The Harris family is full of long-time farmers and gardeners. Our fathers and grandfathers loved the soil and plants. They raised their families close to the them. Gardening is in our blood.

Alan L. Harris was born in 1925 in Layton, Utah, a small farming community of 1,500 people in the 1930’s.

Because of the love of growing things he acquired while gardening and working on various area farms, he decided to study agriculture and began attending Utah State Agriculture College (now U.S.U.) in Logan, Utah. He graduated in l953 with a degree in Horticulture/Botany. His experience and schooling convinced him that working with the soil has great possibilities. It was second nature for him to realize that this good old earth can produce food and fiber for all of its inhabitants with “enough to spare”. Beside this, he believed that the beauty of growing plants is an added benefit of cultivating the soil.

Even near the end of his life, his curiosity and passion drove him with a desire to bring hope to people of all ages through flowers and vegetables.

Alan began in the 1950’s to devise a simpler and more productive way to raise vegetables and small fruits. He experimented with the Jacob Mittleider System of raised beds. After reading several of his books, he visited with Dr. Mittleider, who then had an extensive project at Thanksgiving Point near Lehi, Utah. As much as he learned from the Mittleider System, he was determined to develop a simpler way to make gardening a productive and pleasurable way to raise flowers and vegetables for the home.

After several years of trial and error (using the family as “guinea pigs”), Alan and son, Alan Jr., have developed the Diamond Bar Gro-System that enables the home owner to produce beautiful flowers and fresh vegetables.

In mid-May each year we plant our living display for all to enjoy. Stop and visit with us. We are happy to share our methods and techniques of raising flowers and vegetables in containers. It’s a simple system and it works!