In addition to the many uses listed above, I have a few more, some of them related to the animal adjuncts to gardening: Put a hot water bottle in the bottom of the bucket and cover it with a towel. You now have an emergency carrier for newborn lambs, kids, kittens, puppies, and all other small creatures. Cover them with another towel or blanket and they'll stay cozy while you work. Having them in the bucket means you have your hands free to hold flashlights and open gates. Extra handling is eliminated and there isn't such a large risk of dropping the youngster(s) as there would be if you carried them in your arms. Put an inch of sand in the bottom. Set up a heat lamp and you have a nursery for chicks, ducklings, rabbits. Punch holes in a lid for a cover that eliminates escapes. You can keep the babies in the bathroom where it's warm without finding strays in the kitchen in the morning. Put an inch of sand in the bottom and add a couple of inches of water and you have a swimming pool for ducklings. I am NOT cleaning the duck poo out of the bathtub again. Fill with sand/rocks/water and put on lids to make stands and playground equipment for the goats. Use as a container for aquatic plants you're putting in a pond. The bale makes for easier lifting. Cut out the bottom and make a 'basket' for nerf basketball. Set upright and filled with rocks, dirt and straw and partially sunk, they make nesting boxes for ducks. Nailed horizontally and filled with straw, they make nesting boxes for chickens. Fill with sand and put in the back of a vehicle to give it additional weight or use the sand to give traction on ice or snow. Make manure tea. A lid is a wonderful thing. Set a flower pot inside and the bucket will help stabilize it while you're driving to deliver a plant to a friend. And even if the plant does turn over, the dirt and water won't go into the carpet. Punch holes in the lid of a bucket and use it as a car carrier for rabbits, puppies, and any other small creature you don't have a regular transport crate for. Ray

I used to collect 250-300 lbs. of UCGs from a gas station every week. These grounds fed my modest 4 piles in the summer as well as our lawn. In one out of three weeks, the filters would be separated and the grounds would be flung on the lawn. Our lawn is now so healthy and lush and green all summer. DH has forbidden me to do anymore flinging since it grows so thick and fast. In the winter, I compost using the UCGs to keep things hot/warm. The pile is actually a windrow, usually in an area where I wish to create a garden in the future. The windrow is easier to keep active in the winter. I don't pick-up from the gas station anymore. I now work at a Tim Horton's which would be the Canadian equivalent of a Starbucks on steroids. No fancy coffees here, but major volume. So now I can pick my days and how much. BTW, someone else took over my gas station pick-up which I was happy about. I think it's great that you are picking up as you are Alan8. It's a great soil/compost amendment and you'll be richly rewarded. As per Jeannie, you do confuse. Perhaps you are confused. I know that many of us do pick-ups for our composts from various places whether it be a coffee shop, produce store, mom and pop convenience store, etc. It's not difficult to ask and it benefits everyone. In my case, the owner of the Tim Horton's has told me it's costing him less to have the organics picked-up since I started taking the UCGs away. So we both benefit. We also have to consider that UCGs are wet and so weigh more than the dry stuff. 1000 lbs... piece of cake!! Getting rid of that on even a city lot wouldn't be an issue. Not after my experience in the last 5 years.

Ahh, neighbors. They just don't always get what we're doing. Right now I have very fastidious neighbors on one side who suck up every leaf with their John Deere and even pull up their dormant perennials like mums, load it all in the truck and haul it to the yard waste dump. Meanwhile I raked up 6 tarps of leaves and made a huge corral in the garden out of my tomato cages and put them in it, so there's now a 4x10 by 3 ft. high mountain of leaves in my garden for them to look at out their back windows all winter. Pretty sure they think I'm nuts.

when they package them, the roots are covered with some kind of goo that will keep them from drying out. if you have time, you should heel them into a temporary location. that's just basically sticking a shovel in the ground, pushing in one direction, plant the tree in the slot you've just created, then push the earth back. i admit, though, i am not sure how long you can keep them in the temporary location. but with all the rain we've had, the soil should be nice and moist, so they should be fine there for a while.