Recently we had a council clean-up day. This is a day where the council sends around huge rubbish trucks and strong men to haul away household garbage that its citizens no longer want. It all ends up as landfill with zero recycling (oh dear). It also presents a great opportunity for neighbours to recycle on their own. Everyone sets their unwanteds out the weekend before and cars circle the streets looking for goodies.
As usual, hubby and I did our own little drive around. We found a few useful things like tomato stakes (you can never have too many tomato stakes). I found a real gem: an ancient, rusty trolley designed to help little old ladies carry home their groceries. Since I’m not so little (no comment on the old) and I carry my groceries home in my backpack, I racked my brain for a better use – and one came to me: a garden trolley
I’ve seen some really clever garden carts advertised. They are designed to drag everything you might need with you as you do your gardening. I often take a bucket and put in a bunch of tools, just in case – and just as often find I’m still missing something (twist ties and secateurs vie for the most oft wanted item) so I used to look at those garden trolleys covetously (never covetously enough to actually spend money on one however).
Which is why when I found this unwanted grocery trolley I was quick to pull it home behind me and spend a few minutes modifying it to satisfy my every gardening whim. My fancy-dancy trolley now has everything I might need when doing a spot of gardening except for the big/heavy stuff (no pots, fertiliser, manure, mulch, lime, rake, shovels…). It has (not an exhaustive list – but close) twine, knee pads, gloves, a plastic pot (to hold weeds and other compost bits), a dandelion puller, a hand trowel, a hand rake, home-made pest spray, and most importantly, twist ties and secateurs!
Isn’t it cute? I park it in front of my set of pull-out wire drawers which holds all kinds of gardening goodies and which I picked up a couple of years ago in this same council clean-up.
Bronwyn is totally non-plussed by my new toy but she’ll hang out anywhere I am and doze in total contentment. Even cuter!
Re-purposed Garden Trolley
Laura Rittenhouse's Gardening Journal 
Your pre-council clean-up day sounds amazing, such a good idea. Top marks for inventiveness for the garden trolley, I abhor waste.
I want to cry when I see the great stuff people throw away. Besides council clean-up we also have something called freecycle.org (it’s an international site) where people advertise things they no longer want that they are happy to give away. Each area has their own section so you can find (or give away) things in your neighbourhood. I wonder how much rubbish is kept out of the ground by initiatives like that. Not enough but every bit counts.
Love your fancy-dancy trolley. I do love hearing your stories. Happy New Year and here’s to lots more stories.
Fancy-dancy it is. I feel very sophisticated wheeling it around my garden 🙂 I too love reading your stories – may 2013 bring us both lots of laughter in our gardens!
Sure could use a day like that here! Love the trolley–great find!
I wish they had monthly “trade-your-junk” days where you set stuff out you don’t want and bring it back in if no one takes it. After a few months I bet anything usable would be gone.
This sounds like it’d be a great idea! It’s a shame this isn’t encouraged more.