Glass Finds From The Old Farm Trash Dump
This week we spent some time hunting for glass jars and bottles in the old farm trash dump! If you’re new here, we live on a few acres of hand-me-down, family land in Eastern NC that has been passed down for the last couple hundred years. Well way back before the time of public trash dumps, families, mine included, made due and disposed of their trash on their properties. Hence the old farm trash dumps! We only walk through the woods in the winter because of the snakes that live in our area. And because of that, this is a winter pastime I look forward to every year!!

Check out the goodies we found this week! A large growler, some interesting shaped unmarked jars, an Atlas Mason jar, and an amber glass bottle. But I must say, my favorite find of them all is this beautiful glass lid! I wish I knew exactly what the lid originally belonged too. However, I’m just so amazed that we found it intact!!
These glass finds do look pretty rough right now. But over the past couple years I’ve mastered the art of cleaning old glass jars and bottles! [Click here] to read all the steps and my method to cleaning old found glassware. And then [click here] to see some more of my glass finds from last year!
Not too shabby for a morning walk through the woods! For now, I’m off to wash some of these bottles and jars. And maybe I’ll do some research on that glass lid too! Tune in to my stories over on IG, and I’ll be sure to share any new info I uncover about the lid. I hope you enjoyed seeing some of my trash to treasure finds from the old farm trash dump, and I hope it brought you some joy and inspiration in some way today! Thanks for stopping by the blog today, and as always, thanks so much for following along…
We now own my husband’s parents homeplace on a farm. He took me back into the woods several years ago to show me a dumping area. I could not believe it! We found old amber bottles, blue glass bottles, etc. We took home all the ones that were not broken. Now I am definitely going back! Do you ever actually dig in the ground to uncover things? I haven’t yet, but I am definitely considering it!
Hi Jeannie! That is awesome!! I’ve heard that sometimes the deeper you go the older the stuff you can find. But I have only looked on the surface of ours because the dump areas we know of are on the hill right around the house. So I worry about digging that ground up and messing up the hill with it being so close to the house!
I love old bottles. Been a collector for years how to clean was very helpful ,
Me too Carl! So glad it was helpful!! Happy collecting!
I have an old bottle collection from a backyard dump and from an excavation company who dug up the streets of Boston! I have old apothecary, ink bottles, brown clay vessels… so many I am going to try your cleaning method!
What a cool story and cool collection! Good luck and I hope it works for you like it does for me! 🙂
I truly enjoyed reading about your farm and bottle finds. My husband, myself and our 2 daughters lived on a 10 acre farm.. My husband found Indian artifacts, but glassware, etc that was found was broken. There used to be an outhouse on the property but we never did any digging. I wish I had.
Thank you again and best of luck with your farmhouse. I’ll look forward to more of your writings.
Aw, well thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoyed it! My bottles are one of my favorite collections, even if they are “just trash”. 🙂 That’s so cool that y’all have found stuff on your farm too!! I have read a little online, and somewhere read that if you find the old “trash dumps”, there is likely to be even older stuff the deeper you dig. Which makes sense because you would just keep adding new stuff to the top of the pile as you threw things away, and it would keep covering up the older stuff at the bottom. Thanks for sharing and happy treasure hunting!! 🙂