GARDINER — Patrick Deschamps carefully pinches off a bottom leaf of a pepper plant he grew in a five-gallon bucket salvaged from the transfer station.

Buckets in all shapes, sizes and colors line the driveway of the Clinton Street home he shares with his grandmother.

Additional Photos

LUCK WITH BUCKETS: Paul Deschamps has more than 100 vegetables and flower plants growing in plastic pails and other containers lining the driveway of his Gardiner residence. Staff photo by Joe Phelan

SPROUTING: These are a few of the more than 100 plants growing alongside the driveway of Paul Deschamps of Gardiner. Staff photo by Joe Phelan

Deschamps, a 20-year-old who works at the West Gardiner Transfer Station, has a garden on the side of his driveway, but much of it is shaded by trees.

So recycled containers give him another option.

“Peppers do the best when I put them in pots,” Deschamps said. “They get more sun this way and they don’t mind being root-bound. It’s also easier to keep weeds down with pail plants. The one drawback is the amount of water they use, even with the amount of rain we’ve had. Those alongside the house I’ve had to water twice a day.”

Deschamps — who was diagnosed as a teenager with Asperger’s syndrome — said he started out with a few pails and added more each year.

His mother, Laura Dill Collette, who lives in West Gardiner and serves on the West Gardiner Recycling Committee, said her son doesn’t like to use city water and instead collects rain in a 110-gallon plastic container to which he rigged a hose for watering his plants.

“He grew the most wonderful eggplants last year,” Dill Collette said. “He entered them in the Litchfield fair and won second place. I’m so proud of him. He makes a fabulous salsa from his tomatoes.”

Besides the sweet and hot peppers grown in containers, he also has a variety of tomato plants he started from seed, along with cucumbers, eggplant, oregano, chives, basil, parsley and fennel.

Some of the flowers he grows in containers include snapdragons, marigolds and angel trumpets — a very large, dramatic plant he says will bloom until frost if you continue to pick off the old flowers.

The black dirt in his containers is from the transfer station’s mulch pile, which he said is decomposed matter and is free to West Gardiner residents.

Asperger’s syndrome is a disorder on the autism spectrum. His mother said it affects Patrick’s ability to socialize with others and to communicate.

“He’s such a remarkable young man,” she said. “He has this tiny piece of land on his front lawn and has all these buckets with all these plants thriving. He’s completely into recycling and very earth conscious.

“Of course he’s my son, so I am partial, but it does seem to be a trend, people growing things in five-gallon buckets.”

Dill Collette said her son enjoys the fruits of his labor, and shares what he grows with neighbors, friends and family. She said her son was influenced by her father, who was an excellent gardener. He died six years ago.

“He was the guy who dropped a seed in the ground and watched it grow,” she said. “I see that so much in Patrick. He’s so attentive with his plants. I love that about him.”

Deschamps said he someday would love to own some land to farm “but it’s hard to make a dollar from agriculture.

“This is just for my own enjoyment. I’ve learned about plants from a lot of trial and error.”

Mechele Cooper — 621-5663

mcooper@centralmaine.com

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