Fill a bag.

[Colin]

Hi,

For years I've struggled to fill plastic bin bags; recently I also wanted to fill many rubble bags with horse manure; I needed three hands but only have two. Whilst browsing YouTube looking at composting I spotted a great method so I take no credit for it but am happy to pass it on.

Take something like an old plastic bucket; remove the handle and cut away the complete bottom; I used my jigsaw for this; smooth the cut edge using a file or abrasive paper to make it user friendly.

Open a plastic bag and place the bag on the ground; insert the modified bucket wide opening down centrally in the base of the bag then simply load the open bucket; when the bucket fills withdraw the bucket sufficiently to deposit its contents in the bag by lifting the bucket and bringing the open end of the bag with it; keep doing this until the bag is filled then remove the bucket and tie the bag.

I tried this out for the first time yesterday loading shredded material into plastic bags and although there was a bit of spillage it worked a treat; a larger diameter container with its bottom cut away would have been better because of the size of the shredder drawer; I scooped out half the drawer contents between my hands then managed to pour the remainder but on the whole it made filling the bag a great deal easier.

I hope this is of use; the pictures show the set up and already the squirrels are being inquisitive as to the bag contents.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

[DeborahJane]

Terrific idea Colin, I too only have 2 hands and the 3rd is needed to fill plastic bags. I'll get onto making my own plastic bag filler upperer helper asap

 

[marlingardener]

Ah, I have an old plastic bucket (3 gal.) used for water collection that started to leak. Being something of a tightwad, I saved it. Now I know why! This is going to be so handy to sieve compost or to get mulch into bags.
Thank heavens for inventive minds who help the rest of us!

 

[Colin]

Hi,

Thanks Deborahjane; whoever designed the human body slipped up by only giving us two hands.

Nothing wrong at all in being tight marlingardener. I believe the bucket I used is also 3 gallon and an handy size for this application although anything similar could be used such as a deep rectangular plastic container with the bottom removed; anything which will fit into the bag; an old pedal or swing bin plastic insert?

https://www.gardening-forums.com/threads/horse-manure.12690/page-2

A short while ago I collected 20 bags of well rotted horse manure and filling the builders aggregate bags using a builders shovel was highly frustrating and the story is covered in the link above; at the time I came up with the idea of using a tall narrow plastic container; fill the container then place the bag over the top and invert the container to deposit the contents in the bag but then whilst browsing a composting video I noticed this better method being used which I've now adopted.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/builders-bucket-black-3-gallon-14ltr/64253#_=p

Here in the UK we can buy a new 3 gallon builders bucket for only £1.29 as seen above. Like marlingardener I used an old well used bucket costing nothing.

Out of interest and absolutely nothing to do with gardening but I needed three hands when I started restoring vintage radios. On these vintage radios many components need replacing these being mostly capacitors and resistors; these are soldered in and as many as five or six can be soldered to one connection; one hand to hold the soldering iron; one hand to hold the solder and one hand to hold the component; I designed and made a miniature coil winder as seen in the pictures below; now I could wind a tiny coil onto the end of each wire; the old component was then snipped out but leaving a 1/4" tail; this tail was scraped clean then the new component slipped onto the tail allowing both hands to do the soldering. I've made over a dozen of these winders as gifts and many more are in use after I added a thread on vintage radio forums and also had the design and method published. I'm not smart in any way but as an apprentice I was taught the old fashioned way to use my head and my hands so I can easily design and make anything I need. If there is a problem there will be at least one solution with a bit of thought. The large capacitor in the bottom picture was also another interesting project with me ending up making 1,000 of them in various capacitance values. I love solving such problems.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

[alp]

tightwad

You've to be very intelligent, quick-thinking and resourceful to be a tightwad.. It's an honour to be one. Don't you think, @marlingardener !

 

[Colin]

Hi,

You've to be very intelligent, quick-thinking and resourceful to be a tightwad.. It's an honour to be one. Don't you think, @marlingardener !

Or just be born in Yorkshire.