Notes on Scrounging, Sharing, and Roadside Treasures.

I had decided, late, this year to try and make a little extra cash selling plants from my own garden. I needed to move fast as plants were already pushing out of the cold ground, and you want to do the digging up and dividing before the temperatures get too warm.
I only had a few pots that I had kept from last years plant purchases in the greenhouse, so I started asking around to all my friends. I thought a good plan would be to send out an email to EVERYONE asking for donations. A lot of folks responded, and before I knew it I had a good start to begin potting up my extra plants.

My efforts began to explode, and I realized I needed more pots…..and more places to put the plants to store them for the upcoming plant sale.
A friend told me about the Yahoo group “Freecycle” that had a local chapter here in our home town. I signed up for the group and put out a request for ‘Free’ pots needed. Within the day I had several replies from people that had pots to share. I was really impressed! I read through the list of other free stuff people were looking for, and things they wanted to give up. What a great way to keep stuff moving and out of the landfill!
This time of year in our community, we have the annual neighborhood swap and spring clean-up.  People can put their unwanted stuff out on the side of the road in front of their homes to be picked up and taken to the dump. We tend to put our stuff out a little earlier than the pick up day, to give passers by an opportunity to ‘shop’ for treasures. It’s quite fun to happen upon an old rocking chair (for example) that someone no longer wants, and realize it’s just the thing you needed for your front porch! Free! This event can actually become quite frenzied, as you may be out for a walk, see the item you want, run home to get the car and by the time you come back….it’s gone!! You have to be quick. This year I will be keeping my eye out for pots.

We took a trip to the dump the other day….to look for more pots…and to have a look at the scrap wood pile to see if there might be some bits of lumber to build shelves for my ‘pots’. O.M.G.!! Bumper day at the dump! We made off like bandits with cedar 2×6, 4×4, perfect plywood (just had to remove a couple of nails) and other bits of this and that. There were other people there as well feeling quite smug about their finds. One couple we talked to are regulars and have been building their house with ‘dump’ wood. What a wonderful feeling to save a choice piece of wood from the chipper or the pulp mill or where ever it goes after this?

When leaving the dump and checking in at the weigh scale, the fellow at the window said “Hey, looks like you guys did pretty good?”

Now that was an adventurous morning of scrounging!  Within a short flurry of time, a few nails and much appreciated sweat and effort from a capable handy man, I now have shelves to store my pots of plants!