Tiny Gardens - Plant Across the Width to Maximize Yield

21 days ago

Many people have only a small space in which to grow, and want to plant so as to get the greatest possible yield in the least space. Here’s one idea to do that.

You can plant across the width of a box or soil-bed,m rather than the traditional lengthwise, if you’re willing to do the extra work of feeding, watering, weeding, and pruning that it requires.

Remember the first law of plant growth – direct sunlight all day long, and that applies to all of your plants, for optimum harvest.

Therefore, planting close together as I’ll suggest here requires that you prune your plants so that they do NOT shade or overlap each other.

You’ll also need to water by hand, to assure even coverage to all plants.

And if you’re in the soil weeding will not be as easy because of the close proximity of plants to each other. The two-way hoe is still the best tool for the job.

And remember to quit feeding the single-crop varieties three weeks before they reach maturity, so as not to waste fertilizers. Multiple crops are certainly an option for several of those, especially spinach, lettuce, and green onions.

Here’s what you could do in a box 4’ wide by 16’ long – from North to South (or East to West):

Tomatoes (2), cucumber (2) and vining squash (1) – close to edge
Zucchini (3) – 2.5’ from edge
Peppers (5) – 2.5’ from zucchinis
Broccoli (5) – 2’ from peppers
Cauliflower (5) – 2’ from broccoli
Spinach (9) – 1.5’ from broccoli
Spinach (9) – .5’ from spinach
Red leaf lettuce (9) – 1.5’ from spinach
Romaine lettuce (9) – .5’ from red leaf lettuce
Green onions (48) – 1.5’ from romaine lettuce
Italian parsley (16) – .5’ from green onions
Sweet potatoes (5) – 1’ from onions, at opposite end of box

Tomatoes, cucumber, squash, and zucchini all must be grown on 2” X 2” stakes and pruned to one stem – tomatoes right at the crotch, cucumber and squash cut sucker stems after first female blossom. Zucchini – older leaves pruned as they touch the ground or interfere with adjacent plants

Broccoli and cauliflower leaves should be pruned to keep them off the ground and away from adjacent plants (the leaves are edible!).

Sweet potatoes will only work in the space describes above if you can let them run outside the box. You’ll need to prune and train them so they don’t cover your onions and lettuce.

Best Source of Nitrogen for Your Plants

58 days ago

A reader asked “Am I able to substitute the amonium nitrate in the weekly feed with ammonium sulfate?”

The answer that follows is important for everyone to know:

Ammonium sulfate is only 21-0-0, as opposed to 34-0-0 for ammonium nitrate. In addition, 21-0-0 has substantial sulfur in it, which lowers soil pH. If you WANT to lower your soil’s pH then 21-0-0 will help you do that. However, if your area already has pH lower than 7, because you receive more than 20” of annual rainfall, then sulfur (and 21-0-0) is probably not the best solution.

34-0-0 is the BEST nitrogen source no matter where you live – if you can get it – but others can be used, including urea (46-0-0). This may be the better replacement if you live in a high rainfall area.

However, urea takes time to become available to plants because it has to undergo multiple chemical changes before becoming available to the plants.

Meanwhile, because nitrogen is volatile, some of the nitrogen can easily be lost to the air before the plants get any. To help reduce the loss of nitrogen through volatilization always mix it into the soil, rather than simply applying on the soil surface.

Use the same quantity of urea as you would ammonium nitrate, again because of the slower availability and losses incurred.

62 days ago

A gardener asked the following question about building small greenhouses and growing in cold weather using information from the Mittleider Grow-Box Gardens book: “Since I am in zone 3 it would be very helpful if I could have the rest of the information the article referred to on “cold weather gardening” in chapter 12 if you think I need it. Is that the information that will tell me how to double-layer the greenhouse to have a 3-to-4 inch dead air space?”

Here’s my answer, which will be helpful to anyone who is building a greenhouse to grow in cold weather.

Chapter 12 of Grow-Box Gardens does indeed show and tell you how to double cover the greenhouse. I am sorry that Grow-Box Gardens is currently out of print and unavailable. Hopefully we can figure out how to get it re-printed inexpensively enough to have it available again by next growing season. In the meantime, let me tell you a few things the book says about winter gardening in cold climates.

Seedlings should be started in warmer weather and transplanted into the greenhouse by early fall if possible, so that much of the vegetative growth takes place before it gets cold.

