At our Summer Symposium on August 13^th, we will make “Earth Buckets” and you will go home with a tomato plant ready for your fall garden.  To minimize our costs, and to keep Deborah Stafford pleased with us,   we need your recycling help.  We need you to find and save 5 gallon plastic buckets.

You are asking, what the heck is an Earth Bucket?  It is a  water-wise or self-watering system for growing vegetables or flowers in a bucket (or actually, two buckets). Here are a few photos of my earth buckets:

 

 

 

I purchased my buckets from Lowes and Home Depot, but at nearly $3 each, that could be costly for the Garden Club to provide 2 buckets for each member at the Symposium. (We will provide all the other supplies and tools.)  Besides…. We need to learn to recycle.  I am positive that there are lots of buckets out there – just waiting to be “repurposed.”  Please help these buckets find a useful life!

So — for the next two months, your assignment is to find 5 gallon buckets.  These could be from a bakery or restaurant (I understand pickles and cake icing come in 5 gallon buckets) or from a pool supply company (just be sure to wash out the chemicals very well and then expose the buckets to sunlight).  The buckets that Tidy Cat litter comes in work well.  So, if you have a cat – save those buckets.  If your neighbors have cats, ask for their buckets.  The buckets that work best will have about  a 3” ‘lip’ at the top.  (In other words, when one bucket is put inside the other,  there can be a 3” water reservoir in the bottom bucket.)

So – scour up some buckets before August.  If you find a source for lots of buckets, please let me or Janet know.

Thanks,

Rachel