The Conservational Gardener

By Nanny Fontanella

Beyond the mere pail

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light,” wrote Dylan Thomas. As I mentioned in previous columns, I occasionally garden by flashlight since I am paranoid about kerosene lamps. Wandering into the house around 9:00 p.m., sporting a dirty face with no dinner prepared, I get a stare both withering and piteous from my better half. But what’s a mother to do?

I have green babies to plant, trees and bushes to prune or put in the ground, strawberries and perennials to weed, the vegetable garden to prep and a thousand and one other tasks to accomplish before it gets too hot. My problem is spontaneity since I am forever digging up bushes, perennials and trees and moving them as the spirit moves me.

I was going to borrow a little and call this column “Trowel and Error.” As my sister Margaret says, “The road to a green thumb is lined with dead plants.”

But the cat gives me moral support, and my greatest helper is the spackle-pail, which can be found for free at every landfill, but may crack and deconstruct if left outside over the winter. My favorite pail is the square one that held tofu and bean sprouts in its former life at the Chinese takeout, available if you’re lucky and persistent . They last mucho years and take all kinds of abuse.

How can a woman weed without a pail at her side? Forkfuls of compost fit perfectly into the pail mouth, and when dividing perennials, transplanting or soaking trees and roses, nothing beats one of these unassuming receptacles. They’re so light that you can schlep stuff in each hand to wherever. They definitely beat the wheelbarrow if your garden is on hilly terrain. An advanced culture like the Incas didn’t have the wheel; I’m sure they were pail gardeners.

My husband Bob helps because he’s a good soul, but I can tell his heart isn’t in it. He refers to our progeny as “your plants” and “your garden.” Bob does like mowing. He waves to me as he chugs by on the tractor. Ugh! grass (we’ll discuss that later). He once loaded pails with soggy soil and carried two in each hand. After much complaining about a wrenched back, ingenuity moved to the forefront and he utilized his “handy dandy,” which is a lightweight dolly with a long bed to move eight pails at once, up and down the hills with comparative ease.

If a pail will no longer hold water, I spray paint it with Mediterranean colors and voila! — planters for the deck or porch brimming with annuals. I was toying with the idea of calling this column “The Lazy Gardener” because I’m always looking for the shortest way to accomplish any task, but Ruth Stout (sister of Rex) beat me to it about 40 years ago with her no-work gardening book. However, she failed to mention pails. Perhaps they didn’t have them back then.

They make instant raised mini-beds too. Plant a vegetable or two in each and gang the pails together, a way to defeat those miserable slugs and the wretched bunnies, raccoons, skunks and woodchucks waiting to make a midnight snack of your hard work.

Punch holes in an old one and you have a vertical strawberry or potato garden. Pails also make great compost makers, full of weeds this year and rich, dark earth next year. If you’re one of those people who find spackle pails unsightly, place one on top of another and arrange them cunningly behind a large perennial, such as angelica or eupatorium.

If you have any questions, suggestions or comments, “Ask Nanny” at asknanny@riverreporter.com.