Blog Post

From Master Gardener Talk to Master Gardener Walk

Dusti Johnson-Brinker ‘20 • May 20, 2020
Have you ever attended a Master Gardener Talk? A little over a year ago, I began attending the Good Gardening series at the Pretlow Library, on the fourth Wednesday of each month and found them very interesting. One particular session in April 2019, was on the topic of Square Foot Gardening, led by Tom West and Paul Ziegler (aka Ziggy). Thankfully, my husband attended that session with me and we both got excited about the possibility of having a productive vegetable garden in our tiny backyard. As a result, we utilized our space, built raised beds around our fence, and were blessed to have a harvest. By dint of last year’s success, we not only continued our garden for ourselves again this year, but sent their informative handout to our sons, who live in Nashville and Philadelphia, with small yards and encouraged them to try the same. They too are now hopeful to have a “real” and bountiful garden. 

While that garden talk impacted me to try square foot gardening, I found all of the garden talks I attended informative and motivational:
 
-From Kate Melhuish’s Mighty Micro-greens, I still grow micro-greens. 
-From Bob Kelly’s Water Wise Gardening, I purchased and installed soaker hoses and rain barrels. 
-From Donna Van Keuren’s African Violets, I am still attempting to propagate a violet.

Barb Wilson is the regular friendly greeter as you check in for each talk, and she invited me to attend a NMG information session. I went through the amazing class and am currently a trainee, working on my volunteer hours. You can imagine my delight as I learned I could volunteer at the Fred Heutte Center Garden, where Tom and Ziggy practice what they preach!

The Fred Heutte Center Garden, where square foot gardening is at its best, sits in Ghent Square, and features a variety of vegetables and herbs. Sometimes neighbors from the community come over and ask questions as well ask for advice. Tom, Ziggy and fellow NMG (Kate W. & Kim S.) have been gardening there for several years and donate the harvested produce to the Southeastern Foodbank of Virginia, at an average of 1,500 pounds per year. What a wonderful service; especially now, during the current COVID-19 challenges! Last year in particular, they donated 2,056 pounds of produce! Currently planted are potatoes, beans, tomatoes, peppers, yellow squash, zucchini, eggplant, rutabaga, lettuce, cucumbers, onions, garlic, and swiss chard. Chives, fennel, rosemary, and lemon balm also prosper within the garden. It truly is amazing the bounty of produce that can be grown in a small area! 

Square foot gardening enables you to grow in 20% of the space of a conventional row garden. It also saves weeding and harvesting time, money and water. (I wish I knew of this technique back when as a principal, we used a grant to establish a school garden.) If you are interested in creating your own square foot garden, you can get a copy of Tom & Ziggy’s handouts here, and if you’ve never seen the wonderful Fred Heutte Center Garden, come check it out!

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