Thoughts on the Garbage Garden

My new plan is to harvest the plastic gallon jugs from work, cut them in half, cut holes in the bottom, and use them as sorely needed new planters for my garbage garden. I haven't thought of a way to recycle something to make plant labels, but I think I'll prowl around work and think of something for that too. I also told one of my co-workers, Tiff, to bring in her pots and I would give them plants for their garden from my seeds. One of the things I love about work, is everything has that Ohana feel. In Hawaii, there is a tradition of including many many people in your ohana, or family. The last roomate I had, a %100 Hawaiian woman, talked a lot about growing up with Calabash cousins--kids from the neighborhood that their family 'adopted' and fed and and entertained as one of their own. At work, from the very beginning, things have had a family 'kine' of feeling. My boss used to pick me up on her way to work every day when I lived down the road from her. When my feet used to hurt me a lot, she brought in an old pair of arch supports for me. When my co-workers got married and I mentioned wanting to find a box to paint for their wedding gift, she brought me an old wine box to use. She always feeds us at lunch, and we always tend to be willing to stay late in the evenings. We joke that she is our 'work mom'. It is with work that we celebrated the wedding of two of our co-workers, and with work that we celebrate thanksgiving. With work we celebrate the holiday season as well, and if we stay extrordinarily late, you can count on the boss taking you out for dinner, family style. I think a part of functioning in a frugal and environmentally concious world, has to do very much with our willingness to cooperate and see each other as family.
I found this Purdue University link on garbage gardening, with some helpful tips about how to sprout things a bit better. Up till now I've just been plunking things down in soil and watering, and hoping for the best. It's good to know some timeframes on the seeds, and to hear some advice on getting these seeds to sprout. Here's a book I found on the subject as well, and another website, that mentions the viability of planting mango and kiwi seeds, and one site that talks about how a landfill in the city of Austin, gives away free recycled glass to the people of Austin, who want to use it for landscaping. It works really well for planting desert plants like aloe and century plants. It also works well when used as a drainage bed beneath a garden plot, and as a liner for a so-called french drain. I think it's really cool that the landfill gives away recycleds to people, making an easier inroad to appropriate reuse. I wonder if Oahu landfill does any similar programs, and if not, how we could get one started.
On the subject of landfills, I also found this site that discusses how a landfill in Australia is run. Very intense sorting facility compared what Oahu has. I would love to see something like this here. I also found a link on a landfill in Israel, which they recently turned into a public park. It's nice to see innovative solutions like these.