by Texas Homesteader ~
Spring is on its way, y’all! I’ve already planted up my Indoor Greenhouse with my heirloom seeds. That way I’ll be able to put seedlings in the ground come spring. And I’ve also been out in the garden preparing it for planting too.
If you’ll remember, last year we divided our fenced-in garden area in half. In one half we still have the garden, although we ripped up our raised beds. In the other half we placed our chicken run. It’s been an awesome and very positive change.
But now it’s time to get in & prep the garden for a new planting season. I’m a big fan of repurposing items wherever possible using my battle cry “Use Whatcha Got! See how I use these empty heavy-paper feed sacks
RancherMan has been saving those feed sacks for me all year. Now I pull ’em all out, pull the bottom strip off of the empty bags and stack them all flat. When I get several of them flattened out I haul them to the garden. I’ve got access to all the Free Wood Chips I want. But I don’t want to take the chance of having grass or weeds growing up in my walkways. So I first lay these feed sacks out over the walking paths, then cover them thickly with that mulch. Done and DONE!
Stopping Bermuda Grass
Although I’ve finally found a way to Stop Bermuda Grass from my landscape plantings, the garden has always been a struggle due to its size. But last year I actually won the war against Bermuda grass in the garden for the first time EVER! I did this by mulching a wide strip around the entire perimeter of my planting area. No Bermuda grass runners made it to the planting area last year. I’ll be diligent this year to make sure it stays that way!
I love that I’ve been able to take a waste product and use it in my garden. It not only saves me untold hours weeding in the hot Texas sun, but the earthworms love paper so those feed sacks are helping my garden soil as well.
~TxH~
My Favorite Garden Hacks
- Easy Garden Planning Spreadsheet
- Getting A Jump: Planting An Indoor Greenhouse
- Repurposed Cardboard Seed-Starting Pots
- Low-Cost Vegetable Gardening
- Easy Compost For A Healthy Garden
- Propping Tender Seedlings
- Cheap (or FREE) Wood Mulch For The Garden
- Homestead Hack: Remember Where You Planted Seeds
- How Vegetable Gardening Can Change Your Life!
- Easy Deep-Soak Watering
- Planting Potatoes In Galvanized Trough
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MORE Gardening Posts
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It just goes to show that there are so many ways we can repurpose & reuse. I don’t have feed bags to use but I do use old papers & cardboard. Congratulations on being featuring on #WasteLessWednesdays. Happy Spring! Sharing on twitter & pinning!
It’s really effortless most times Marla, just requires thinking outside the box sometimes. What you’ve already got oftentimes fits the bill quite nicely, solves a problem, saves some money or saves some landfill-bound trash (or ALL of the above!) ~TMH~
What a great idea. We use cardboard, but if we had these feed bags I’d be using them! Thanks for sharing on the Waste Less Wednesday Blog Hop. This will be featured next week!
How awesome Katy – thanks for the feature! ~TMH~
Fantastic idea! I think I will steal it for our new homestead. Thank you!
Please do, Daisy. You don’t have to pay for something to reduce weed pressure, you don’t have to weed as much, the moisture in the soil is preserved and you don’t have to throw away the paper-sack byproduct of feeding your animals. It’s a high-five win all the way around! ~TMH~
I used feed sacks to plant potatoes in this winter. They are coming up great. When they are done growing I just have to dump out the soil and potatoes. I am using the sacks that chicken feed comes in that is more like webbed plastic.
All our feed sacks are typically made of paper, but my last chicken feed came in the webbed plastic bag like you described. I may have to give that a try, Marty. Thanks for the tip. ~TMH~
We do the same thing! All my garden paths are lined with feed sacks and then covered wth mulch. We also started a running gag a few years ago. We use old feed sacks as gift wrap. There have been some pretty creative variations on this theme! Thanks, for sharing!
Clever Anne – love the feed-sack wrapping thing. ~TMH~
Wow! I never thought of that! I have been saving cardboard boxes and throwing the feed sacks away! Thank you so much for this post!
Love, Christianne
We’re careful to remove the bottom rib before laying the sacks down Christianne. I found the string sewn into the top & bottom ribs just doesn’t deteriorate, so when it’s time to lay more paper sacks the strings from the prior layer of sacks will still be there, creating a mess. It’s worth the extra time to remove the bottom rib (the top rib being removed when the bag was first opened) ~TMH~
I will keep that in mind, thank you very much!
Using bags like that and keeps down the weeds is a Good Thing.
Tonia; if you have a Tractor Supply in your area make a note or flyer stating you; Wanting empty, paper feed bags and put on their bulletin board which is usually located back by the restrooms.
Yep, and it gets ’em out of RancherMan’s way in the feed shed too Colleen. And it makes something very useful out of something that would otherwise go to the landfill. ~TMH~
What a great idea, all we feed is chickens and there are only 8. I going to look to a neighbor who has goats and horses and see if I can get some from him.
Any of your neighbors that has those paper feed sacks will be happy to get them out of their way Tonia. Win/win! ~TMH~