Hide Garden Buckets with a DIY Burlap Bag

Our garden is in full swing! We’ve got tomatoes, jalapenos, and more! Everything is growing so nicely – it’s wonderful! What’s not so wonderful? The fact that I don’t have the pretty container garden (see this post for my container garden inspiration) I was dreaming of. We were in a time crunch when Matt came home from deployment (read our homecoming story here), we had to get some seeds planted so there was no time for a fun planter so we went with what we knew, good old 5 gallon buckets! But I did my best to dress them up using DIY burlap bags.

Since we went with the 5 gallon buckets, I decided I needed to do something to dress them up a little bit. I made these burlap bags to cover the buckets. The best part is they can be made in minutes and cost less than $5. Score!

First step is to take your measurements. You’ll want to measure the height of the bucket as well as around the bucket. You’ll want to give yourself some slack for the top of the bucket. Then grab some burlap. I had about two yards on hand and it was more than enough for two buckets.

Make a template for the bottom of your burlap bag. I did this by tracing the bottom of the 5 gallon bucket onto a piece of cardboard. When tracing onto the burlap, give yourself about a 1/2 inch seam allowance.

Next, cut a piece of burlap with the measurements you took earlier, giving yourself a 1/2 seam allowance. Stitch a seam to create a tube.

Now you should have a tube of burlap as well as a circle piece for the bottom. With the tube inside out, pin the piece for the bottom to the tube. Then stitch.

Turn right side out and you’ll have a burlap bag like the one shown. I decided not to finish the top edge because I like the frayed edges.

To hold the burlap bag up nicely, I wrapped some jute around the brim of the bucket. That’s it! I think it would be really fun to stencil onto the burlap bags the names of the plants you have in there. I wish I would have thought of it before I made all of mine. I will probably go back and add that later. haha.