Suggestions on what can be made with recycled screens?

[freemotion]

It's really just THAT easy? I tried drying flowers and failed absolutely miserably I was thinking of converting my flower bed that goes around my porch to an herb garden, but was scared because I wasn't sure I could use all of the fresh herbs I'm sure to get. Now I'll comandeer two screens for my future herbs!

Yep, that easy! Really! Would I lie to you?

Oregano is a good place to start...if you know any older gardeners, especially Italians, you can ask for a division. This is not rude among gardeners. Just say, "I'm looking for some oregano, and if you are dividing your plant in the future, keep me in mind." You'll get more oregano than you can possibly use! Older gardeners love to help newbies. Oregano spreads and spreads and is pretty impossible to kill. It comes back each year, too.

I used to buy sage plants.... they tend to die after a 2-3 years here. This year, I decided to buy seeds and started them indoors. They went nuts! I have 16 plants for the price of half of one plant AND I gave a whole bunch away.....and got lots of stuff I needed in return. I got a huge harvest this year from those plants, then let them go to seed.

Some herbs are annuals and need replanting each year. You can get a six-pack from your local plant nursery for less than the cost of a packet of seeds, usually. I get my parsley and until recently, basil. This year I just broadcast some basil seeds I'd collected the year before and had crazy amounts of basil, too, for free. I had a parsley plant winter over for the first time and it is producing seeds, which I will collect for next year's parsley.

It gets easier and easier the more you do it. I grow my own cayenne now, too. Just dry those little peppers and smash 'em up. Once you start, you'll be hooked! Start with a couple of items....whatever you use a lot of. For me it was oregano and parsley and basil.

 

[Marianne]

If you have cats, you can use one for straining home-made cat littler

Oh for pete's sake, I use two of those screens to dry homemade cat litter!

Love the chair, Henrietta!

 

[Beanie]

K0xxx is right, the aluminum window screen (painted black) passive solar heater performed better in tests than the can ones. You can also get instuctions at http://builditsolar.com (I love that site!)

Ok - I'm brain fried...where do I find that on the site? All I see is big projects - not the little DIY for Dummies stuff that I need.

Try this link.

Awesome! Well, the hubs just saw it and it's on the project list.

 

[Emerald]

I wouldn't mind screens to build isolation boxes for some of my heirloom veggies... a few of them I have to grow out every other year due to the fact that they will cross. If I had a few screens I could grow both types of veggies the same year and just cover one while the other is out.
But I would be really leery of using screens to dry foods stuffs.. fiberglass screen is not good for food as the fiberglass may flake off and I do not use any aluminum cook ware so I sure wouldn't use aluminum screens for drying.
But I might use them both if I bought some very fine muslin and lined the screens and put the foods or herbs on the muslin so that it was not touching the screen.
Family picks on me about trying not to use plastics either.. But I noticed that most of them have all switched to glass or stainless steel for their water bottles. I figure that I can do what little I can not to be poisoned by plastics. every little bit helps..

 

[BeccaOH]

Great ideas!

Cover kiddie pools for chick brooders is all I've done with mine so far. But I love the tip of screening vegetables. Would it really keep out the dread squash bug?

 

[Emerald]

Great ideas!

Cover kiddie pools for chick brooders is all I've done with mine so far. But I love the tip of screening vegetables. Would it really keep out the dread squash bug?

It might-I get squash vine borers here and they just decimate the pumpkins! No matter how diligent I am at checking I usually lose a plant or two.. I even go out at night with a flashlight and a big needle and I shine the lights thru the stems where I think they are and then I poke them to death! and hill up soil over the stems.
As big as the vines get here I would need to make a screen house to cover them all..

We usually don't get too many squash bugs tho.. and when I see them I just take our old shop vac out and suck them off the pumpkins and squash.