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Beer and soft drink can gardening

By Clodagh and Dick Handscombe, holistic gardeners and authors living in Spain

Think how many beer, coco cola and other soft drink cans go in the trash bin each year. Well each of those could have been put to good use.

Here are a dozen ideas for starters having first cut out the top with a can opener.
WARNING - cans can have sharp metal edges, do be careful

Use as pots for raising new flowering perennial plants from cuttings. Make a small drainage hole in the base before filling the cans with compost.

If you have a drain pipe take a dozen cans . Make two small holes an inch from the top and an inch apart and a small drainage hole in the bottom of each. Paint the cans with a paint for iron railings and gates. Black and green are good colours to use.

Thread pairs of painted cans on thin galvanised or plastic coated gardening wire. Fill the pots with a sandy compost and then fix each pair to the drain pipe by passing the wires around the pipe and tightening them.

As you fix each pair leave a twenty centimetre gap between levels of pots. When fixed plant a succulent cutting in each can. An attractive collection of succulents can be built up this way and the down pipe stops being an eyesore.

You can also raise mini leeks and lettuces the same way.

Use cans for storing various sizes of nails and screws, pencils drills etc. in the garage or work shed.

If you are prone to stabbing your self with the top ends of tomato canes place a can on the top of each cane.

Hang cans on strings so they clang in the wind as a bird scarer.

If you are building a retaining wall use cans with both ends cut out to create the drainage holes.

Cans with both ends cut out can also be used to make drainage pipes for soggy areas of soil. Join them with adhesive tape.

Sink cans with no drainage hole into the ground at various parts of the garden and fill with beer as snail traps.

Use to store plant name sticks in the green house.

Use to store own saved seeds in a fridge. Seal the top with plastic and a rubber band.

Make a wire, cane or wooden framework for a scarecrow and thread on cans with holes at each end. Use an empty plastic water bottle as the head.

© Clodagh and Dick Handscombe March 2010

 

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