During the cold months plants can be maintained and harvested at lower temperatures. It is important, however, to maintain soil temperatures above 50 degrees as long as possible, otherwise the plants will go dormant.

A greenhouse is important, and it should be double-covered, with a dead-air space of 2-4”. Building the greenhouse east to west, with the north-side wall built into a hillside or against an insulated wall, can reduce heating costs significantly, and even provide some heat from the mass of the north wall.

If you’re really serious about growing in cold weather, hot water pipes buried 4-6” deep inside the greenhouse near the outside edges will provide some heat and ward off cold from the frozen ground outside.

If it is too cold to keep the entire greenhouse from freezing, consider a greenhouse within the greenhouse to protect valuable crops.

Arched PVC frames covered with 6 mil greenhouse plastic, with a small space heater inside, can keep a row or two of plants warm enough to save them even on very cold nights, if it is inside a greenhouse already.

If daytime outside temperatures rise above 65 degrees some ventilation should be provided in the greenhouse.

Gardening by the Foot - A Container Gardening Treasure

107 days ago

I have said nothing about this book for a long time, for just one reason. Our inventory of books had brittle binding glue and the pages would fall out at the least provocation.

We’ve finally solved the problem! We purchased a machine and re-bound this great gardening book ourselves, using a Plastic Comb Binder.

Now that we don’t have to worry about them falling apart on you, let me tell you why those growing in containers need to consider getting your copy NOW, while they are available (Grow-Box Gardens, Let’s Grow Tomatoes, and Grow-Bed Gardening are all out of print).

Gardening by the Foot is filled with almost 250 pictures illustrating 140 pages of Jacob’s great how-to instructions on every aspect of growing in containers.

Following are the chapter headings:

1. Introduction
2. Why use Mini Grow-Boxes?
3. What are mini Grow-Boxes?
4. Choosing a Location
5. preparing the area for Mini-Frames
6. Tools and Materials
7. How to Make Mini Grow-Boxes
8. Filling Grow-Boxes with Soil
9. Pre-plant Fertilizers
10. Starting Plants from Seed
11. Planting Seed in Mini-Boxes
12. Transplanting into Mini-Boxes
13. Making markers and Marking Mini-Boxes
14. Fertilizing Crops in Mini-Boxes
15. Common Garden Problems
16. Increasing Yields in Ever-bearing Crops
17. Transplanting Gallon-Size Plants into Mini-Boxes
18. Installing an Automated Watering System
19. Harvesting
20. “A” Frames and Greenhouses
21. Installing Strings to Hold Tall Plants
22. What To Do With Trouble
23. Soil Maggots
24. Nutrient Deficiencies and Corrections
25. Units of Measure

Are you serious about growing your own food? Get Gardening by the foot and SEE how the best gardener in the world did it – in his own backyard garden and in 27 countries around the world.

For a paper copy you can mark up and take to the garden with you, go to
http://foodforeveryone.org/gardening_by_the_foot/.

Or you can get the digital download instantly and save a few bucks by going to
http://www.howtoorganicgarden.com/products_pdfs.htm.

Be patient, you have to scroll down the page past several other books.

Natural Mineral Fertilizers - Make Your Own

157 days ago

Would you like to remove the guesswork from growing healthy plants, and know you’re feeding them just what they need? The Mittleider Magic fertilizer formulas provide all 13 natural mineral nutrients that vegetable plants need, and if you can’t find them pre-mixed locally, you can mix them yourself.

The Food For Everyone Foundation website Learn section at www.foodforeveryone.org/learn has Dr. Mittleider’s fertilizer formulas, which have been tested and proven in 34 countries all around the world. Look under Grow-Boxes at the lower left of the main screen, and then go to Fertilizers.

If you have a large garden or farm you’ll probably want to mix your fertilizers from “scratch”, using the formulas. However, if you have a typical family-sized garden, or even just some containers to grow in, you’ll most likely find it much easier, and probably less expensive, to get a couple of 10 ounce packets of Micro-Nutrients from the Foundation’s website at www.foodforeveryone.org/store and then only have to buy 4 of the main ingredients, N, P, K, and Epsom Salt (magnesium), which are almost always available locally, and fairly inexpensive as well.

