Master Gardener Series - Square Foot Gardening

Join Master Gardener Wayne Schirner at TreeHouse to learn all about Square Foot Gardening methods! As part of his certification requirement to become a Master Gardener, Wayne conducted an extensive research project to compare output from 12” raised beds to 6” raised beds. His study was awarded First Place for research done by a large MG association at the Texas Master Gardener Association State Conference in 2016. During this class, Wayne will present this project, and detail the best way to go about setting up your own square foot gardening beds, including building a raised bed, selecting and mixing soil, and how to best combine plants to increase vegetable output.

Wayne Schirner was born and raised in Iowa, and remembers learning early on that digging or hand tilling a garden was not his favorite activity! After a career change from the aerospace industry to a family physician for the US Army, Wayne found himself in Pennsylvania on his first assignment. It was here that he discovered the Mel Bartholomew method of Square Foot Gardening. Wayne decided that this looked easier than the row gardening he had learned from his parents, and that began his story with SFG. He moved with the Army every 3-5 years, and did SFG in PA, VA, WA, KS, and finally Texas. He retired from active duty in 2004, and then worked for the US Army as a civilian family physician for 10 more years before he finally retired from active medical practice. Within the first year of retirement, he was fortunate to join the Bell County Master Gardener intern class and became a certified master gardener in May 2015. That same month, he completed the didactic training to earn certification as a vegetable specialist. Wayne is also a Square Foot Garden Certified Instructor and is always looking for new research projects to expand knowledge about gardening.