Yesterday I had a delightful time with the Petal Pushers gardening club at the Albuquerque Garden Center. They’d contacted me over a years ago requesting a presentation on Scavenger Gardening – which gave me a lot of prep time. These delightful ladies were a fun audience and many of them were able to increase my database with their insights.
A PDF of the presentation I used is attached here: Scavenger Gardening
I grew up in normal middle class Midwestern suburbia. My family was not affluent, but we never went hungry either. We bought food from the corner grocery store. As we got older Dad would talk about when he was a kid living in rural southwestern Minnesota. His Dad died when he was six years old of Black Lung. So, Grandma Kern took in laundry, and all seven kids would get jobs to keep the family afloat – this was back in the 1920’s. He didn’t talk about it a lot, but he did occasionally share a memory of collecting heads of “Queen’s Anne’s Lace” and to take home for Grandma to chop into their eggs for breakfast, or riding a tractor when he was 11 years old during harvest to make 10 cents an hour. When he was 17, Grandma lied about his age to get him into the Minnesota national guard so he could get a free pair of boots every six months.
Dad loved to sing and perform on stage and I remember a play he did called “Everybody Loves Opal” about an elderly woman living on the edge of a garbage dump whose house was filled with things she’d scavenged, repaired, and used.
As I moved into adulthood I began hearing the mantra of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”. I read some of the Foxfire books on how people living in remote areas lived and thrived. Simultaneously my daughters at school told me their teachers were giving them exercises meant to stretch their awareness and knowledge, things like “How many ways can you use a spoon?” Then came MacGyver – and I was sold on the concept that just because something has outlived it’s initial purpose, doesn’t mean it is trash.
So when I speak of Scavenger Gardening, I am talking about all elements from seed to bloom, or if it is food, from harvest to the kitchen table. I “scavenge” and use flowers and trees, containers, rocks, hoses, and much more. I don’t throw things away without looking closely to see if there is an alternative use for it. Because I have that in mind, I do tend to collect items that I feel may be of use in the future, even if I don’t have an immediate use in mind. I have an old garden shed out back with some shelves to keep these extras in, especially things I collect over the winter.
- Old cotton T-shirts can be cut or ripped up to make cleaning rags, ties, or coverings for plants at risk from frying in our desert sun.
- Old bedsheets make great shade structures for garden plants
- Use and reuse gardening fencing, ground covers and heavy plastic wrap. I patch hoses that are breaking to extend their useful life.
- Old blankets and towels make good dog/cat beds. And pet shelter appreciate them being donated so the animals don’t have to sleep on a concrete floor.
- If your property is in the path of our 60 knot spring winds, you can use a variety of items to divert windflow. Rocks, concrete blocks, bamboo poles, strawbales. If you build raised beds make them tall enough that you can leave a 6-8 inch lip around the edges, when you plant seeds in spring.
- Old vinyl laminate used in laying floors can be very useful
- Companies that install windows and glass frequently have the products shipped in large very strong wood boxes. After the product is unshipped, those companies have no use for them. I’ve asked politely and had a couple 2”x12”x8’ boxes given to me free. I got the boxes home, set them in place in the garden and used a pliers to remove leftover staples. The boxes are very solidly built, but may have gaps between the boards – I screwed vinyl laminate flooring leftover from a home project to the inside of the boxes over the gaps.
- Then I lined the bottom with cardboard layered 4 inches deep and lapped up the sides a bit to discourage weeds. Then I spread in a 3-4 inch layer of dirt and small rocks, a layer of straw and a layer of compost or composted manure then a good layer of topsoil.
These are a few of the things I brought up in the presentation. I’m always looking for more and am planning to write a book on the subject – so if you have some to add, please leave a comment for me below!
Rose
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