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- FAQs for first time gardeners
- About the Planty Garden
- What is a Planty Garden in a nutshell?
- Hi, I'm Jelle
- What can Planty Gardening do for you?
- What is a Planty Garden exactly and how does it work?
- The Planty Gardening system
- Growing vegetables in your Planty Garden
- Sowing in your Planty Garden
- About where to put which vegetables and crop rotation
- Plant, sow, or pre-sow?
- Harvesting as long and efficiently as possible
- Mistakes beginners make in the vegetable garden
- What isn't a Planty Garden
- Square Foot Gardening: the starting point for Planty
- Why not grow a regular vegetable garden?
Mel Bartholomew was the man behind Square Foot Gardening: a new way to grow vegetables. His method is at the heart of the way Planty Gardening works.
The fact that I have a nice vegetable garden - and made a website and a book about it - I owe largely to him.
Who was Mel Bartholomew?
Mel was a structural engineer. He retired early and got even more deeply into his favorite hobby: gardening.
![Square Foot Gardening: the starting point for Planty (1) Square Foot Gardening: the starting point for Planty (1)](https://i0.wp.com/makkelijke-moestuin-staging.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/18904/square-foot-gardening-mel-bartholomew.jpg)
Why start a new gardening method?
Mel was soon asked to start a local community garden.
His time there got him thinking. He wondered about a number of things:
- Why do you add fertilizer and dig up the entire plot if you only use 25% for planting vegetables?
- Why do you sow whole bags of seed if you have to remove most of the seedlings later?
- Why is it that you spend most of your time in a vegetable garden fighting weeds?
- Why do you sow in rows?
- Why do you sow more than you can eat?
He described his observations in his first book. It's a really fun read. And it explains why he came up with a different way of gardening.
For over 40 years
Mel's first book came out in 1981. It was called Square Foot Gardening:
![Square Foot Gardening: the starting point for Planty (2) Square Foot Gardening: the starting point for Planty (2)](https://i0.wp.com/makkelijke-moestuin-staging.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/18905/ervaringen-in-volkstuin-boek-sfg.jpg)
He gave lectures throughout the US and had a weekly show on public television. He developed a program for school gardens, elementary schools in particular.
At the same time, he kept developing and improving his method. In 2006 he published a new book: All New Square Foot Gardening:
![Square Foot Gardening: the starting point for Planty (3) Square Foot Gardening: the starting point for Planty (3)](https://i0.wp.com/makkelijke-moestuin-staging.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/18906/square-foot-gardening-boek-nieuw.jpg)
In memoriam
Mel passed away when he was 85 years old. Despite his illness, he was active until the end. He leaves a remarkable legacy behind.
His books inspired countless people over the past four decades. Today his approach is used worldwide with great success. Just think: all the gardens with square patches out there wouldn't exist without Mel.
Mel was happy that I wanted to work with his approach in the Netherlands and make a website about it. He trained me as an SFG teacher and was always ready to give me advice. When I got my SFG certificate he was proud that - at the time - I was the youngest teacher ever. I was 15 then.
Mel's dream
I'm proud to have known Mel. He actually made the world a little better in his lifetime and left it better than he found it.
![Square Foot Gardening: the starting point for Planty (4) Square Foot Gardening: the starting point for Planty (4)](https://i0.wp.com/makkelijke-moestuin-staging.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/18907/square-foot-gardening-sri-lanka.jpg)
Mel put his heart into fighting hunger.
He did this without too much fanfare, but by bringing his way of gardening to the people who he thought needed it most: in developing countries, institutions, etc.
I was in contact with him about this and want to do my best to continue that part of his legacy.
More about Mel's work
I could go on and on about Mel and SFG, but I'll let you explore his work yourself.
If you want to know more about his projects, there's an SFG website: www.squarefootgardening.org
And this is his blog where he posted from 2011 to 2013: Mel's blog.
Prefer a video? Here you go:
Thank you Mel, for your amazing legacy.
![Square Foot Gardening: the starting point for Planty (5) Square Foot Gardening: the starting point for Planty (5)](https://i0.wp.com/makkelijke-moestuin-staging.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/18911/sig.jpg)
Planty system
- FAQs for first time gardeners
- About the Planty Garden
- What is a Planty Garden in a nutshell?
- Hi, I'm Jelle
- What can Planty Gardening do for you?
- What is a Planty Garden exactly and how does it work?
- The Planty Gardening system
- Growing vegetables in your Planty Garden
- Sowing in your Planty Garden
- About where to put which vegetables and crop rotation
- Plant, sow, or pre-sow?
- Harvesting as long and efficiently as possible
- Mistakes beginners make in the vegetable garden
- What isn't a Planty Garden
- Square Foot Gardening: the starting point for Planty
- Why not grow a regular vegetable garden?