This is a talk I gave to the faculty and students of the Brigham Young University in Hawaii who wanted to learn how SFG can solve World Hunger.
Here a message every Square Foot Garden teacher should know and preach. When we go into a 3rd world country, we don’t approach the government, the humanitarian organizations, the mayor and town leaders, or even the men and fathers in the village. We have given up on all of them. We go directly to the women of the village and ask them, “As a mother, would you like to improve the nutrition of your children, so they become healthier, happier, grow up stronger, and be disease resistant?” The obvious answer, of course, is, “Yes, yes, yes, I will do anything for my children.”
That is very different than the answer from all the other people previously mentioned: the fathers, government, corporations and humanitarian organizations. The first thing they will ask is, “What’s in it for me?” and, “What do I get, if I do whatever you want me to?”
To reach the woman, we may have to go through a humanitarian organization, but we definitely want to stay away from any government, many foreign aid organizations and just about all men. Hey, I’m not against men, I’m one myself, but men have a different role in life. They are the protector, the warrior, the provider. Woman are the nurturer, I think that’s why they are the child barriers. It’s a grand scheme and arrangement.
Back to the woman of the family: “We’re going to teach you how to make a Square Meter Garden, give you some seeds and show you how to grow 9 different nutritious crops. It won’t cost anything, it will all be made from scrap, free material. We will show you how to collect free ingredients that people have thrown away, and how to make home-made compost. You will be able to get the children involved because it will be like a treasure hunt for them, searching for and bringing home all the ingredients, which will include any plant material once growing, like leaves, grass clippings, any waste material from farming, like corn stalks, dead plants, as well as any type of barnyard manure. Since many of the domestic animals are not penned and run loose in most communities, the manure dropping from horses, cattle, sheep, and goats, are located wherever the animal left them. They’re easy to find and identify, as well as bring home in a plastic bag.
The side effect of this scavenger hunt is it cleans up the neighborhood and the next time it rains, that manure would have been washed downhill into the nearest local stream to become your neighbor’s drinking water. So, if you can help us start a program in the next village upstream from you, you will be doing yourself a big favor, and there will be less waterborne diseases spreading through every village.
Speed Up the Composting Process
Composting is simple, easy, it’s what Mother Nature does all the time. You’re just going to speed it up. The more different ingredients, including your kitchen scraps, banana peels, apple cores, eggshells, would be added to your pile, and the better it will grow plants. The end result will be a beautiful, dark-colored soil-like material that will be the best thing you can grow plants in. With Square Meter Gardening, you do not use your existing soil. We make a shallow box out of scrap FREE material, 1 meter x 1 meter square, held together with nails, screws or stakes, lay it on the ground in a sunny protected spot, lay down a thick layer of newspaper or cardboard, or plastic with holes punched for drainage, inside the box. Fill it with your compost, make a grid with 4 lengths of sticks or bamboo, and you’re ready to plant. We are going to give you free seeds of 9 different plants to grow with instructions. Your garden must be protected from any animals or extreme weather conditions, like sun’s too hot, rains are too heavy, winds are excessive.
Harvest Crops Daily From Your Garden
You will grow mostly salad type crops that can be harvested a little bit from each plant every single day. This Square Meter Garden is not to fill your belly, but to make you healthier from nutritious food you probably do not even eat now. For example, one square will have 4 parsley plants, and you will be able to snip off a few leaves and sprigs with a pair of scissors every day to add to your soups, stews, or salad. The next square will hold 16 carrots, and you can pull one or two every day, put the tops in the compost pile, wash the bottoms, and add to the same dishes. Next square will be 25 chives, (we are ready to announce the first major advance in plant spacing for Square Meter Gardening, for example with chives, we can fit 25 into a square) which you can snip the tops off every day. Picture now adding 9 different types of plants every single day to whatever your diet is now, and you will see a tremendous increase in your health, making your children’s healthier.”
The Path to Self-Sufficiency
Basically, what we’re trying to do is run a program all around the old story of don’t give a man a fish, teach him to fish. I’ve changed that slightly when I quote that today, “Give a man a fish, and you will ruin his life forever. He obviously will be very thankful, but tomorrow he will come back and say, “Do you have any more fish?” And if you give him one, the next day and the third day he will say, “My neighbor’s hungry too” and can I take an extra one for him. And within an extremely short period of time, he will not only become dependent on you to give him food, he will expect it, and will actually feel entitled to it.
Think of that word and our own government and various entitlement programs. They do absolutely nothing to allow or encourage someone to become self-sufficient and independent, as well as a productive member of society. So let’s forget about all the men, concentrate on the mother; show her how she can be an even better mother to raise her children even healthier and happier. Since children love to garden, and will be helping the mother with the Square Meter Gardening, they will grow up and follow this program the rest of their lives. That in itself could change the world.
Most, if not all, of the humanitarian efforts of both governments and private organizations, will quote the teach a man to fish story, but their entire organization programs and methods are, after a zillion years, still based on give a man a fish. And, we continue to hear, particularly in governments, “you’ve got plenty, so it’s only right that you should give up part of it, and give it to others who don’t have (not on a temporary basis, but on a permanent basis).”
It’s time to get off my soap box. Thank you for the opportunity. Be thinking of all the different programs and events that we can do here in Hawaii as well as all future locations and groups.
I would love to see some photos of SFG as practiced in 3rd world countries.
Dear Tom,
I just put together all of our photos from our humanitarian projects and will be putting some into a new post, so stay tuned!
