I’m lucky because, working from home, I can take a plant-watering break pretty much whenever I or they need it – but I thought it was worth asking for people who have to leave their veggies baking in their greenhouse all day without a comfort break.

Above ground sprinkler type things (like the one in the picture) are apparently very inefficient at watering veggies – too much of the water evaporates on the surface before it has a chance to get down to the roots.

I’ve heard of people using holey old garden hose as a makeshift drip irrigation system but that seems like it might be a little hard to manage the flow – in my mind, the question has a second part that didn’t fit in the headline up there: “how can I make a reused or recycled irrigation system that doesn’t waste too much water?”

Any ideas?

(It’s also important to consider preventative water-loss measures – mulching and the like – which cut down on the amount of water lost to evaporation — what’s your favourite reuse/recycle for that sort of thing?)

I asked a similar question on Twitter the other day but since I’ve lost more leaves to the blighters over the weekend, I thought I’d asked for more suggestions – I want to belt & braces it!

In response to my Twitter question, @KakeLover replied: “beer traps! gets the slugs everytime!” and @maryhoresh said “this year trying egg shells they aren’t supposed to like waking over them.also heard to paint glitter around edge of pots”.

So I’ve got beer traps down (made from old drinks cans, filled with out-of-date beer), John on order to eat eggs for breakfast and if I can find some glitter, I’ll make my pots into disco pots. I’ve also heard they don’t like copper (they’re supposed to get a little electric shock from it) but I don’t have enough old copper pipes to go around – will see what I can dig up though.

Any other suggestions? What have you tried? I’ve heard introducing certain parasitic nematodes can kill off slugs for a short time – anyone had any experience with that?

(I hope everyone had a lovely long weekend btw – and for those who didn’t get yesterday as a holiday, sorry for rubbing it in that we all did!)

Linzi email us with a rather specific question:

I would love to know how to make those chickens made from plastic bags? I desperately want to to know how to make, I teach art and crafts and I know my students would love to make them.

I double-checked what she meant by “chickens from plastic bags” and she means these guys, which are apparently made by communities in deprived parts of South Africa.

My Google-fu is failing me to find either a how-to for those, or indeed any alternative chicken decorations that could be made from plastic bags. I’ve made some little tin chickens from old drinks cans and I’ve seen lots of chickens for dangling made from, essentially, a circle of fabric/crochet – but I can’t find the tutorials for those either now… One thing I did find was the cockerel made from plastic bottles which we featured a couple of years ago – but again, I can’t find any how-tos…

Anyone got any links bookmarked or are better at searching than me?

I’ve been getting more and more interested in wild food lately – we’ve been trying different things while walking the dog in the woods behind our house and on Sunday, we went on a wonderful Wild Food Foray organised by Slow Food West Yorkshire. Led by medical herbalist Jesper Launder, we spent just over three hours pottering around the River Wharfe just north of Barden Bridge and tasted more than a dozen different plants, and also went crayfishing (for nasty invasive signal crayfish) – which was a lot of fun. (I’m going to do a full write up of all the things we tasted on my personal blog soon.)

Anyway, long & short of it is, between wild food collecting and the hopefully bountiful harvest from our garden, a trug would be really useful for carrying stuff back up to the house – a Sussex trug style basket like the one pictured rather than those big rubbery plastic bins with handles. Up to now, I’ve mostly just either taken so few leaves that I could easily carry them in my hands or used shopping bags/a colander when I’ve headed down to get a larger amount of, say, wild garlic – but a trug would be useful for carrying large amounts of longer things, letting them lie flat instead of crunching them up.

One recycled trug idea I’ve seen is made using an old car tyre – the tyre is cut into sections (sixths?) and rope handles are attached, et voila! instant trug. I’ve also seen old fruit/veg boxes made into trugs with addition of a central handle.

But before I start hacking up John’s spare, I thought it might be interesting to hear if anyone has any other suggestions. Might something like paper mache even work? It doesn’t need to be that strong and I guess it could be varnished/painted enough to make it waterproof enough (it wouldn’t be sitting out in the rain but the plants might be damp/dewy.)

Any other ideas?

We’ve recently had some shelves fitted in an alcove – only to realise afterwards that a door handle will bang into the central upright. (We’d already done lots of tweaking to make it accommodate the door, just apparently not that bit!) To save damaging the upright, we’ve dropped our cute doggie front door doorstop into the gap to act as a buffer but that’s needed at the front door so I need another one.

I love the idea of fabric and rice filled cute doorstops like SwirlyArt Lyndsey’s Cheeky Chickens – but I wondered if anyone else had any other suggestions – particularly water-proof suggestions since between the cats, the dog and our clumsiness, it will surely end up drenched in some liquid or another! (sorry for the ugh!)

Coming at the door from the other side, has anyone got any fun ideas for a wedge – more interesting than just the usual triangle of wood?