Ohio Man on TikTok Has an Unusual Advice for a Free Garden: ‘It Might Seem a Little Gross’

At a time when inflation is up, people are looking for all sorts of saving measures. While others bulk buy at Costco, Joey Peterson (@joeyplantstrees) from Ohio, a gardener, shared an unconventional cost-cutting measure on TikTok.

“Let’s do what I call ‘garbage gardening,'” Peterson said on TikTok as he opened a blue dumpster bin. The video was captioned ‘how to start a free garden.’ It seems like Peterson meant ‘free’ quite literally in this clip.

“It might seem a little gross,” he admitted. “But I think it’s gross that it’s mostly the amount of food that we’re throwing away, so even if people don’t eat, at least it can be turned back to soil,” Peterson explained. But the food won’t just be turned into compost, as some do when there’s rotten food.

Scrap garden

Instead, Peterson is scavenging for fruits and vegetables in the dump so that he can grow them as plants. He found blackberries and strawberries—and no, he didn’t eat them. Peterson started planting them into the ground. He did the same with the cucumbers, raspberries, and potatoes he found.

The man showed plants that supposedly sprouted from his leftover fruits and vegetables. One potato plant patch came from the dumpster, while a cucumber plant came from a leftover fruit.

He found a bunch of spring onions as well. Instead of dumping them directly onto the ground, he started cutting the roots to plant.

“I put those down at the edges of my beds because they put out chemicals from the roots that help stop weed seeds from germinating,” Peterson said. But he also plants the roots so that sprigs of spring onions can grow for his consumption later.

But Joey isn’t just recycling with seeds. He saw some egg trays and thought about turning them into planters. He also found eggs in the dump—not that he could use them anymore.

“Unfortunately, I can’t plant a chicken,” he joked. But eggshells are good for plants and can be composted.

He found avocados as well but couldn’t grow them because winters in Ohio get too cold. Avocados, on the other hand, are not winter-hardy trees. But Joey did find some tomatoes, crushed them into the ground, and buried them.

Joey also found a fish tank that was thrown away. Instead of leaving it be, he filled it up with water and used it to germinate the sweet potatoes he found. He even fed some of the bell peppers he dug up to his pet hamsters.

Unusual gardening advice from TikTok

TikTok was amused by Joey’s advice, with many thanking him over the idea. One commenter wrote about Joey’s video, “As a chicken owner, do you have any idea how much that would offset my feed costs!”

Another TikTok user pointed out that most of the food in the dumpster could have been donated instead of thrown. They said, “All of this fruit could also be donated to local zoos. I mean why in the world are we just throwing it in a garbage can instead of taking two extra seconds of energy as a society. I’m glad you took the time.”

A social media user also gave composting advice, saying, “Use the bananas and eggshells for natural fertilizer! Nitrogen and calcium!! Soak the bananas in water and crushed your eggshells in your compost!”

Not only are these methods cost-effective, but they also reduce food waste. It may seem irksome for some, but all fruits and vegetables come from the ground. When they grow into plants and trees, nobody would care or know that Joey took their seeds from a dumpster.

(featured images: Joey Peterson)

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