Sunday, March 28, 2010

Bathroom Garden

I've wanted a garden for awhile now. We certainly have enough room in the backyard to plant a huge garden, but I wanted to start small. I also don't have the time right now to take care of a huge garden. So I decided to start with a small container garden. This way nothing would be permanent, and I could move things around in the future when we landscape the yard.

Most people puchase a stock tank for their container garden (my mom has a few of these). But that would require puchasing tanks, which I really don't want to do. I don't have livestock or anticipate having livestock in the future, so I would be stuck with large tanks after I was done with the garden. However, I do have a ton of plumbing fixtures from the bathroom remodeling projects we've been doing. It all started with the tub, which was sitting in our backyard and waiting to head to the metal scrap pile. I drug it over to the side of the yard that I wanted to place my garden and leveled it out. I also have a lot of large pots from previous house plants, and started placing those around the tub. I decided to continue with the bathroom theme, and grabbed the old laundry room sink that was also sitting in the backyard, and one of the toilets that was in the garage. We've removed two toilets from the house, and decided to keep the nicer one for when we build the garage bathroom. The other one I realized we never used, and for good reason. I lifted the lid and there were old pee stains on the seat from the previous homeowner (yes, they didn't even clean the seats when selling their home) and the back of the water tank had paint all over it (because they didn't believe in masking tape while painting). So this is why it was pulled from the lower bathroom and replaced.

I arranged the toilet and sink next to the tub. I used an old plant stand to hold the sink up, and then put the other pots around the fixtures. The toilet is nice because it's two containers in one. I have cucumbers growing out of the water tank and tomatoes in the bowl. The tub has zucchini, and the sink has herbs. The other pots hold more tomatoes, herbs, and peppers. I also installed a drip system, for consistent watering of the vegetables.

So that is how I recycled old bathroom fixtures that were slated for the scrap pile, and turned it into a themed vegetable garden.

My bathroom garden:



Overhead view:
The bathroom fixtures: