Bucket Gardens create new model for local, sustainable, and small-scale agriculture

KAIMUKI—Bucket Gardens, a locally based recycling project, may have a humble mission—to engage people about the potential for waste items to enjoy new life as gardens. But its environmental impact on the island has broad implications. Five gallon, industrial plastic buckets from the food industry are salvaged, cleaned, drilled for drainage, adorned with latex paint, and planted with vegetables, thus transforming food-related waste back into food.

It is the brain child of educator Pualani Ramos, whose initial inspiration was “the realization that Oahu (Hawaii) has only about 2 weeks worth of food at any given time. If the barges and airplanes stop coming, that’s all we’ve got.”  As she puts it, most of us are living in “crisis mode” all the time, only most of us don’t know it.

As an educator, she pondered how to “raise awareness in a way that would educate people about food production and distribution and inspire them to do something,” and Bucket Gardens was the result.

Oahu, being by far the most urban of the Hawaiian Islands, has a lot of untapped potential for small scale gardening. The key to reaching a wider audience is sidestepping the need to prepare and plant the ground, as many of us live in apartments or other concrete environments. Community gardens are one solution to this problem; Bucket Gardens presents another.

Two advantages of Bucket Gardens over traditional gardening are that they are portable and compact. These “gardens” can be artfully arranged (and rearranged) on paved areas. And because they are small, they can be easily moved to a different location when necessary. 

Bucket Gardens have a strong educational component and Ramos, who is based in Kailua, has led projects island wide. Here in East Oahu, she has been at venues as diverse as Kahala Elementary, Whole Foods Market’s Keiki Club, and Earth Day at Makiki Park. 

“The Bucket Gardens project is a tremendous teaching tool with the opportunity for children and adults alike to be creative while reducing waste, and creating more green spaces,” said Elyse Ditzel of Whole Foods Market, Maui, who used to work at their Kahala store. “Whole Foods Market was honored to sponsor several in-school projects with Pualani as we feel that sustainability of our land resources and food supply can both be positively impacted through these type of projects.”

In the school setting, students create and tend their their own bucket gardens, which they can take home at the end of the year to their families. The process of gardening—planting seeds, tending plants, watching them grow, and harvesting the food they produce—is a hands-on way to discover the important relationship humans have with plants and can be a springboard for teaching a host of related issues such as nutrition, photosynthesis, biology, botany, ecology, and global warming. Whenever possible, the paint used for these projects are leftovers from painting stores, thereby illustrating the 3 Rs: reduce, reuse, recycle. Bucket Garden Workshops are designed to help teachers meet their bench mark requirements in accordance with the Hawaii Content and Performance Standards (HCPS).

One reason Bucket Gardens has been such an effective method to teach these subjects is that the approach is holistic, appealing to the students’ creative side as well. The act of painting them facilitates personal expression. Plants, essential to life on Earth, have long been a subject of artistic expression, for everything from paintings to poetry. They engage all five senses and are a source of beauty and tranquility—something that is increasingly important in our harried postmodern existence.

Bucket Gardens workshops has expanded to offer schools a compact composting system by providing materials and age-appropriate classroom instruction.  Ramos will also serve private functions through her Bucket Garden Garden Parties, a nice alternative to traditional birthday parties. The cost is $225.00 for up to 15 participants and includes all materials as well as a facilitator.

“Encouraging people to grow food is a fun and positive way to bring awareness to Oahu’s potential food crisis,” Ramos says.  “The great thing about growing in buckets, is that everyone can participate, even if their space is limited. By growing food, folks realize that it is possible to grow food here in Hawaii but it takes time and planning to do it successfully. When children paint and plant their bucket gardens, they are gaining a first hand knowledge of food production, learning about healthy eating, and becoming inspired gardeners.Planting Bucket Gardens is planting the seeds of inspiration for tomorrows eco-warriors.”

Funding is available through Kokua Foundation Mini Grants. For more information, visit www.napualanilearningohana.vpweb.com or contact Pualani Ramos at [email protected] or( 808) 262-3253.