Square Foot Gardening (SFG) now makes gardening so simple and easy that it has become suitable for many new situations and scouting projects. It is adaptable for all ages from very young children, right up to older generations, and SFG is especially adaptable for the handicapped and elderly who no longer have the strength or facilities for conventional gardening.

SFG is also very suitable at home and in any school, church, or neighborhood location. It can be done for a display, teaching or a community garden.

Compost is used as the main soil ingredient in SFG, which opens a whole new opportunity for projects involving environmental concerns.

All of the suggested Scout projects are simple, easy to plan, construct, and operate, yet will bring impressive results to all those involved.

Once you realize the advantages of SFG over conventional single row gardening, it's easy to brainstorm ideas for all kinds of new projects. Because the advantages of SFG are many faceted, and so multiple, yet so interrelated, there seems to be almost no end to the situations for potential projects that apply to it's use.

Before reviewing those advantages, it might be worthwhile to review the requirements of an Eagle Scout project, although they are similar to any other small business or family project. They all start with an idea followed by a plan for implementing that idea. Next is fund raising, then the actual construction and operation.

The scout must take a project from the beginning to the end by first thinking of a project. This is called the Discovery Stage. It involves picking a subject or object to plan a project around, then to brainstorm either alone or with others, various ways of utilizing that subject matter. Once a subject is picked out, the next phase is to make a preliminary plan that would include how to build the project, how to fund it, how to operate it, and what advantages and results it would bring to those involved. Of course, there has to be a reason for the project, a use for it, and certainly a listing of all of the advantages of the project. Once the operational plan is finished, the scout would then go into various phases of operation. The first would be the Design Phase where he would lay out all of the necessary details. Next would be the Financial Phase, then the Construction Phase, and finally, the Operational Phase. The scout is responsible for the entire project, from concept to completion.

For example, if a scout were going to build a tabletop Square Foot Garden for the elderly in a nursing home, some of whom are in wheelchairs, it would be necessary to study the feasibility of such a garden being used by people with those qualifications. Next to scout out a location (excuse the pun), present the idea to the powers that be, and get permission for such a project at that location. Next, to make a detailed plan of the construction, then once it's financed and built, how to put it into operation. How to plan it so people will use it. Then a plan to make sure that it has continual use, and will be a benefit to the institution.

The scout would first learn the Square Foot Gardening system so that he could present and teach the residents all of the "How to's". The project might also involve taking photographs, and writing a report or article about the whole experience to publish in the local newspaper. This same report could also be used to encourage other scouts to do similar projects by establishing the need and the benefits, as well as several other options that they could pursue, using the same subject matter.

Now let's take a look at the advantages of Square Foot Gardening. These are very important so that each person can see the full extent of the possibilities of not only location, and application, but benefits to the many different places and people this can affect.

FIRST ADVANTAGE: SFG takes only 20% of the space of a conventional garden, and therefore it's easy to:

1. LOCATE
A. Finding enough sunlight in a shaded courtyard.
B. Can be raised to tabletop heights for wheelchair patients.
C. Can be carried inside or out for seasonal gardening.
D. Small enough to fit in any church/school setting.

2. BUILD
A. Inexpensive materials
B. Simple construction.
C. Very few tools needed.

3. CARE FOR
A. No weeding
B. No digging.
C. No heavy work necessary.
D. The only tools needed are a trowel, a pencil and a pair of scissors.

4. PROTECT
A. Easily protected against pests and weather.
B. Easily moved indoors when necessary.

SECOND ADVANTAGE: Takes only 10% of the water.

A. No expensive hoses, watering equipment, or large volumes of water needed.

Once you've reduced a garden down to only 20% of it's former size, you begin to realize how easy gardening can really be. SFG is merely, in it's simplest concept, a bottomless square box of whatever size the person can reach into. That box can be flat on the ground and filled with a perfect soil mix. It's not necessary to improve your existing soil, no heavy digging, and because that perfect soil mix contains compost, it has all the nutrients that the plants need and no additional fertilizer is necessary. No chemicals or reading labels or mixing. The box is then subdivided with a grid (placed on the soil surface) into individual square feet, and each square foot is planted with a different crop. Flowers in some, vegetables in some, even herbs in others. The ultimate size of the plants determine how many fit into each square foot, either 1, 4, 9 or 16. This spacing is very easy, and fun to define, by merely drawing a line in the soil with your fingers, dividing the individual square feet into sub-squares, and then poking holes for the seeds or plants.

If the box has a plywood bottom, it can be raised off the ground and put on a tabletop for sit-down gardening, or even higher for standup gardening. You no longer have to stoop down or kneel for gardening with this method. Since there's no hard work or digging necessary, anyone with any amount of strength or hand dexterity can garden perfectly well using SFG.

The making of compost for the soil mix is in itself a whole subject worthy of many projects for the scout. Composting is merely an operation where all kinds of plant materials are placed together in a large pile where they start to decompose and blend themselves into a rich crumbly soil-like product that is excellent for gardening. If the materials are first chopped up into smaller pieces and the pile is turned fairly often, the composting operation speeds up and generates a great deal of heat, thereby reducing the original material down to the final product. Composting is a great asset to the environmental problems that we face all over the world. Most of the best ingredients for composting are usually thrown out or buried in landfills. That cost of transportation and dumping is a huge amount of money that could easily be eliminated if more people would compost in their own backyards.

For SFG in third world countries, we use compost exclusively for the soil mix. There's not only a decided advantage to the environment, but SFG combined with Composting visually cleans up the neighborhood. And the best part is, except for the labor to collect and process, it's all free. Everyone can create compost in their own neighborhood, and there's no expensive shipping or any other type of expense involved.

In summary, the advantages of Square Foot Gardening now make the use of gardening and/or composting as a major consideration for many Eagle Scout projects. A short list of suggestions is included below. An enterprising person can quickly build upon this list by identifying many sub-uses and applications.

Eagle Scout Projects

• Nursing home garden - Courtyard or entrance location
• Wheelchair garden - Fixed height
• Gurney garden - Wheeled hospital garden for room to room, or floor to floor
• Community garden - Locate at fire/police station/library/town hall
• Church garden - Display, instructional, or member use
• School garden - display, teaching, class science projects
• County Agricultural office - Display of Square Foot Gardens
• Master Gardener - Display of Square Foot Gardens
• Master Composter - Display of compost bins
• Green Machine kits - Packaged 3'x 3' kits for fund raising, build and teach
• High school class and community garden - High school science class invite senior citizens to summer care
• Compost operation - For gardeners, school science projects, community ecology, homeowners
• Humanitarian Kits - For third world countries, 2' by 2' garden: wood box, soil mix, seeds and instructions, all shrink wrapped and shipped by pallet

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