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Post by synergy on Apr 27, 2020 12:12:05 GMT -5
So I was gifted some tubing that would after some investigation make two 15 x 10 ft greenhouses ( or carports? ) but some of the tubing is wrecked so as I get a chance to reconstruct some of it , I am thinking about fudging it together to make a 20 foot or perhaps even 25 foot greenhouse . Better than nothing north of the 49th parallel  |
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Post by steev on May 8, 2020 18:42:39 GMT -5
A client gave me a nice glass-top patio table; another gifted me a very nice bike; these will give good service OTF.
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Post by synergy on May 15, 2020 10:21:19 GMT -5
The lady running our transfer station called me to come get some fairly heavy 1 inch steel tubing and had some heavy rebar as well two weeks back. The rebar has already been repurposed in a retaining wall for my Dads yard and I cut some large free salvaged irrigation tubing into hoops for my garden which conveniently fit over the one inch tubing used as stakes for floating row cover over my cabbage and carrots right now . My Dad calls me a hoarder , but still comes to me and asks for materials to do projects ALL the time and more often than not I have what is needed, and these materials such as metal are quite expensive . I had also purchased a large pile of odds and sods timbers and plywood for $50 and we already used a free concrete pier, free metal saddle and a 14 foot 6 x 6 beam form the timber pile to reinforce a large structure engineered with a 30 foot free span which was sagging. Now it is jacked up level and supported and the materials to do so cost me maybe a dollar. In my garden I have been using the blue half barrels I used to garden with years ago to plant fruiting bushes I was a little unsure where I want to have permanently . These are placed at row ends so I can pull the hose around them without it pulling across any plantings in the row . Being frugal and prepared to salvage is really serving me by quite nicely , because I am finding just getting by is more expensive .
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Post by steev on May 15, 2020 16:11:34 GMT -5
I have a street-find metal coffee table (top-less) which will be nice with a slab of the granite that I've had for years. Went to the coffee-roastery for chaff and a dozen colorful plastic coffee sacks (also more free coffee); I don't think I'll ever need to buy contractor bags again.
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Post by prairiegardens on May 22, 2020 22:14:32 GMT -5
Can't compete with the scores you manage but just scored about $300 + worth of plants the local store decided to toss.I suppose to make room for new ones...a few baskets had been let dry a bit too much, but were certainly not beyond hope, and most of them I've no idea why they were being tossed. The perennials are particularly welcome as they are expensive here. Now just have to figure out where to put about 40 more plants than I intended to have... the 6 baskets will get hung even though the wind here makes it a bit of a challenge to keep them watered.. they've all perked up and are doing wonderfully, at $35 a basket retail I'm feeling as though dumpster diving is sometimes a highly sensible thing to do...but we all knew that anyhow. It just makes some people I know uncomfortable. They have more money than I do . |
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Post by steev on May 22, 2020 23:33:56 GMT -5
There you go; freeconomics rules! So many things are discarded because the're past "sell by" date; Damn, are we talking about plants?
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Post by flowerbug on May 23, 2020 0:36:54 GMT -5
i tried to get the local greenhouse guy to give me a ring when he was tossing plants. i could if anything use the potting soil in the gardens here as a welcome amendment. no action on that. from his perspective it makes sense. whatever he gives me would mean it less likely i would have to buy something else from him. *sigh* it probably does end up getting composted and recycled some way, but not by me...
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Post by prairiegardens on Jun 2, 2020 20:01:12 GMT -5
Everything I didn't take got loaded into a garbage bin...I was thinking about the soil in the other stuff but have so many projects on the go now....and finding it a bit difficult to get motivated to go play wth the ticks as it is. Maybe next year...
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Post by steev on Jun 2, 2020 21:43:54 GMT -5
Yeah, years ago I was going for a walk with my sweetheart; we parked and there was a Trader Joe's dumpster full of orchids, which we started scrounging; an employee came out all "You can't do that! Put them back!" So my sweetheart went to talk to the manager, while I filled the trunk. I was a "professional" dumpster diver until these companies got compactors. What a waste of resources.
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Post by prairiegardens on Jun 4, 2020 19:30:27 GMT -5
And now finding sites to take the garbage as landfills fill up is becoming quite a problem, so appeals to the public for ideas is becoming common. But most landfills in Canada at least, frown if not lay charges if anyone dares salvage anything, all in the name of " hygiene". It's absolutely asinine what gets bulldozed in. Some of the Habitat for Humanity stores keep quite a bit out of the landfills but not everywhere has those available.
There's a Ted Talk by a guy in Texas, who helps people who could normally never afford to own a house, to build their own, teaching them the skills as they go I guess, and he claims that about 90% of all the materials used are recycled. It's a remarkable thing, as I imagine a lot of places wouldn't permit such houses. In the village here, someone pulled down a garage intending to reuse the good lumber in the new garage; he was informed that was not allowed, it all had to be new material. I really think at least half the people who work at preventing others from doing anything original or unconventional or that they just simply disapprove of ought to be forced to find honest work.
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Post by synergy on Nov 22, 2021 11:49:31 GMT -5
I guess we are fortunate, that our garbage and recycle transfer station in our small more rural valley outside of Vancouver BC has a free store shipping container we can leave reusable items and take anything we could use. Lately I got a section of heavy chainlink metal fencing as fencing wire costs for heavy quality is dear in cost . As people discarded hanging baskets I got 24 I have filled with strawberries for next year and hope to gather more for more hanging cherry tomatoes next spring as I need at least 8 more to optimize hanging space in the little greenhouses .
Out of the salvage metal tubing I mentioned in a previous post I managed to make one 10 x 25 foot greenhouse and a second 10 x 20 foot greenhouse and have more tubing for another project.
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