[growth] ... query

[kaberett]

So I have (... had) two of the kind of miscellaneous plastic trugs that are #10 at this BBC link. I am Extremely Bored with how rapidly I manage to kill them.

So. I want something that is: suitable for carrying slightly leaky (and potentially unpleasant) compost to the allotment in; big enough to dump weeding into as I go (and light enough to carry with me); and relatively easy to rinse out/clean, so that I'm also happy bringing vegetables back home in it.

Is this impossible? Does it not exist? Do I need to resign myself to Several Thing? What do you lot use?

Comments

[alexwlchan]

Caveat: I’m not gardening. I am moving loads of variable shape and mass, possibly similar?

I have a couple of the plastic trugs that you seem to be killing. Works on my machine, but I have no idea what I’m doing that keeps them alive.

The other thing I sometimes use for this task is the big blue IKEA bags. Lightweight, I think they're probably compost-proof, can be washed quite easily. Load might be an issue, depending on how much compost you're carrying at a time.

[ewt]

The IKEA FRAKTA bags are great but they definitely will leak liquids. (I use them as planters in my back garden.)

[ewt]

I carry gross things to the allotment in a very large plastic bucket I picked up from the side of the road, it used to contain rapeseed oil for frying things. It has a tight-fitting lid, which is helpful.

For bringing things home from the allotment, I use paper bags (Waitrose sells compost bags made of paper rather than the weird cornstarchy plastic). I keep some in my bicycle pannier, so they're ready when I need them. When I'm expecting More Veg Than That I also bring some cotton mesh bags. When I'm putting huge squashes onto a bike trailer, I also bring cardboard boxes.

The plastic bucket trugs like that one are okay as long as you basically never use the handles. I object to this. There is a broken-handled one at the allotment which I use for weeding sometimes, but it annoys me.

I wonder whether a more stout actual bucket would work if you lined it with newspaper or a (larger) paper bag before putting compost in it, so it doesn't get too horrible on the way there. The black "builders' buckets" that used to be 99p from garden centres (and are probably closer to £2 now) are pretty robust.

[lebannen]

I use Ikea bags for weeding. The one used instead as a laundry bag, and therefore subjected to heavier loading, has not died. The gardening ones have not had Too Many prickly things in them, and one of them has been sat outside in occasional direct sunlight for most of the year and has not died either. As someone else has already said, definitely not waterproof though.

You want to be a bit careful with buying buckets, because we've got one of the 'builders buckets' kind and it's great in that it's slightly flexible and droppable and so on, but makes up for it by being surprisingly heavy. And a lot of the lighter ones crack if you look at them funny (and it is a given that the handle will fall off and need to be replaced with a bit of rope plus short section of alkathene pipe as a handhold, but normal people apparently don't have access to random bits of pipe that they found lying around, so rope-only handles it is).

I am also unimpressed with how it's not really possible to make a good rope handle for miscellaneous plastic trugs; I've got a couple of vague ideas that would probably both be more effort than they were worth, and significantly reduce the waterproof volume of the trug.

[buttonsbeadslace]

For weeding and other carrying-medium-amounts-of-stuff around the garden, my mother uses five gallons plastic buckets with heavy wire handles, that originally held paint or asphalt sealant or things like that- I’m pretty sure the ones she has were not bought as buckets but as paint containers. They’re pretty much unbreakable, but on the other hand they’re heavy and not exactly ergonomic to carry heavy loads in.

[momijizukamori]

Yeah, thirding whatever you local equivalent of hardware store 5-gallon buckets are - you might be able to get some for free, even, though if you're going to put veg for eating in them I'd probably avoid ones that were used for non-food storage (ie, paint, road salt, etc) beforehand just to be safe. I have some that are used for weeding and bird-seed storage intermittantly, and then one with one of the heavy leakproof lids that has an indigo dye bath in it in the basement.

(Wonder if anyone has 3d-modeled a better grip for the handle....)

[nanila]

I wish we were that organised. We use a random selection of differently sized buckets.

[twospots]

Those look like a household version of flexible buckets used in stables. You might find a sturdier version at a farm/stable supply store--and if they don't have them, or you DO have the barn version, then the farm store will also have assorted bins & buckets that are intended to survive being whacked around by Very Large Animals.

[twospots]

eg https://www.equiport.co.uk/products/stable/tubtrugs-and-stable-tools/

(See the black one at the bottom.)

[oracne]

Today I learned the word "trug."

[kaberett]

<3

[indywind]

Same.

No advice; I use a lidded plastic coffee tin to hold my small amount of compost (and keep flies off) until I can put it out, a shopping bag or just my hand/arm to harvest into, and a wheelbarrow (for really big end-of-season jobs) or just my hand/arm to weed into. But I only have a wee, mostly container-ized garden at home, and my relationship to my local community garden plot seems different to yours with your allotment.