Best Wishes,
Mel
Hi Mel,
I think you are really on track with your world hunger program. I built 2- SFG’s in Florida last winter. I spaced nails every foot around the edges, and used plastic twine stretched between them for the grid. I’m a snowbird from Indiana, so I will be building more when I go back this spring.
Well Richard,
I thank you for your letter and your interesting comments. If you have a copy of the all new SFG book you will note that we no longer recommend putting in nails and running twine, even if it’s plastic. Nails have a tendency to rust very quickly and you could always catch one of the veins underneath your wrist on one of those rusty nails and that means a trip to the hospital and a tetanus shot.
By using plastic, it certainly solves the problem of the twine writhing and breaking. So in your new boxes, I hope you’ll follow the new book, the ALL NEW book, and put in something like wood or plastic grids that are not only permanent but much more prominent. Go to our website store and look at the wood and the plastic ones that are offered there and see if that doesn’t give you some ideas on how attractive they can be.
We’ve even had people paint them, different colors or all the same color and that certainly brings attention to the garden. Thank you for your comments on world hunger. I’m posting something new this week, that I think you’ll be interested and I’d love to have your comments on that. Thanks again for your letter.
Best Wishes,
Mel
Dear Mel, Very good advise for all of us. Thank you. Marty Barton
Hello Marty,
Glad you enjoyed it!
Happy Gardening,
Mel
Great speech. Now if we can only get working mothers in the U.S. do it too. Women in the first world need to lead by example! Our ignorance and ambivilance about where our food comes from makes us not much better than the men blocking access in other countries.
Your unfortunate experiences are enlightening. Women everywhere have a greater and direct interest in the production of food. This is a great strategy and I hope to tell more people about SFG.
Do you know if Michelle Obama is using it in the White House gardent? Have you tried to reach out to her?
Dear Heather,
I was so excited when I read your letter, as we too are trying to get women more involved in gardening. I have to tell you when we go into a third world country, we don’t go to the men, we don’t go to the mayoror business, we stick strictly with the mother. A mother with children, and we show them how it would improve the nutrition of their children. That’s the first question we ask them. The answer is always yes, I will always do anything for my children and she will and she will start a Square Meter Garden and she will get the kids to help her do the composting and pretty soon the whole family is involved. It works I know it. We have done it all over the world.
Now as far as the things that you are talking about, I just sent out an email to my staff two days ago saying I would like to concentrate on providing women with an opportunity to make some money and have a home business or just to have a business. You are absolutely right that most women think gardening is a lot of work. It used to be when we were kids with the traditional row gardening. I can’t imagine why everyone gardened way back then. It was just to have food and we did not have any other way.
You’re right about our own country being just as vulnerable to food shortages and different problems with situations because of the distance food travels. We can eliminate those concerns and we won’t have a dependency on the present system if we get everyone to garden right outside their back door. I am glad you accepted that as your effort. How can we reach the majority of women who think they can’t garden at home and raise a good part of their own food?
I love the idea of that toastmasters group. Kevin, who helps run this blog as well as the other online platforms for Square Foot Gardening, belongs to a toastmasters group and he tells me all about the things they have done and I have been to a few of their sessions. Now what I want to do, Heather, is to work together with you on developing something. Either classes or website for more women to take up Square Foot Gardening. Either as a nutritional value, a economic value, or to start a new business. You must be familiar with a lot of websites that appeal to women and especially stay at home moms or single family, single mother families. Just think of what poor families can do instead of taking all their food stamps to the market and buying food, they can now raise half of their food and now have the rest of the stamps for other necessities.
Tell me a little more about what you’d like to do and perhaps you’d like to help me develop online classes or courses. In fact, I’ve already named it “For Women Only.” Now we just have to find out what we can give them and help them the most. Thanks again for your wonderful letter. Look forward to hearing from you. Best wishes.
Thank you, Heather.
I wish I’d had you in the audience that day. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Let’s start right here at home. Let’s start in every neighborhood and get more women to garden right outside their back door. Get the kids involved and they’ll accomplish a great deal. Well, part of where food comes from was fairly simple. Some is convenience, it’s us demanding that we have everything year around so that it has to come from around the world in order to have it year around and since we’re willing to pay the freight then there’s businesses that’ll do it. Can’t blame them for that, and kids of course have no idea that what they eat comes from a garden and was grown as a plant, but we can accomplish all that with a little backyard Square Foot Garden right outside your backdoor.
Glad to hear you’re going to be telling people. Share with me some of the things you’re doing. Are you using the trifold that is free on our website front page to download and printout as a handout? Can I send you a package of them? We’re just redeveloping it now and improving it and how can we work together to get more people involved.
To answer your question about the White House – no, Michele Obama is not using Square Foot Gardening. Why, I don’t know. We’ve written many times. Other people said you should contact them, they said I would do it, we sent them books, we sent them videos, and we never even got an answer. So they’re still digging up the grass and putting in single row gardens, some of them are bed gardens, but are still not using an efficient method and it would be so easy. Also we have a big operation going in the city of Columbia, South Carolina. Victoria, our CEO, has moved there to move our headquarters east and she’s working with the mayor there and we hope to get the South Carolina governor, a woman, involved and what they’re doing the mayor of Columbia is putting a Square Foot community garden, in every single city park and open to all residents.
It’s a wonderful thing she’s doing and that could be done in every city and town in the whole country and it could and should come from the white house. How do we get into the White House? Any ideas? If you could get them to recognize Square Foot Garden and either participate, they could drop down to South Carolina and see some of the wonderful gardens Victoria has accomplished down there. They’d see the white, I’m sure. So see what you can do, but let’s stay in touch on this.