This year the gardening world lost an incredible pioneer and force for good, Mel Bartholomew. Before his retirement Mel was an engineer by trade and worked in Millburn, New Jersey. He was not only an engineer, but also an efficiency expert. If you wanted something done better, faster, cheaper or more efficiently, Mel was your go-to guy. After retiring from a very successful career at the age of 42, Mel took up gardening and decided that home gardeners were being very wasteful by using commercial farming techniques. Farmers planted in long, wide rows for the simple reason that they used tractors to cover large parcels of land and straight rows was the fastest method of covering ground. The major drawback was the vast area of land they used and the need for weeding and constant tilling of the soil each season.
Mel decided that there had to be a better way for home gardeners to plant and also to eliminate the major reason preventing folks from gardening - weeding! So he developed the Square Foot Gardening system. The concept was extremely simple and easy to follow. Instead of long row planting, gardeners would now grow their flowers and vegetables intensively by the square foot in raised beds. A typical plot might be 4 foot by 4 foot which would allow for a 16 square foot garden. Mel's studies concluded that this system produced 100% of the harvest at 50% of the cost in only 20% of the space using 10% of the water, 5% of the seeds and 2% of the work with no weeds or fertilizer. This was accomplished because the garden space was intensely planted.
Mel wrote his first book, "Square Foot Gardening" which soon became America's largest selling book ever with over a million copies sold. His very popular Square Foot Gardening TV series ran for eight years on various channels. Again Mel retired but only to come back out of retirement to create the non-profit Square Foot Gardening Foundation to bring better gardening to all people of all ages, around the world, including an innovative "Garden in Every School Program". Mel taught people all over the world how to grow more food with less resources and fight world hunger. He was truly an inspirational gentleman and will be missed by all whose lives he touched.
Mel decided that there had to be a better way for home gardeners to plant and also to eliminate the major reason preventing folks from gardening - weeding! So he developed the Square Foot Gardening system. The concept was extremely simple and easy to follow. Instead of long row planting, gardeners would now grow their flowers and vegetables intensively by the square foot in raised beds. A typical plot might be 4 foot by 4 foot which would allow for a 16 square foot garden. Mel's studies concluded that this system produced 100% of the harvest at 50% of the cost in only 20% of the space using 10% of the water, 5% of the seeds and 2% of the work with no weeds or fertilizer. This was accomplished because the garden space was intensely planted.
Mel wrote his first book, "Square Foot Gardening" which soon became America's largest selling book ever with over a million copies sold. His very popular Square Foot Gardening TV series ran for eight years on various channels. Again Mel retired but only to come back out of retirement to create the non-profit Square Foot Gardening Foundation to bring better gardening to all people of all ages, around the world, including an innovative "Garden in Every School Program". Mel taught people all over the world how to grow more food with less resources and fight world hunger. He was truly an inspirational gentleman and will be missed by all whose lives he touched.
