Fifteen years+ ago, I purchased two vintage metal buckets at an estate sale in Sheboygan, WI. My then girlfriend, now wife, asked me what in the hell I planned on doing with these two giant metal buckets I was stoked to lug home. I was all: I’m going to plant kitchen herbs in them! It’s going to be so beautiful+functional, and it shall look exactly like it came from the pages of a favorite home design magazine.

Do you know how many times I’ve asked my darling spouse to move those damn buckets around? Me neither, but HOLY SHIT, it’s a massive number. I kept them in storage in our Wisconsin basement. I kept them for over a decade on Haight Street, where she had to move them TWICE, EVERY SINGLE YEAR, while balancing atop a ten foot tall ladder, that was a requirement for accessing our storage cupboard. She had to hand them down to me once to access our holiday decorations, and again when it came time to put our decorations away in the new year.

I asked in 2019, that they be granted yet another grace period, to make the move to our current home. Folks, my wonderful best friend agreed to let them stay in our lives. They had become one of those things that you will likely run in to if you find yourself in a long-term relationship of any kind, romantic or otherwise. One of those touchstone material items that, when a toe is stubbed on them, or a hand is cut by one of their jagged edges, or the very space they are taking up, could technically be much better used by say, some cleaning supplies, or maybe that long dreamed about electric bike, or well, nearly anything else that is actually used…

And yet… your person loves you so much, that they will help you hold on to whatever original dream you had for this material item(s), so that one day that dream may come true and you can be delighted with yourself for being so original, creative and resourceful.

After fifteen+ years, I’d like to introduce you all to our very-special-to-me, midwestern vintage metal buckets, that are at long-last, our super cool kitchen herb+produce planter containers. I am so excited to watch their journey of growth, as their leaves start mingling, and their tiny branches cohabitate in that very tousled-yet-managable vintage bucket on a deck, way.