DIY: Trash to Treasure

One evening while walking the dog, we saw a set of dresser drawers put out for trash pickup. Upon closer inspection, we realized that they were all wood – not particle board. At this point I had a lot of plants in the backyard waiting to be transplanted, but I kept being discouraged by to cost of quality planters. Inspired by my dumpster diving friend, Debbie, I immediately say the drawers as planters. We returned with the car – much to the incredulity of the family watching us through their front window – and loaded up the boxes.

A few coats of polyurethane later we had these beauties. We drilled holes in the bottoms and lined them with garden fabric – and VOILA!

DIY: Build Your Own

If you or someone in your household loves tools and fiddling around, building a planter from scratch is a potentially fun springtime and summertime project. I can’t pretend to have the patience to “measure twice and cut once” so I am glad that I didn’t have to do the hard work. Wooden planters are notoriously expensive and building planters and protecting them with polyurethane is a cost effective way to go.

Also by the time my bora bean started growing and reaching for a place to climb, all the trellises at the local plant supply places were all sold out, hence the DIY trellis shown below.