Mel Bartholomew

    Mel Bartholomew graduated with a degree in civil engineering from Georgia Tech, and he went on to found his own business of consulting engineering that focused in site and utility design. After being nominated to be included in Who's Who, the Congress Hall of Fame, and New Jersey Famous Engineers, he retired a successful man at the age of 42. He took up gardening as a pasttime but was befuddled by the problem of the 'single row gardening method', which he found wasteful, only vaguely effective, and problematic. He set out to solve this problem for both himself and other tired gardeners by inventing the Square Foot Gardening System. He turned this idea into a book, Square Foot Gardening, which, after selling over a million copies, became the best selling gardening book of all time. His method then became a television series of the same name on PBS, The Discovery Channel, and the Learning Channel, and it aired for eight years. Bartholomew then retired once more. After exiting retirment for the second time, he created the nonprofit group, the Square Foot Gardening Foundation, dedicated to bringing improved gardening techniques to people of every age and nationality, with utiziling the original "Garden in Every School Program". Today, Mel Bartholomew continutes to write, teach, and inspire others.