Another free gadget in my garden is my riddler (garden sieve). I got an old polystyrene box and cut it down to size, strengthening it with duct tape, and got the fan guard off a broken pedestal fan. I sieve the lumpy soil through the fan guard and good friable soil falls into the box. Even the tape was free - left behind my my son's flatmate when he moved away.
I love to be in the garden, wearing my black wellies and old clothes, throwing the ball for the dog, and digging, weeding, planting or whatever needs doing. Sometimes I come in looking like the swamp creature from hell, though not recently as we have had no rain for three months.
There is a grassy pathway near a stream very near my home, and every so often the council slashes the long grass. I'm always out there after it's dried a bit, with a few empty chicken feed sacks, gathering the hay for my garden or my chickens. I like to grow spuds in a raised bed of hay, with a compost/soil mix inserted into parts of it, containing seed potatoes. As the spuds grow, more hay is added.
When you look around, it is amazing how much free stuff you can find. For instance, before the council comes and does its slashing, there are plenty of huge weeds along that path, suitable for the chickens. English plantain and dandelions are favourites. Free chicken food in other words.
I did a major pruning of my citrus trees, and now use the pruned branches stuck into the soil against a fence, for beans to climb up.
There's no end to it all really....
].
