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Apple. Tree. You know the old saw.

I meant to blog about garden plot markers months ago. A number of websites suggest old vertical blind slats be used to tell our turnips from our carrots in the early planting stages, save used popsicle sticks, and suggested uses for other reusable items. I made a mental note to try and talk my SIL out of her old blinds to follow that advice, until the new coffee machines showed up at the office.

One of the first things I did was to take it apart and see how it worked.
After some trial and error, I finally figured out how to stock it, and worked to free the plastic sliders the coffee packs ship on. Three or four of the sliders sat my desk for a week or so until I finally took them home to sit on my desk there. Then one morning, as I racked off six more flavors of coffee, it struck me – white, plastic – I can use them in the garden.

A little over a foot in height, these strips can be used as name stakes, border markers, and plant trainers. Perhaps, if modified, they can be used to lift pots and provide drainage channels under and in those pots.

And marked as number five plastic, they’re recyclable when I’m done or if it doesn’t work.

I called my mom not long after to chat about gardening, life, the universe, everything, and towards the end of the conversation I mentioned that my office had started using this fancy coffee system. I went on about the possible uses of the racks and how I accumulated them before finding a good reuse for the plastic strips – and it turned out she had a half dozen or so on her desk as well, waiting for a reuse to strike her — and was happy to save them for me.

Pack rat, or innovative, creative thinker?

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