Beer Bottle Border

I think it all started with a conversation with my neighbor about my bottle tree. Anyway, she was telling me that she had seen flower bed borders in Italy that were created from wine bottles. The bottles were buried about half of the way, top down, into the ground along a garden edge to create the border.

Well, I just knew I had to take this idea and run with it. I love my wine, however I always drink the really fine wine that comes in a carton with the tap to prevent oxidation; therefore, I did not have a good source of wine bottles from which to work. However, I do like beer and I like it in a bottle; one of the greatest pleasures in the world is an ice cold beer after cutting the grass on a hot summer day.

Ironically, about this same time, my local recycling service quit collecting glass- so I just started saving the bottles that would otherwise have gone into my recycle bin. After a while, I figured it was time to proceed with this new project.

I had scouted out the perfect location - an area that ran parallel to my fence that separated some garden beds from my vegetable garden. I had stepping stones here already and I felt I needed a border to better define the area.

I got out my hole-diggers and dug a little trench about 5 inches deep and inserted the bottles top down. I then filled in the spaces between the bottles with the extra dirt. It took a couple of rains for the dirt to settle well in between the bottles, but I am pleased with the end result. I did not have enough bottle to do the entire area on my first run - but all the more reason to have another beer and save the bottle!

I usually drink either Corona Light (a clear bottle) or Amstel Light ( a brown bottle). I decided to just stick with the brown bottles for this project. Certainly, a nice imported beer gives my border a little more class! Really, I think green bottles would be prettiest.

Incidentally, when reading a book, African-American Gardens and Yards in the Rural South, I discovered that my idea is not so original. Blue and brown snuff bottles, brown Clorox bottles and soda bottles filled with colored liquid were used to line the walkways in African-American yards in the rural south.