13 Creative Ways To Repurpose Thrifted Baskets Around Your Garden And Yard

Avid thrifters know there's an aisle in most second-hand shops where you'll find a selection of baskets to choose from. Whether they're made from natural fibers, wire, or plastic, baskets have infinite uses. Holding stuff is a no-brainer, but imaginative people are coming up with ingenious roles for these universal containers outdoors. Baskets are common items you should be repurposing in your yard and garden. We've curated a collection of resourceful and surprising ways baskets are coming in handy in our outdoor spaces.

For millennia, people have carried baskets to gather food, from foraged berries to birds' eggs. But that's far from their only function. Enlist them to protect plants, decorate garden landscapes, or elevate growing things. Baskets lend a hand to certain food plants, helping them grow or making harvest easier for us. Even weak or broken baskets have a place among the plants. After you check out these inspired applications, we're confident that you'll take a closer look at their selection the next time you're at your neighborhood thrift store.

While you might not find these among the natural fiber baskets, ones made of wire are also thrift store staples. They take the form of trash cans, office organizers, or shower caddies. Their closely woven wire mesh makes them a nearly impenetrable wall for plant protection. Place them cloche-style over plants that are delicious to critters. Top it with a weighty brick or stone, and your delicate plantings will benefit from rain and sun in safety from animals.

But what about the precious roots? If you've ever watched one of your plants literally sink into the soil and away from view, you know the swear-inducing frustration of burrowing animals needing a snack. Be proactive, and bury a wire basket in the soil before planting. Just like the above-ground protection these baskets provide, moisture, air, and minerals are able to pass through the mesh while shielding the roots from hungry critters.

Using a thrifted basket of any size as a decorative planter for flowers isn't revolutionary. However, it is a simple way to transform your patio with flowers and plants without parting with a lot of cash. Unless the basket has a particularly tight weave, you'll need to add some sort of material before filling it with soil. Line the basket with a layer of coconut coir, moss, or plastic sheeting with added drainage holes. Pour in some soil, and arrange plants in a visually pleasing fashion.

Strawberry planters are vertical containers with holes or pockets in the sides where strawberry plants can perch. Terracotta or ceramic ones — even plastic versions — are de rigueur, but they can be costly. A tall plastic laundry basket can serve the same purpose; you may spy one in the furniture section of thrift stores or your local Dollar Tree. Nab one for a few bucks, and line it with burlap to hold in the soil and provide visual contrast. Cut holes in the burlap where your strawberries will grow. Top the basket with an arrangement of flowers or more strawberry plants. 

One of the many forms a basket can take is the uber-functional flat crate: Picture what you see displays of bread in at grocery stores. These shallow plastic vessels that occasionally show up at thrift stores aren't the most attractive baskets, but they make perfect mini-raised beds. Outfitted with a permeable liner to hold dirt and let moisture pass through, shallow-rooting plants or seedlings can find a home in this unexpected place.

Loosely woven, tall baskets take on a new purpose as flower-drying frogs. Flip a basket on its head, and send flower and foliage stems through the weave. As they dry, take advantage of their changing beauty by putting them on display. Fill just enough of the basket's holes so that you'll be able to remove individual dried plants without damaging their neighbors.

Animals, both wild and domestic, can undo hours of careful work in an outdoor planter in minutes. Give the planter some altitude, and it's much less vulnerable. Take advantage of the handles on attractive wicker or wire baskets, and hang your planted beauties. Be sure to use baskets with very sturdy handles. Dangle them from a chain like you would a plastic hanging pot, or rig it to a wall to make the most of vertical surfaces.

Let's face it: there comes a time when old wicker baskets are past their prime. When holding any weight becomes impossible, retire handled baskets made from natural materials to a purely decorative display. If you have a wire arch that's still waiting for summer's bounty to cover it, hang some baskets from its outside edges with twine or wire. Worn-out or weak baskets that still look good are ideal.

Harvesting potatoes is fun — albeit sprinkled with a bit of frustration; it's like a scavenger hunt in that you never know how many potatoes you'll unearth or where they are in relation to your withered plant. Confine your potato plants to one container, and there'll be no surprises as to where you'll find your crop. Laundry baskets make great potato towers. When potato season comes to a close, tip the basket onto a tarp to glean your vegetable reward with less time and effort than needed for ground-borne potatoes.

Synthetic Easter grass is a springtime staple for lining baskets, but it's pretty troublesome for the environment. You can purchase eco-friendly versions of this pastel nightmare, but how novel would it be to grow a mini-lawn of real grass inside a basket? Outfit a handled basket in springy hues with a liner, some soil, and a layer of grass seeds. If you want the grass to be plush in time for the Easter Bunny's arrival, give the seeds plenty of time to sprout and grow into a nice mat of green.

Mushrooms can grow beautifully in laundry baskets. Chock-full of growing medium and spores, a clean laundry basket can yield lots of fruit. The mushrooms grow through the sides and the top for easy picking once they're ready. What's more, if you use a growing medium like straw, cleaning up your crop will be less intensive than crops grown in soil.

Here's a trick for winter seed sowing in a laundry basket: snip holes in the bases of resealable plastic bags, fill them partway with soil, and top with seeds. Close the bags, leaving 1 inch open, and line them up in a row inside a rectangular laundry basket. Send the pointed ends of two marshmallow roasting skewers through the upper corners of each bag. Once all the bags are connected, place the two skewers through two of the upper holes at each end of the basket to hold the bags upright until the seeds sprout.

Vermicompost right in your garden bed with a small wire basket. Bury a container up to its lip in soil. Fill it with layers of food scraps and garden waste to create a worm buffet. This method can attract worms to your garden or help support worms that you've added to the basket itself. Layer the materials until the basket is full, give it a bit of water, and cover the opening with a heavy lid or plate. Given some time, your happy worms will leave thank-you gifts of castings that will nourish your growing things.