It’s easy and hassle-free to mix a packet of micro-nutrients with 25#’s of 16-16-16 and 4# of Epsom Salt to obtain a good Weekly Feed. It’s also very inexpensive, when compared to anything else that’s even close to comparable, such as Miracle Gro.

For those of you who can’t find pre-mixed 16-16-16, 15-15-15, 13-13-13-, or 17-17-17, all of which are usable with the pre-packaged micro-nutrients, then check a farm-supply store for bags of each separately.

For example, you may be able to find 21-0-0 (ammonium sulfate), and 0-45-0 (triple super phosphate), and 0-0-50 (potassium sulfate). If so, mix 15# 21-0-0 with 4# 0-45-0, and 6# 0-0-50. That gives you 25# of a 110-60-110 mix, which is approximately the ratio in which your plants use the three Macro-Nutrients, and is even better than 16-16-16, etc.

Then add 4# of Epsom Salt from your pharmacy – mix it all together and you have the Weekly Feed mix. There are numerous other mixes of the “Big Three” nutrients – sometimes with two of them combined, such as 18-46-0 and 15-0-53. If you find that, just find some nitrogen and mix enough to get the 110-60-110 ratio, and you’re there.

Vegetable Garden or Raising Animals, Which is Best

174 days ago

For a vegetable gardening guy to be talking about animals may seem inconsistent to some, but since both provide food they are closely related, so I will discuss the general topic a bit here.

From age 12 until I left home for college I had the full responsibility for a cow, to which were added chickens, rabbits, pigs, and even a goat at various times. These all contributed significantly to and were important to our family’s food supply.

However, I didn’t understand at that time that it requires between 10 and 30 times as much land to produce a pound of protein from an animal source as from a plant source, and looking back I realize that our vegetable garden produced much more with less inputs than did the animals.

Dr. Jacob Mittleider, who taught me almost everything I know about gardening, had a special perspective on this issue, because as a Seventh Day Adventist he was a strict vegetarian. While I am not a vegetarian I also believe that we are healthier when we limit meat in our diets, and our personal family diet is usually less than 10% meat.

And both Dr. Mittleider’s and my own experience around the world confirm that most people have very limited space in which to produce their own food, thus making vegetable gardening the best choice for the greatest return on investment.

I submit that a Mittleider-Method garden, when cared for properly and consistently, is the best use of your time, efforts, space and money, and that excess food grown in your garden can usually be sold or traded for milk, eggs, and meat more efficiently than raising your own animals.

Nevertheless, there are other issues to be considered. Vegetables can’t begin to compete for the special feeling you may get from caring for animals, and those of you who DO have space may still want some animals.

If animals are in your plans, I encourage you to keep their living spaces clean, separate them from your garden so they don’t destroy it, and whenever possible feed them your excess plant residue as soon as the crop is harvested.

Chicken tractors (Google it), can be used for both chickens and rabbits, but must have a wire floor on them if you raise rabbits, because they will dig their way out quickly. If used efficiently chicken tractors can help you keep your yard clean and organized. Each time the tractor is moved remember to till the chicken or rabbit droppings (both of which are excellent fertilizers), etc. into the soil for natural composting without making a mess. And the same goes for all other animal manure. Get it into the soil and let it compost naturally, rather than having it smell bad and attract pests.

For those who have more space – and are willing to accept the responsibility for at least twice daily care (milking, feeding, etc.) – larger animals may also be an option.

Goats are one possible choice, as they are fairly small, don’t take a lot of space to house or graze, and will eat a wide variety of plants, but they don’t give a lot of milk, are not easy to milk, and many people don’t care for the taste of their milk.

My personal preference for a milk-producing animal is one or two Miniature Jersey cows. They are about 1/3 the size of full-size cows; they are very friendly and docile – even the bulls; they produce from 2 to 4 gallons of milk daily when fresh; and they only require a fraction of an acre for grazing.

Many websites have details about the miniature Jerseys. They are a rare breed so far, and will be expensive to buy, but after the initial investment, if you use the best breeding stock, you may be able to recover your initial capital outlays by selling excess calves.

Meanwhile, I will continue to focus on VEGETABLE GARDENING, but encourage those of you who have the interest, the commitment, and the required space for animals to consider the most efficient ways to benefit from them.

Finding and Mixing Mittleider Magic Fertilizers Made Easy

179 days ago

Does anyone else have a hard time finding the ingredients in the Mittleider method?

