Despite all the shopping opportunities on offer to gardeners, it is the least expected items that seem to work best, for instance a dagger for weeding (aka the Hori-Hori knife), or electricians’ trousers, or a sombrero with pompoms. And there is always something that is not quite fit for purpose, with a visit to your cutting garden, vegetable patch or allotment involving a lot of bother with buckets and baskets, and mislaid watering cans. Bacsac, French masters of portable cultivation, have recently reintroduced what was once known as a “watering cow”—a linen bucket bag that carries water, or long-stemmed flowers, and therefore, flowers in water. This is how it works:
Photography courtesy of Bacsac.
Bacsac sources French linen for their bucket bags, with a quality that goes beyond good looks: when put into contact with water, the fibers swell, the fabric stiffens, and over a short period of use the bucket bag becomes watertight.
Known around the world for their portable geotextile fabric planters, the three founders of the small French company Bacsac describe their mission as “conquering the concrete by providing access to soil.” Since getting together about 15 years ago, former neighbors Godefroy de Virieu (a designer ), Virgile Desurmont and Louis de Fleurieu (landscapers) have kept an open mind about ancient utility as well. Discovered during a visit to a rural market, the serviceable yet forgotten water cow has been put back into production as le Sac Seau, or bucket bag.
For more products we covet, see:
- Object of Desire: Business & Pleasure Umbrellas
- Object of Desire: The Korbo Basket, A Swedish Design Classic Now Made for the Garden
- Object of Desire: A Woven Rug Made for Gathering Around a Tree
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