You know things are bad in the garden when your neighbour starts enquiring to your other half about why you are growing bottles in the garden. I guess that, to this traditional neighbourhood, the idea of using cloches to protect plants and help them grow quicker may seem a bit faddy. And if you don’t have any cloche, what better way to do the job than to create some with 5 litre water bottles?

Gardening magazines often come up with list of things that you can do easily in your garden if you have a few minutes spare, but admittedly I’ve never read about forcing rhubarb with empty cartons of Bordeaux wine. Usually a black pastic container or a clay rhubarb forcer is advisable to force rhubarb effectively but I didn’t have any. So I improvised with my carton which I secured to the ground with stone and also by digging the edges in and then added some straw on top. I was a bit concerned about the rain but the card box did resist well as you can see on the picture above and once the rhubarb has been forced and harvested I can just recycle my card box and straw straight into the compost bin.

Necessity is the mother of invention and it doesn’t come any better than recycling your old boxes.