I’m always amazed at the cleverness of backyard gardeners and the ways they find uses for what many people would see as plain junk. Take your typical 2-litre fruit juice bottle for example. What can you do with it? You could just throw them away, or you could try some of these ideas passed on to me by other gardeners.

Here’s a very simple one. If you drill a single hole in the lid, you’ve created a kind of a water spike for your plants. Simply fill it with water, plunge it into the soil and it’ll slowly release the moisture - great if you’re going away for the weekend.

If you drill a series of smaller holes, you’ve got a handy little watering can.

Here’s one idea I really love, whenever you plant something, you can bury one of these containers next to it with the top just above the soil. Just make a hole in the base first. When you fill the bottle with water, it slowly releases the moisture to the plant. You can save a lot of water that way.

But what if you cut one in half? At one end, you’ve got a handy funnel for pouring petrol into the mower. With the other, there’s all sorts of things you can do - store your nails and screws, pop in some drainage holes and grow you’re plants in it, even make a little greenhouse for cuttings and seedlings.

If you’ve got any other great ideas for reusing common household junk, why don’t you write to me so that I can let other people know.

You'll find more practical ideas like these in 'The Garden Guru - Top Tips from Australian Gardeners' (ABC Books) available at ABC Shops, good book stores and online.