A. We struggled with this issue for many years until Dr. M and I:
(1) simplified the Pre-Plant formula and
(2) decided to buy, mix, package, and sell the Micro-Nutrients ourselves on the Foundation website.

Now for the Weekly Feed Mix all you have to do is:
(1) go to www.foodforeveryone.org, put your cursor on MATERIALS, click on Fertilizer, then order the Micro-Nutrients. One package costs $10.95 at the moment.
(2) Mix with 50# of NPK* and 8# of Epsom Salt (magnesium sulfate) to give you
60# of Weekly Feed Mix.

*You can use any combination of N, P & K from 13-13-13 to 17-17-17 successfully.

For the Pre-Plant Mix just mix calcium, magnesium, and boron in the ratio of 80-4-1, with calcium being lime if you receive more than 20” of annual rainfall and gypsum of you receive less than that.

The easiest source of magnesium is Epsom Salt, which is available at your pharmacy, and boron is available in most stores’ Detergent sections as 20 Mule Team Borax.

It is worth doing! The balanced natural mineral nutrients are SO much better than traditional methods you will be amazed at the difference in your plants’ growth, appearance, and taste.

Recently at the University Del Cauca a professor had his class conduct an experiment comparing the Mittleider fertilizers with other methods and the results were dramatic in favor of Mittleider Magic.

Pictures are in the Photos section of the free gardening group called the MittleiderMethodGardening@yahoogroups.com.

Get 2 Years' Supply of Nutrients NOW!

193 days ago

I recommend every serious gardener review your supply of and need for the natural mineral nutrients with which you feed your vegetable garden, and stock up NOW.

You should have at least a two-year supply on hand at all times. There is no loss in strength or availability, so don’t worry about that.

Get them before another round of financial meltdowns – personal or global – make it too expensive, or even unavailable.

We seem to have a lull in the problems right now, and we were able to get the Micro-Nutrient materials in sufficient quantities that we can provide them for the moment at the same cost as in the Spring.

And as extra motivation for you to stock up I will issue a 20% REFUND back on to your credit card for those who order 5 or more packages by September 30, 2009.

Let’s all make sure you’ve got everything you need to grow a healthy, productive garden.

Order Micro’s and other gardening books and materials at www.foodforeveryone.org/store.

Is Crop Rotation Necessary? What About pH and Soil Type?

310 days ago

The above questions were raised , specifically about the Foundation’s Garden Master software as follows: 1: Does the Garden Master software allow you to enter the soil type and pH and and does it make recommendations based on these factors? 2: Does the software recommend crop rotation techniques for after year 1?

The answer is no to both questions.

There is no need to change your gardening plans based on soil type or pH.

In multiplied thousands of gardens – in every type of soil – in almost every known climate – Mittleider growers have grown highly successful gardens, with a wide variety of vegetables, with no soil amendments.

The ONLY thing you DO need to know is if you receive more or less than 20” of annual rainfall.

If you receive less than 20” your soil will be alkaline and you need to use gypsum as your source of essential calcium. If you receive more than 20” you need to use lime. The reason for this is that lime raises soil pH and gypsum does not.

There are three reasons for crop rotation – 1) disease, 2) bugs, & 3) nutrition.

There is not enough space in a family garden to move plants far enough to effectively avoid last year’s disease or bug problem. The cultural practices we employ are of much more importance and efficacy in minimizing problems with diseases and pests.

And if you follow the Mittleider Method of feeding, your plants will receive ample nutrition, no matter what you planted there the year before, so no rotation is necessary.

Mittleider Method gardening in Russia today

386 days ago

I have managed to communicate with some of the graduates of the Zaokski Agriculture College, and learned some amazing things about the Mittleider Method in the Russian Commonwealth countries.

There is an article posted in the Files section of the MittleiderMethodGardening@yahoogroups.com Group website – called Russianreport.doc.

Most all of the graduates of the Mittleider Agriculture Training Course are the envy of their communities. Many of them are
now highly successful commercial growers; some are even teaching agriculture in colleges and universities; some have TV programs; some have newspaper columns; and many of them continue to give gardening seminars themselves – with attendance sometimes in the thousands!

According to the responses I received it appears that the Mittleider Method of gardening is the most productive and popular method of family gardening in many regions of those countries.

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