For a keen recycler, gardening must be the best hobby. Within a garden there are so many uses for other household “rubbish”. And much of this “rubbish” in the garden would only be replaced by store-bought purpose-made items that do exactly the same job!

Recently, I was simplifying my TV/DVD-watching experience with some new cables to link up the various devices. I must admit that the cardboard and plastic part of the cable packaging was lost on me for another use, so this time it went into the recycling bin (but I welcome any ideas here!)

Something else within the packaging, however, caught my garden-crazed eyes, making them twinkle with possibility. Twist ties! I’ve even seen something very similar for sale in garden nurseries, and here it was before me, begging to be reused and rescued from reaching the end of its life in the bin.

So…”Why shouldn’t I throw out my packaging twist ties?” you ask. How can you reuse twist ties in the garden?

Well it just so happens that I’m trying my hand at growing raspberries. They have been slow to start, but this year we ate a few handfuls and it was bliss. The thing about raspberries is that once they’re underway with all their growing goodness, the growth of new canes is somewhat exponential (don’t check the exact maths on that…but they do seem to grow new canes at an increasing rate each year). What was a couple of pathetic shoots in last year was now many more growing in a mess of varied directions. You see, I had prepared a bit of a trellis for them, but it wasn’t being put to good use.

Until now. (…Enter twist ties for reuse.)

The twist ties from the cable packaging were so perfect for tying the raspberry canes to the trellis. Raspberry canes can be quite prickly, and it turns out twist ties are much easier to use with gloves on than trying to ties some kind of bow with some ribbon offcuts. Sorry ribbon offcuts! You’ll you’re your day with another non-prickly plant!

Now I can even relax on my verandah chair without the prickles of the wandering raspberry canes taunting me…I might even reach over to eat a raspberry from there as they ripen.

So I can see now why nurseries would sell twist ties…but in this home, why buy them when you can just not throw them out? Not only have they performed magnificently in tidying up my raspberry plants, but they could be used to train many other plants to a trellis.