20 Unique Ways To Repurpose Metal Containers Around Your Garden

Arguably, one of the biggest mistakes you want to avoid as a beginner gardener is spending too much money on tools and supplies. Pots, soil, fertilizer, seeds, trowels ... it all adds up quickly to a wheelbarrow load of money from your household budget. Thankfully, it's easy to start gardening affordably if you embrace repurposing. There are tried-and-true ideas, like old car tire planters and eggshell plant food, but there are also more creative options. Let's take metal containers as an example. Tin cans can be used as pest repellents, chinch bug or slug traps, and hanging planters. A cattle trough makes a decently sized raised bed on the cheap. Transform a used oil can into a fire pit with just a few tools. A Danish butter cookie tin makes a surprisingly cute and practical bird feeder.

While pretty much any metal container can be used in the garden, there are some precautions you must take. You'll need to thoroughly clean and disinfect any metal container you want to grow in or otherwise repurpose. Non-galvanized metal can corrode, so be sure you know what might be leaching out when that happens. You don't want harmful toxins escaping into the soil you dig or the bird seed inside your DIY feeder. Food-safe metals like steel are your best option; metal containers that once held food are also typically safe. What's more, container-grown plants need adequate drainage. If the metal container you're considering using as a planter doesn't have holes already or an open bottom, you'll need to create drainage holes.

Loud noise deters everything from bobcats and deer to crows and iguanas. Drill a hole through two or three tins cans, pie pans, cookie tins, or even trash can lids then hang them on a fence. When wildlife interacts with the fence, the motion causes the containers to clank. However, after some time, the animals you're trying to repel get used to the noise and just ignore it, while the pole-tied contraption may not make enough noise if the wind isn't strong.

Metal containers easily transform into stand-alone plant pots. An old favorite is turning food or milk powder cans large and small into plant pots: punch out drainage holes and use them as is or paint them. Other small containers to consider include paint and cake tins (the ones you store a cake in after baking it). Buckets and pails, retired metal toolboxes, trash cans, and gas tanks are great for shrubs or larger plants. Want something more permanent? Use broken ceramics to add a sturdy mosaic lining to the outside of a cookie tin.

Struggling with a brown, patchy lawn? You might have pests in the soil. Before you rip up your grass and start again, use a coffee can trick to test your lawn for a chinch bug infestation. Remove each end of your can and bury it in the soil about halfway. Fill it with water almost to the top, stir, and leave it to sit for ten minutes. If any bugs appear on the surface of the water, count them. Seeing at least 20 bugs per square foot of lawn makes treatment worthwhile.

There are two ways to make a slug trap. The first, which is ideal for squeamish gardeners, involves cutting large holes in the top half of a tall, narrow, lidded metal container like a used coffee can. Bury the can in the ground to the holes, fill it with beer (or another yeasty substance like sourdough starter), put the lid on and wait. Open the lid and discard the pests. The second option is to use a shallow metal container, like a tuna can; the downside is there's no lid to hide all those dead slugs from view.

Stock tanks — yup, those big metal containers that traditionally hold water for horses and cows to drink — just happen to make no-assembly-required raised vegetable beds for homeowners lacking the soil or space for in-ground gardens. Metal storage furniture like filing cabinets and lockers also make surprisingly great raised beds when turned on their back. It might be a stretch to call them containers, but we think it's applicable, since there's no denying that they contain things! Other more left-of-field ideas include clothes dryer drums and oil tanks, though like with furniture, don't plant edibles in them.

Drill or punch some holes in the walls of a tall, round metal container (think tin can or vintage food storage), add a wire or a string handle, and pop a real or an LED tea light inside. A pack of 12 YIWER Battery Tea Lights Candles in Warm White costs just $4. Sit one or two on your outdoor dining table for an illuminating centerpiece, hang many on a rope around your patio perimeter, or bundle a bunch together to create a rustic outdoor chandelier. You could also experiment with other round metal containers, like vintage candy jars.

You've tried using newspaper pots for starting seeds and were impressed by the results. If you need something equally eco-friendly but longer lasting, it's time to turn to metal containers — more specifically, used aluminum soda cans. Like many of the hacks in this list, you'll first need to drill or punch drainage holes in the bottom of the cans. Cut the tops off with sharp scissors. Fill the cans with a starter soil, pop a seed into each, water gently, and watch and wait for your new plant babies to sprout!

Most metals can withstand high temperatures: aluminum melts at 1220 degrees Fahrenheit, while stainless steel needs at least 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit to turn to liquid. That means pretty much any metal container can become a fire pit — think big ol' oil can surrounded by log seats in the backyard or a mini tin can table top hand warmer. You can even upcycle an old washing machine into a fire pit on a budget! However, before you set anything on fire inside it, make sure the container is thoroughly cleansed of its original contents.

Short on space but still want to test your green thumb? Any metal container — from a coffee or paint can to an antique flour jar — can become a hanging planter. Punch holes near the rim, thread through string, chain, or wire, and hang the contraption from a stand or hooks on the fence. Alternatively, spray paint a bunch of matching metal containers the same color (this set of eight Pinty Plus Aqua Mini Spray Paint cans in Ultra Matte Finish costs just $54). Once dry, nail or screw them to a wooden trellis to make a DIY plant wall.

