Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Recycling is a bit difficult out here in the boonies, there's not a lot of opportunities unfortunately. We reduce consumption, especially of disposable type things, as much as possible, always trying to improve on that. But reuse, we got that!

We tend to fall victim to that typical farmer thing, never throw anything away, it might come in handy some day. And some things are hard to get rid of. We have to pay a pretty good fee to dump appliances here, even if they've already had the freon removed, a requirement. Over the last couple years, I have had two refrigerators die and two chest freezers. So .... I had the guy come out and remove the freon and tag them. Then I turned them into raised beds.

Here's the two side by side refrigerators

I drilled some drainage holes in the bottom, filled the bottom half with some old logs, a lot of old weeds (it was early spring and I was cleaning up the garden) and the top half is a mix of dirt from around the place and some homemade compost. I don't know how long they will last, but they sure work just fine for now.

Here's the two chest freezers.

On a slightly related note, I had an old trough last year for a raised bed that I forgot to put drain holes in. We have had pretty severe drought the last 3 years and that is the only bed that kept growing after I had to stop watering because our well was having issues. I don't think I want to go without drainage for the wet years, but I think I will put drainage holes in the sides at the bottom of containers from now on so I can plug them and unplug them as needed.

What are some of your favorite repurposing things you've done?