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If you worry about your familys eating habits, help is close at hand. Fairfields Amie Hall is the founder of From Your Inside Out, a practice that helps families achieve wellness through food and nutrition coaching. In addition to being a certified holistic health counselor, Amie is a passionate gardener. She can teach you to grow your own food right in your own backyard. Or your front yard, for that matter.
Amie started growing her own food years ago when she lived in an apartment on a farm in upstate New York. The farmer plowed a strip of land for me, she says. She put some boxes together to hold her vegetables, saying that it seemed to make sense to her. Years later she stumbled on her gardening bible, "Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew. The book is a primer for growing vegetables and flowers in four-foot square boxes. Each box is divided into 16 squares, each of which is planted with a different crop. The system is so easy that even novice gardeners can grow plenty of food.
Amie has been instrumental in introducing vegetable gardens into the Fairfield school systems using the square foot gardening method. In middle school, the teens have no idea where food comes from, she says. Holding that carrot seed in their hand, then picking the carrot teaches them so much. Gardening is included in the school curriculum, and the elementary school teachers use the garden to teach simple arithmetic. Each square in the box can be divided according to what is planted. Sixteen carrots take up a square, as do four lettuces, Amie says.
In addition to her work as a curriculum and garden consultant to the schools, Amie has worked with the Fairfield clergy to install gardens. And shes worked with Boy Scout Troop 88 on a community project, teaching them her gardening system. On Saturday March 19, Amie will be speaking at the Garden Expo at Fairfield Ludlowe High School. Her topic how to grow your own food using the square foot garden method. Go and listen. Youll learn so much.
Are you thinking of growing your own food this year? Try the square foot garden system. Its what I do.
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