various garden tools. I simply play match maker. You can’t have too many garden tools on a farm. Reconditioned tools also make great presents.

Philip’s idea is a great one – my father-not-in-law collects and matchmakes them too. I think nearly all our garden tools now are refurbished old ones.

We went through a phase a couple of years ago of having a lot of brushes (and mops) break at the bottom of the handle – so had some brush heads lying around. I thought I’d covered it on the site and someone had suggested using them to make a boot brush/scraper – but I can’t find that now so many I dreamt it — a good idea though!

I imagine an old rake could be used to make a en masse berry picker like this one by kooky chap Atomic Shrimp.

Any other reuses for old/broken brooms, brushes and rakes?