Deborah Stuart Recognized as Featured Gardening Instructor
Lifelong Rahway resident Deb Stuart was recently recognized as the Featured Certified Instructor by the Square Foot Gardening Foundation for her work teaching both kids and adults how to garden.
Square Foot Gardening, created by best-selling garden author Mel Bartholomew, is a simple method of creating small, orderly, and highly productive kitchen gardens that are easy to grow, are fun, and take up very little space. Vegetables and flowers are grown in raised boxes filled with an organic soil mix and then divided into perfect 12” squares. Deb notes that this method is estimated to cost 50% less, uses 20% less space, 10% of the water, and only 2% of the work compared to single-row gardening.
One of Deb’s earliest memories of gardening is the day when she was a little girl wearing a beautifully smocked dress with pristine white socks. She went out to the garden and, when she returned late in a less-than-clean outfit, her mother fussed at her. “I’m not dirty, Mommy,” she responded, “It’s the earth!”
Gardening extraordinaire Deb Stuart is also a Rutgers trained Master Gardener. When she isn’t gardening and starting seeds at home, she tirelessly spends time as the President of the Rahway Garden Club and a Board of Trustee member of the Garden Club of NJ, and also manages Rahway’s JFK Community Garden as well as teaching kids Square Foot Gardening at Rahway’s Helping Hands Learning Academy. In addition, Deb has played a key role in helping her gardening colleague Bob Markey expand his Square Foot Gardening Program for summer campers at three NJ YMCA’s.
“I teach by example using the Square Foot techniques and sharing that info with all who are interested. Often the best compliment that I receive is a fellow gardener looking at my raised beds and saying, WOW that’s an amazing amount of veggies and flowers in such a small space…please show me how you do it. I just let the results speak for themselves!”
Square Foot Gardening Certified Instructor, Master Gardener, Garden Club President and Board of Trustee member, passionate teacher, and seed-starter, Deb Stuart has spent her life getting “not dirty” with some truly amazing results.
