We’ve had an email from Ewan, asking:

hello, any ideas on what i could make with a broken basketball?

it looks exactly like this (–>)

and is completely intact apart from the bit where the pump goes in..

We had an old deflated football in our garden for a while (no idea where it came from) and one of the cats, Carbon, decided it was his own private rainwater collector/bowl — but that was an unintended, temporarily reuse.

So has anyone got any better ideas for Ewan?

(Photo by lusi)

We’ve already covered the wheel rims but Erika has emailed asking:

I was wondering if there were any ideas about old bike tubes….

I’m presuming we’re talking inner tubes anyway – it’s quite possible there is another type of bike tube since I’m not a terribly keen cyclist – I live at the top of a steep hill and prefer to tackle it on foot. If there is some other ‘bike tube’, please feel free to answer about both ;)

(Photo by kikashi)

We’ve had an email from Neil Williams about used car tyres:

I’ve just moved into a new house and when I finally hacked through the nettles at the bottom of the garden, I found a set of old car tyres.

They look like they’ve been there for a good few years so probably aren’t any good for a car now and I know some companies make them into mouse pads and stuff but I was wondering what I can do with them myself.

My dad used to use tyres (AKA tires) as planters for growing veg – a single tyre became an instant raised beds for lettuce or herbs or a few stacked on top of each other became deep bins for potatoes. I guess the stacked ones could also be used as a compost heap too.

Any other suggestions?

(Photo by dragon_art)

Since the weather has got rather autumnal and wet of late, we decided to pack away the garden stuff for the winter.

While hosing the dirt off pots, and packing away the hose itself, I noticed the hose had sprung a leak at a rather inconvenient position in its length.

We’ve got more hose to use in the cellar (as we had to buy it in a stupidly long length to start) but are there any alternatives? The split is about 2inches long, but just a split not a full on hole, so I don’t know whether a puncture repair kit would fix it. If it doesn’t, any suggestions on what we can do with the short lengths on either side of the split? Or the whole broken hose in general?

(Photo by Onatos)

A suggestion (and photo) from Jill:

I have a pile of old hot water bottles lurking in the cupboard beneath the sink in my bedroom. Some have actually leaked, others have simply started to perish – but none of them are fit for their original purpose i.e. to warm my bed!

The trouble is, I just can’t bear to simply throw them away in the bin – it seems such a waste.
I have never seen a recycling centre with any facilities for rubber products.
Any suggestions as to what else I can do with them, as the pile continues to grow !

Ideas then?