FERTILE IMAGINATION; GARDENER MAKES THE MOST OUT OF EVERYDAY DISCARDS.

Byline: Carol Bidwell Daily News Staff Writer

Taking the trash out? Stop right there! You may be throwing away just what you need to grow yourself a lush - and economical - vegetable garden this year.

So says Yvonne Savio, head of the Common Ground Garden Program and coordinator of the Master Gardener program for the University of California Cooperative Extension in Los Angeles County.

Call her the Heloise of gardening. Savio has a trick for using and reusing all kinds of garbage as ``tools'' to raising a lush and fruitful garden.

And most of her solutions won't cost you a penny.

Savio practices what she preaches in classes and seminars. You'll find old orange rinds, mesh berry baskets, old putty knives and plenty of other would-be discards helping almost a dozen fruits and a wide variety of vegetables flourish in her own quarter-acre terraced garden in Pasadena.

Savio says she's been a saver for years, but while others turn old newspapers into fireplace logs or discarded greeting cards into place mats, all her castoffs seem to wind up in the garden.

``Some people just collect all the rubber bands that come with the newspaper. I collect everything else,'' she said with a laugh. ``Why buy something when you can reuse something? I don't like to throw anything away.''

So after she squeezes oranges for breakfast juice, the empty rinds are used as organic pots in which to start seeds. Forks mangled in the garbage disposer aren't thrown away; they're straightened and used to gently lift seedlings from pots for transplanting. Old cans aren't tossed into recycling bins; they're used as pedestals to keep growing pumpkins off the damp ground. Empty half-gallon milk jugs have their bottoms sliced off and become mini-greenhouses for tender new lettuce plants.

``You can find lots of uses for things you'd ordinarily throw away if you just think about it,'' Savio said. ``It's not hard to put stuff to other uses if you try.''

Old shoe boxes, for example, become files to hold seed packets, divided into very early season, spring and fall plantings. Within those divisions, seed packets are alphabetized and bundled with markers made of discarded Popsicle sticks and short lengths of slats cut from old miniblinds. When the seeds are planted, the markers are stuck into the soil alongside them.

Savio gives many of her vegetables - particularly cucumbers, squash and others that don't transplant well - a head start by planting seed indoors before it's warm enough for them to go directly into the garden, generally after Feb. 1.

In addition to using citrus halves as biodegradable pots, she also uses plastic mesh berry baskets lined with pieces of newspaper or paper towels. The lined baskets are filled with potting soil and seeds dropped in and covered with soil.

Watered and placed in a warm spot, the seeds will sprout in a few days. In a few weeks, the plants will be 2 to 3 inches tall, just the right size for placing in the garden once the weather warms.

But there's no need to lift the plant out of the basket.

``The paper rots out - it's like a little bit of compost - and the holes in the basket are large enough to let the roots grow through,'' Savio said. ``You just plant basket and all. After you harvest the vegetables, you dig up the basket, wash it off and use it again next year. They last just about forever.''

When it comes to contouring beds for vegetables - building berms around sunken areas that can be flooded for deep watering - gardeners can use an old mason's trowel or even a child's beach shovel, she said.

Black plastic flats - those square, low-sided, trellis-bottomed trays retail nurseries pack shoppers' plants on for the trip home - can be overturned and used to screen fledgling herb beds. The flats let filtered light through, protect from overheating and hold in moisture while slow-germinating plants establish themselves.

In using empty plastic milk jugs as greenhouses for tender new lettuce, Savio anchors the carton with a stick or dowel - ``that'll hold it steady even in a high wind.''

Recycling isn't over once vegetables are harvested. Clean, empty mayonnaise jars hold seeds collected from her plants. Kept in a cool place, onion seeds will last about a year, lettuce seed will be viable for two years and tomatoes ``last for years if they're kept in a coolish interior room in a house.''

Using her recycling tricks, Savio is constantly planting, watering, fertilizing and harvesting, weather permitting. Rarely does she buy fresh produce at the supermarket.

``I do sometimes, but it bugs me,'' she said with a laugh. ``It means that I've failed. It means that I have nothing going on in the garden, and I can't stand that.''

Tips

Here are more tips and tricks that will help gardeners recycle items for use in the garden:

Use an old paring or putty knife to cut transplants from a flat or as a harvesting aid.

Slit open plastic drycleaning bags to use as lightweight sheeting over newly seeded flats or beds; anchor in place with rocks. Remove when plants are 1-inch tall.

Slip half-gallon milk cartons with tops and bottoms cut off over celery plants to blanch (whiten) them as they grow.

Use plastic mesh berry baskets to protect newly sprouted seedlings such as corn, cucumber, melons and squash from birds. By the time the seedlings are tall enough to reach through the top of the basket, the plants are hardier and less tempting to the birds.

Metal cans placed under melons concentrate the sun's warmth, transferring it to the maturing fruit so it matures sweeter and earlier than usual.

To dry fruit or herbs, sandwich them between layers of cheesecloth held in place by old refrigerator or oven racks; put the racks in the sun and turn occasionally for even drying.

Tie twine through the springs of two clothespins and clamp the pins to a trellis on each side of a cucumber, pea or other reluctant climbing vine; as the plant grows, readjust tension by moving the clothespins.

Use a child's wagon to haul compost, fertilizer, potting soil and other items in the garden.

Save a Y-shaped branch from pruning to scrape mud from boots and tools.

Source: University of California Cooperative Extension, Los Angeles County

CAPTION(S):

4 Photos, Box

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) Trash or treasures?

Orange rinds, fruit baskets and water jugs make great garden tools

(2) Yvonne Savio displays the recycled household items that she uses in her fruit and vegetable garden.

(3) Popsicle sticks are used to organize seed packets and as markers in the garden once the seeds are planted.

(4) Old kitchen knives work as garden tools.

Andy Holzman/Daily News

Box: Tips (See text)