It all started in Sun Valley – wasn’t that a song? I was speaking at the local library and several people invited me down to Boise, Idaho to give a lecture at their local library. I went of course (I’ll go anywhere to talk about Square Foot Gardening). At that second talk I met the owner of a very unusual business in Boise, “The Tree House” – exotic plants and trees. When you step through their front door you are suddenly transported into a tropical paradise with not only plants but also birds and animals. They give school tours and were interested in hosting several Square Foot Gardening lectures as well as teaching it themselves. They hosted a local LDS Church group who couldn’t get over how many principles of Square Foot Gardening coincided with their Mormon religious values – gardening - self sufficiency, family activities, preparedness, reverence for the earth.

It sounded like a golden opportunity to speak to an audience who could really appreciate all the attributes of this simple yet productive gardening method. While in Boise the Head Start School also started teaching Square Foot Gardening to the young tikes. It’s never too early and they might as well learn the right way to start with. At the same time, we made some nice contacts with the County Agricultural Department and ended up giving a workshop for all their Master Gardeners. We have continued this contact and gave several more training sessions at the Master Gardener course in Salt Lake City as well as developing an outline of a lesson plan written for just such a teaching course. I also had the honor of being the principle speaker at the Master Gardeners’ National Convention in Houston, Texas several years back. But I’m getting ahead of my story.

The Square Foot Gardening Foundation was on a mission of giving gardens to schools and teaching the teachers how to teach the children. Thinking this program might appeal to the LDS churches, “Now where’s the head of the LDS church?” Why it’s Salt Lake City. “Why don’t we hop down there and see what we can stir up?” Well we did and to make a long story short, we signed up the entire state. Square Foot Gardening became the curriculum for the fourth grade science class and we donated a 3-foot x 3-foot garden box with soil and grid to almost 500 schools throughout the state.

In addition, I wrote a fifty-five page lesson plan which we later converted for home schooling. If you have anything to do with school, teaching children, or home activities, check out our product page for that lesson plan. I think you’ll like it and find it very useful for just about any age and any situation. Have you ever been asked about Square Foot Gardening – or thought of teaching someone what you know? Think about that.

After we completed the initial school project in Utah, we were invited to build a demonstration garden at a fabulous theme park called “Thanksgiving Point” just south of Salt Lake City. It is a 550 acre park just filled with gardens, shops, restaurants, farm animals, and all kinds of displays and things to do. That kept us very busy for a couple of years and led us into many other new activities including our Global Gardening Project in Florida, but more about that in a future column.

So you never know whose going to be in the audience or where it might lead to. I always say, “Keep your head up and your eyes open.”

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