by Mary Houle

As a child, I remember coming back from summer's school break and most of my classmates had exotic tales to report to the teacher and class, but I usually reported that I'd worked on the family farm the entire time. My summers were spent planting, weeding, picking berries, stacking wood, tossing bales of hay, and stacking them on the wagon. The highlight was going to the Huntington River at the end of a long day and bringing a bar of Ivory soap to scrub up and wash away the day's toil and soil. We always brought Ivory because it floats! (If one of the six of us lost control of the soap, another would chase it down stream until we caught up with it.) However, this year I am pleased and lucky to report that I think that what I did over my "summer vacation" was bigger and better than anything the 52 people in my graduating class ever reported.

I had the opportunity to join a volunteer mission to teach folks from the Pacific Rim the Square Foot Gardening (SFG) technique, an approach designed by Mel Bartholomew. Bartholomew was a successful engineer and retired at the ripe young age of 42. He decided to take up gardening in his "retirement," but approached horticulture with an engineer's mindset. In a nutshell, Bartholomew's efficient SFG method uses 95 percent less seed, 90 percent less water, and saves 80 percent of the space required by traditional row gardening. With this efficient gardening model, Bartholomew established the Square Foot Gardening Foundation, a non-profit entity with a mission to help end world hunger. That's where this year's trip and I come in.
I took a class in April in Burlington to become a certified SFG teacher, Bartholomew asked for volunteers willing to assist him with the next project for the foundation, and I raised my hand. My trip in May was made possible through the generous support of Wind Ridge Publishing's Holly Johnson.

The conference was held at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Oahu and the students from the Pacific Rim who came to learn SFG techniques were from Thailand, Cambodia, various African countries, Haiti, and the greater Oahu island area. Some were teachers from local schools, some were church members, folks from the community, representatives from a welfare farm, commercial farmers with student interns, and students from BYU as well. The SFG technique is reproducible in each participant's own area of the world and provides a source for safe and nutritious food: no chemicals, no corporation, and little or no future dependence on others for sustainability. As a native Vermonter, independence, self-reliance, and sustainability mean a lot to me.

The highlights of the week were meeting the class participants and the gardens we visited just before the class graduated on Saturday afternoon. The gardens included an organic farm that grew in the shadow of a huge Dole pineapple plantation. From my perspective, a very cool thing happened when one operator of the farm cited the source of seeds for his operation: he said they came from Vermont. I could not contain myself and I shouted out, "So do I!" Then he went on to state they came from the tiny town of Hardwick. Again, I was about burst as I added, "I was born in Hardwick, too!" High Mowing Seeds of Hardwick offers seeds that are non-GMO (genetic modified organism) for organic operations. Another garden was a 100-acre site owned by the Morman Church. The land was set aside as a welfare farm for the local population of Oahu to use exclusively as a growing operation to help support the food needs of hungry residents: no sale of food grown on-site is allowed.

I learned a few things during the trip that I still cannot get my mind around. One was the stories of corruption in some of the poorest or disadvantaged areas of the world. One of the class attendees volunteered in Haiti twice a year and spoke of a truck donated to Haitian Relief. The value of the truck was $5000 and an additional $19,000 in pay-offs and bribes to get it to the final destination... Another mind-boggling hurdle worthy of note: an aid worker stated that when entering a third-world country he was often challenged at customs agencies about taking a job away from a native. He said the governments of some countries were unwilling to accept an aid worker (who was there as an unpaid volunteer) when the job could be done by a native of that country. I could not understand that if there was a job that needed to be done, some governments would rather it be left to no one rather than give it to a volunteer to do free. What? Third hurdle: when bringing the SFG technique to a village, the men of the village wanted land, tractors, fuel, and workers; then and only then would they farm for their families and village. However, when Bartholomew spoke to the woman of the household and asked if she wanted to garden and feed her family good nutritious food, she quickly latched onto the idea and took steps right away. We taught them how to make compost from available materials to avoid using chemical fertilizers. Bartholomew reasoned that the woman of the family would do anything for the welfare of her family. (I know that feeling.) The fourth notion I encountered with disbelief was that in some countries entire gardens had been stolen from the owners. Bartholomew reviewed this particular situation and looked up at the flat roofs of many homes. He assessed the rooftops and felt they would support the weight of SFG gardens and suggested a move to rooftop gardens - there it would be less susceptible to thieves, pests, and crawling things.

I brought hundreds of packs of donated seeds to give to the students at the conference. This accounted for 50 percent of my luggage and I was glad to have this precious cargo with me. In most of the countries the group represented, seeds are very expensive, of poor quality, and limited in choice as well. I gave a short lesson in seed saving and storage too. Some of these seeds can last 10 years because there is no wasted seed and no thinning required in the SFG method.

I donated a week of time (my summer vacation) to help the world eat a little better. I started the week with attendance at the Symposium to End World Hunger and ended with three days of teaching SFG classes. Have I done enough? Did I make a difference? Well, it was more than I have ever been able to do before. Remember, it all starts with a seed. "...give a person a fish and they eat for a day, teach a person to fish and they eat forever..."

Mary Houle is a master gardener, master composter, certified Square Foot Gardener instructor, SOUL graduate. Houle completed the UVM master gardener training 10 years ago and has just completed the UVM Extension Master Gardener certification process again. Additionally she recently completed a six-hour training program and exam to qualify as a "First Detector" related to plant health issues.