Fertilizer Storage and Labeling Tips

Fertilizing plants is an essential task around the garden, whether it's the organic or the chemical kind of fertilizing. The organic fertilizers like horse manure and cow manure, I keep in the sacks or bags where I collected them. While homemade fish emulsion, I keep in plastic bottles. The store bought chemical fertilziers, however, I put them in disposable plastic jars.

These disposable plastic jars are those plastic jars that used to contain jellies, jams, mayonnaise, peanut butter and other supermarket items. Rather than toss them away, I wash them with soap and water, peel and discard the old labels, and then store the clean jars in a cupboard. I keep them for variety of reasons, and storing chemical fertilizers is one of them.

Collecting Rainwater with a Rain Barrel

After building a system of homemade mini-gutters to collect rainwater, the next project would be to find a suitable receptacle.

The most popular container would be some sort of a rain barrel. Plastic drums are the most widely available. Unlike metal drums, they won't rust and are reasonably durable.

Pricewise, some are more affordable than the others. The cheaper ones generally have thinner walls, but the thick walled ones, although a bit pricier, will last a very long time. Some plastic drums have screw-on covers, others have lids and others just have a small opening for a hose.

DIY Mini-Gutters to Collect Rain Water

Rain water is often touted to be very good for watering garden plants. In fact, many gardeners prefer to collect rain water with rain barrels and other rain harvesting systems.

For several months, this writer contemplated on how to collect rain water that drips and flows down the sides of a concrete structure during thunderstorms in the rainy season. When it rains, pools of water appear everywhere at the ground perimeter of the structure. It causes a couple of problems.