Question from Robin Crocher: I have an allotment in which I try to grow fruit and vegetable as organically as possible. I have found uses for old plastic bottles, paint pots, car tyres, old carpet, and compact discs. Can you suggest any other discarded items from today's consumer society which can be put to good use in a garden or an allotment?
Bob: If you've got one of something, it's a piece of rubbish, but if you've got a hundred they suddenly become useful. For years I collected those aluminium plastic bags that ground coffee comes in, and occasionally I'd use one inside out to put a sandwich in. Then one day I had a brainwave and stapled them together to make a space blanket, which is quilted because each one's a little bag, and I throw it over my cold frame as an insulator. I was really chuffed with that and it used up about two years' supply of coffee bags. The bicycle too is a wonderful thing. If you've got an old dead bicycle you can't get rid of, or inner tubes you need to replace, cut the old inner tube in half, stick a hook on either end and you've got a marvellous, temporary, super-size elastic band for holding back shrubs, brambles and so on. The seat is also rather handy. I put mine on a post and sited it near the pond so I can go and sit on itrather like a shooting stick.
Roy: You can cut wire coat hangers into lengths, bend the end over and hang labels on them. They're superb for marking clumps of snowdrops and small bulbous plants that disappear below the ground in autumn or winter.
Pippa: It sounds rather mundane, but I re-use yoghurt pots, particularly the large ones which tend to be very tough. If you're making a temporary fruit cage with netting, put an inverted yoghurt pot over each bamboo cane, and the netting over the top will stay in place. I also use old pallets. Everyone says make them into compost bins, but when you've filled your garden full of compost bins, one or two make a wonderful rack for drying off onions.
Bob: I love jumble sales, and can't stand to see fur coats thrown away. I know it's politically incorrect to wear them, but there's nothing wrong with taking them home for 50p, cutting them up and putting just one arm, curled up into a little ball, underneath your raspberries or next to your strawberries, because the birds flying past think there's a cat there, and they're not going to come down. Fake fur cats work wonderfully, but you've got to move them each day because the birds aren't frightened of a dead cat.
