Tights get a new lease of life on the allotment

The spirit of recycling has long been alive on your local allotment site, well before everyone else latched onto it. So, in the spirit of those WW2 make do and mend allotmenteers, here are three things you can do with laddered tights:

• Tights make remarkably good plant ties: they're soft enough not to damage the stem, and strong enough to deal with the strongest winter wind
• If you want to make sure your pumpkins last as long as possible through the winter, they need to be hung up so that the air can circulate. An old pair of tights makes the perfect pumpkin sling
• Make some liquid fertiliser for your plot by putting some sheep manure into an old pair of tights (you really need to make sure you're finished with them) and suspend them in a bucketful of water. Leave for a couple of weeks and then use the resulting brew to water your plants

Comments

[Head Burro]

Thanks Jane - as I'm planning to grow sweetcorn next year, I shall be asking the ladies of my street if they have any old stockings they can let me have. Nothing wrong with that, is there?

[Jane Perrone]

No, so long as you explain what you want them for!

[Head Burro]

Ahhhh - best remember that bit ;-)

[David L]

Being a boy and not a tight wearer, I have the same problem as Head Burro. If any female readers would like to send me any surplus, I would be very grateful. I did think about asking at work but thought I might be carted out unceremoniously. Having said that I am about halfway through the Butternut Squash and pumpkins now and they seem to be keeping reasonably well wrapped in newspaper in a box.

[Jane Perrone]

Hi David and Head Burro,

If you can't lay your hands on some tights, an old t-shirt or sheet works just as well.

Hope that helps!

jane