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A garden journal for every season

Master square foot gardening.

Tend the soil. Notice what changes. Harvest what matters. The Wealthy Earth is a place for practical growing, patient observation, and the rich life that starts close to home.

Wealth is measured in good soil, useful knowledge, and food shared.

About this place

A closer relationship with the ground beneath us.

I teach people how to grow the best, easiest garden around. Twenty-five years ago I interned with Mel Bartholomew, the inventor of the Square Foot Gardening system, and I've been a certified SFG instructor ever since. I'm a four-season gardener.

This method requires no heavy digging or hard work — no weeding, no thinning. You get 100% of the harvest in only 20% of the space, with no chemicals or pesticides. Have a better eating experience: eat clean food, stop worrying about the food supply chain, get outside and exercise — and save money. A lot of it.

ObservePay attention before reaching for a fix.
PracticeLet useful knowledge come from doing.
SharePass the harvest and the lesson forward.

Garden journal

Notes from the garden.

A record of changing seasons, garden lessons, and the work of growing.

Dense tomato plants forming a wall of green vines and fruit

A Wall of Tomatoes!

This is what it looks like when you get too busy at your job and haven't had the time to pinch suckers back. It's a tomato jungle. There's a lot to tomatoes but it's a mess! I would have gotten more if I had kept up with removing the suckers. Lesson learned.

A few more days and temps at night go into the 40's, which change the taste of tomatoes. Time to harvest what's out there, put them on a cookie sheet and then freeze them. In the morning they will be frozen. Pack them up in a ziplock bag and you've got tomatoes to use all winter long. And when you use them in sauces, they taste as good as just off the vine in summer.

A harvest of colorful MIGardener heirloom tomatoes
First journal entry

A different gardening year

First post on my brand new website. And it just happens to fall during the end of gardening season! It's been a different gardening year for me. A new job has taken me away from my typical time in the garden, but that will change next year. A very long and hot summer stalled all my tomato plants. But the weather has now cooled and I've got so many! Almost time to get the garden ready for winter. This will be the first winter in 15 years when I wont garden during that time. The reason? To give my garden a rest. To open it up to the air, snow, cold weather, etc. Keeping your garden covered all winter does keep certain pests and bugs around. So, it will be a rest period until about mid-February.

I'm posting a picture of these great tasting and looking tomatoes from MIGardener. Heirloom with unbelievalbe taste. Coming on strong now.

Rows of young seedlings in a greenhouse
Coming to the journal

Growing from seed

Seasonal field notes on starting well, watching closely, and giving young plants what they need.

Ripe tomatoes gathered by hand
Coming to the journal

The honest harvest

What the garden gave, what it held back, and what the season taught along the way.

Fresh herbs growing densely in a garden
Coming to the journal

Useful plants, close at hand

Simple observations on herbs, everyday growing, and making a small patch work harder.

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Community classes

Teaching Schedule.

Spring 2027

Class dates are coming soon.

The garden is resting through winter. Exact class dates and locations will be posted here as they are set.

Introductory Square Foot Gardening · $150 per person · 2½–3 hours. The class has three parts: a lesson, a mini-workshop, and hands-on planting of a square foot garden.

Each future class date RSVP & pay link will appear here