The author of the number-one selling book on gardening is at BYU-Hawaii this week to introduce and certify interested students and community residents in his highly productive square foot gardening methods.
About 30 years ago Mel Bartholomew, a former civil engineer who now lives in Eden, Utah (near Ogden), started applying efficiency expert skills to his home gardening hobby. For example, he wondered why you till soil to loosen it but walk on it while you're tilling, why there are thousands of lettuce seeds in a packet, or why you would plant multiple seeds and then thin the results.
"I kept going back to why we plant so much to start with," Bartholomew said, adding he "also didn't want to hoe the weeds -- that's too much work -- and when you plant a whole row of seeds, the harvest is going to come all at once."
He took about two years to "invent a better way to garden" that uses "20% of the space of most gardens, 10% f the water, 2% of the seeds and 1% of the work." Bartholomew published Square Foot Gardening in 1981, which has since sold over one million copies, and he went on to have his own home gardening show on national PBS TV. He has also produced several other books and products on the method.
The key, he explained to a group in General Classroom Building 185 on September 13, is to use "perfect soil," a mixture comprised of one-third blended compost, one-third peat moss and one-third coarse vermiculite. "It doesn't matter what kind of soil you have, because we don't use it," he said.
"You can make your own compost. It's just a matter of piling up anything that was once growing. The only exception [you can add] is eggshells. There are a lot of things you can use, they're available everywhere, and all the ingredients of a good compost are free," he said, noting home gardeners should limit any single ingredient to about 20% of the mix. He added they can also use "manure from non-meat-eating animals."
Bartholomew explained the ingredients should be chopped "into smaller pieces for faster composting, and turn it. You're mixing it all the time. What I always like to do is cover it...that keeps the birds and flies out." Another man who's already doing his own composting in Laie said he can make it in about five-to-six weeks.
When the mix ingredients are ready, Bartholomew said to build an open-bottom box out of scrap wood (or any available material), put it on weed screen or wet cardboard on the ground, and put six inches of "perfect soil" into it. "The basic size is four feet by four feet -- three-by-three for children -- and for small spaces, two-by-two. The main thing is you walk around your boxes and you reach in. You never step on your soil. If you don't have to loosen your soil you don't need any tools. For convenience, we say get a trowel."
"For grandparents you can put it on a railing and do stand-up gardening," Bartholomew continued, noting the one-foot-square plots "can take any crop." He explained home gardeners should plant each square-foot section according to the "thinned" recommendations on the seed packets: For example, one cabbage, four leaf lettuces, nine beets or bush bean plants.
"People are astounded they can grow corn this way. Others include flowers because they're pretty. Yes, it helps pollination and insect control, but if your garden is pretty, you're going to go to it more often."
"You can use it in any season, although you guys here are so spoiled with your weather, and you can grow any kind of vegetable. Anything with a vine, we grow vertically," Bartholomew said, noting this includes squash, melons and pumpkins.
"Plant what you usually buy," he said, recommending home gardeners not try to compete with major food crops such as potatoes. He also recommended the square foot garden should be in an area that gets six-to-eight hours of sunshine a day; is clear of roots, and trees or shrubs that will cast shadows on the plants; and does not puddle after heavy rains."
"Tall plants go to the north side," he said, so they don't throw shadows on the other plants; "low-maintenance ones to the center; and plants you're trimming go on the outside. To harvest a veggie salad, trim the outer leaves right into a bowl with a scissors. When you're all through, you can't see where you've trimmed anything. The idea is to have a balanced diet with a balanced garden."
Finally, when a one-foot section has been completely harvested, Bartholomew said, "Add a trowel or two of new compost, and you're ready to replant." He recommended, however, you rotate the types of plants grown. "If you plant the same thing in the same place year after year, you're going to have trouble."
Bartholomew, who uses the proceeds from his book sales to fund a nonprofit foundation that is active across the U.S. and in 15 countries, said these methods have produced dramatic changes. In India, where he has his biggest overseas projects, for example, Bartholomew said the people "used to grow two crops a year. Now they're growing 22, and they earn 20-times what they used to."
Bartholomew will teach his certificate courses on Wednesday and Thursday, September 14-15, at 7 p.m. in GCB 185, and on Saturday at 7 a.m. at the TVA farm. For more information, go to www.squarefootgardening.com.