NORWICH – “It’s time to grow your own!,” says the colorful brochure recently distributed throughout the DCMO BOCES Norwich campus community. The flyer describes the features and benefits of “Gro-Buckets,” a year-end project aimed at encouraging people to grow vegetables at home through some creative recycling.

The Gro-Bucket is a reusable mini container garden, made with recycled five gallon plastic pails obtained from Byrne Dairy in Norwich, filled with a planting soil mix and using shredded cardboard and newspaper materials for drainage and mulch. The soil mix includes some compost made on campus to help feed vegetable seedlings raised in the schools’ greenhouse. Gro-Buckets sell for $6 each and include a choice of seedlings: tomatoes, summer squash, salad greens, or mixed herbs.