Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Repotting the Coffee!

The term "Repurposing" is a fancy way to say, "Don't throw stuff out if you can find another good use for it." You can do it to be frugal, do it to be smart, do it to help save our beautiful planet, or do it for fun ... but just do it!

My favorite repurposing is a cool old coffeemaker, the kind that looks like it came from a 1950s-era Rocket to Mars, that was going to be thrown out because it has no lid nor cord. I volunteered to give it a home and the result is in the photo to the right.

I left in the coffee basket & supporting central tube, partly because I needed only a little soil to grouw some nice bushy tomatoes, and partly in case someday I wanted to de-repurpose it back into a coffeemaker.

One especially delightful feature is that when we have heavy rain, the soil gets soggy but no problem! Just open the tap at the bottom and the excess water drains out!

This coffeemaker planter seems to work best with relatively low and bushy plants; shown is last year's small volunteer tomato. This year, I tried growing a small sunflower in it but
  • The sunflower needed a stick for support since it was alone, and
  • The wind caught the sunflower and blew everything over!
If you look around, you can probably find a lot of stuff you can repurpose, and save a lot on shopping & throwing away. Give it a try! And thanks to my blogbuddy at Reduce Footprints for suggesting the topic of Repurposeful Crafting; her Wednesday challenge is fun!

I have often repotted plants but this is one of the rare times that I replanted a pot!

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