Need fall garden decor but don't want to spend any money? If you're handy with metal cutting tools like hack saws or jig saws, cut spooky faces into old refrigerant tanks, pop in some colorful, rechargeable LEDs, and voilà — you've got DIY Halloween porch decor that will last years. You can also try your hand at making super sweet hanging fairy homes from soda cans, or creating steppingstones using quick-set concrete and metal container (minus the lid) molds.

Well-known ways of attracting beneficial insects to visit your backyard include planting specific flowering shrubs and leaving out dishes of water. Food and water — check! You can also provide them with much-needed shelter by building a bug hotel from a metal container like, say, a tin can or square cookie tin. Simply fill said vessel with hollow reeds, sticks, and leaves and leave them in out of the way corners of your garden. Expect this hotel to attract solitary bees, ladybugs, and various wasp, beetle, and spider species.

Did you know you can easily turn your empty paint can into a DIY bird feeder? Paint your can — we like FolkArt Outdoor Acrylic Paint (2 Ounce) in Cobalt for almost $9 — and hot glue on a peaked roof of wooden plant labels. A pack of 100 Mr. Pen Wooden Plant Labels costs $8. Add a lip and a dowel perch to the opening, then fill and hang your feeder. Other refit-worthy metal containers include the ubiquitous tin can, vintage milk cans, pie pans, and Danish butter cookie tins — lid and all.

This DIY requires quite a bit of sculpting skill and some specialist tools. You'll need needle-nose pliers, jewelry pliers, jewelry wire, metal tape, scissors, a knife, beads, and your metal container — in this case, a soda can. Cut said soda can into strips, roll the strips into beads, and fashion them into metal ants with cartoonishly large bead eyes using the wire and tape. Prefer something more practical to stick into your pot soil? Turn those soda cans into decorative plant markers instead.

Oil drums and barrels are made from steel and designed to withstand strenuous shipping conditions. It's not surprising, then, that they also make excellent garden furniture — following a thorough cleaning, of course. To make sturdy stools for an outdoor table, simply cut a used oil drum into two, sand or line the sharp edges, and create a seat with a disc of weatherproof wood. If you're handy with a sewing machine, fashion cushions for extra comfort. Another option is to turn one barrel into chairs and a table.

One of the most popular tool storage up-cycles uses a metal container usually reserved for keeping mail safe. Yup, the humble mailbox comes replete with wall or pole mounts and a handy closable lid to keep the rain out. Place the mailbox (or mailboxes) right next to your garden beds to keep tools within easy reach. Other ideas for metal containers-turned-garden tool storage include an old toolbox, a filing cabinet, or a multi-bin caddy crafted from six tin cans, a piece of timber, and a handle.

Got a cylindrical metal container with a plastic lid you don't know how to repurpose yet can't throw away? Turn it into a garden twine dispenser and keep it in your tool belt as you potter around your beds. It's as easy as punching a hole in the middle of the plastic lid using a heated metal rod, awl, or electric drill, popping your ball of twine inside the container, threading the free strand of twine through the hole, and reattaching the lid. Now, when you need twine to contain an unruly tomato plant, just pull!

Just as bug hotels invite beneficial insects into your garden, a pond welcomes aquatic creatures — winged, submerged, and terrestrial. Best of all, building one doesn't have to be an epic endeavor. Instead, you can make a pond from something as small as a deep metal baking pan to something as large as a stock tank. Sink your metal container into the soil to its rim and fill it with rocks, bog-loving plants, and water. If you want moving water, consider building a solar-powered fountain from metal buckets or a big steel tub.

This DIY is so easy your kiddos can tackle it! Punch a hole in the bottom of three tin cans of decreasing size (they should fit inside one another) using a nail and hammer, and string them together. Add noise-making beads to the end of the string. Make the chime yours by painting the outside of the can — try a 4th of July or rainbow theme; decoupaging mushroom, cottage garden, or songbird patterned tissue paper; adding pom-poms to the string; or decorating the outside with crushed and colored eggshells.

Want a birdbath in your garden? Cover the upturned lid of a tall trash can with pond liner, like this cjc Black 4 by 7 Foot Pond Liner for Water Features. Then and place the lid, still upturned, back on the body of the can situated somewhere shady and protected. Fill it with water and add a floating solar fountain, like this AUTGA Floating Solar Powered Water Fountain Pump, which costs about $10. The sound of running water attracts hummingbirds and other feathered friends.

Cutworms are a frustrating garden pest because they target seedlings. Like a woodcutter, these persistent grubs curl their bodies around the base of a young plant's stem, nibbling until the seedling falls. To stop hungry cutworms in their seedling munching tracks, make a cutworm collar. Cut the bottom of any cylindrical metal container and press it into the soil at least half an inch deep around any newly planted seedling. Cruciferous vegetables, plants in the carrot family, legumes, nightshades, asparagus, corn, and leafy greens like lettuce are most at risk.