In-The-Ground Tunnel or Cold-Frame/Hotbed

Most family gardeners in Armenia (and other places as well) just plant seeds and hope for the best, thinning the excess plants when they come in too thickly, and replanting when they die from the harsh conditions most places experience during early spring.

A few people are able to buy seedlings, but most seedlings for sale in this country are leggy and have very little root systems, having been ripped out of the ground and sold bare-root.

We are demonstrating a better solution, which I hope to show in the Photos section of the Mittleider Method Gardening Group on Yahoo Groups in the next few days.

We dig a hole 24″ – 30″ deep about 5′ wide and 15′ long. We fill the space 18″-24″ with manure – horse preferred – then put in a sawdust/sand mixture. If sawdust isn’t available clean straw, sand and a little clean dirt isn’t too bad.

We cover with bent steel poles and plastic that’s secured and covered with dirt all around. I’ll describe the planting process in another blog.

Cold weather gardeners should consider this for producing healthy seedlings 4-6 weeks earlier in the spring!

Greenhouse Construction – Pictures

I have been able to download some digital pictures of the 20′ X 40′ greenhouse we have built and put into production in the village of Getk, in the Shirak Region of Armenia.

When we arrived in the country the property was under more than a foot of snow, but luckily we had most of the welding done last November.

Meanwhile, we began a couple of flats of seedlings indoors in a warm place. When they germinated and emerged we put them in a South-facing window and put them under 4′-long fluorescent lights as well.

The pictures show healthy plants by the time we finally were able to transplant them in the greenhouse.

To see the pictures, join the free gardening group – the invitation for which is on every page of this website. After joining, go to the Photos section and look for the folder called Armenia 2006. Enjoy!

In-Country Agronomist Becoming Mittleider Expert

I was so pleased to visit in his greenhouse last night with the man who has assisted me for the past two years, and discover he is becoming a competent greenhouse grower.

His name is Gnel, and he has a greenhouse with about 1,000 beautiful tomato plants, which he will grow to maturity and sell the crop.

Only 10 months ago he didn’t know how to start or grow seedlings, and now I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t have the best looking plants in the country.

Our own greenhouse is struggling to do its job, with cold, cloudy, rainy, freezing weather. Our little seedlings haven’t been able to really start growing since we transplanted them last week, for lack of heat and sunlight. Hopefully it will warm up soon.

April First – No Foolin!!

This past week has been non-stop work for practically every moment we’ve had daylight. The greenhouse is completed, we’ve transplanted our first batch of seedlings into 30 flats, and planted another 8 flats of new seeds.

We have also almost completed clearing and preparing the ground for the first 24 10-13 meter-long soil-beds or Grow-Beds.

We have had to supply heat in the greenhouse during the nights, as we have hard freezes every night. We hope that will change soon, as the plants don’t like temperatures below about 50 degrees fahrenheit.

Some wonderful people are following our progress, and your notes and assistance are SO GREATLY appreciated. If you have never spent time in a developing country you likely can’t imagine the challenges and difficulties we face.

But we are committed to making a difference for good, the best way we can. We are grateful for Sundays. We need the rest and change of focus.

Spring has Arrived! (We Hope)

Today we celebrated one month since arriving in Armenia! With snow finally almost gone the garden is drying out, and we’ll be preparing beds in the next few days. The big news is that the greenhouse will be finished tomorrow – just in time for us to transplant about 40 flats of tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, and lettuce.

The peppers are slow in coming up and will be another 10 days or two weeks, and eggplant will follow that by a few days.

As quickly as we get the greenhouse into production we will build an in-the-ground hot-bed of 2 X 5 meters – to show students and visitors how they can grow 2000 healthy seedlings right in their own garden.

The home we were supposed to be living in still doesn’t have reliable water, which means we visit the outhouse, and we can’t use any gas appliances yet because of a gas leak, so we are roughing it.

Building a Metal Greenhouse with Angle Iron & Pipe

It’s rare in our experience to have metal the preferred material for building a greenhouse!

In the Shirak region of Armenia wood is so scarce, and the winters so cold, that any available wood gets taken and cut up for firewood to keep the people alive. Even their manure is saved and burned in the winter.

Any wood that we are able to buy is very expensive. We have therefore had to buy used angle iron and pay welders to put together our seedling greenhouse.

Now that the structure is all completed, we are drilling holes in the metal and attaching thin strips of wood (shook), and the clear greenhouse plastic will be sandwiched between the shook. I’m hoping this small amount of wood won’t fall prey to the winter stoves of our neighbors.

The greenhouse is costing over $3,000. Sigh. I hope it works for many years and teaches many students, so the Armenian people see a real benefit.

First Week of Classes

The Gardening Training Course students have had an intense week! One older fellow couldn’t handle the physical requirements and didn’t return after his first day, but the others seem to be enjoying the learning and the work.

In the two hours of classroom instruction, we include videos, book “larnin”, demonstrations, and discussions – sometimes heated, as people often have strong feelings about these things.

Most of our work has been inside this week, since it was very cold, and it rained and snowed a couple of days. Students made their own markers, levels, seedling trays, and put handles on tools we are providing them.

Seedlings are growing, and we hope to finish the greenhouse and transplant into 40 or 50 flats in the next week or 10 days.

Today we installed table tops on the middle section of the greenhouse. As we were cleaning up, I noticed 3 dogs attacking a large sow pig in a field next to us. Fearing they’d kill the pig I ran out into the muddy field and chased the dogs away. Although some blood was showing the pig was able to get up and walk, so I followed it until it turned into the yard where it apparently lived.

“Out of Small Things Proceedeth That Which is Great”

We are excited at the prospects for our Mittleider gardening training success in Armenia, because we are surely starting small!

It is so sad that some of those who promised to come don’t even have the $4 per week for transportation to the training site! And attending deprives them of the dollar or two they might otherwise earn during those 4 days as well. Never was it more true that it takes money to make money.

The two women from the refugee village named Moosh2 are among that number, and we were SO SAD to have them not show up! How many of us in America and other developed countries WASTE $4 in a week, or even in a DAY!! We’ll try to assist them to come.  Anyone else out there care?

Those who attended are excited and committed to learning all they can.

We’re Ready to Party! Will Anyone Come?

The property at Getk is presentable, with a training room set to accommodate 20 or more students, a greenhouse structure built, four thousand vegetable plants emerging in flats, a home to live in, and a staff plus facilities to feed and house students.

In 11 hours we’ll find out if anyone cares. I feel good about our preparation, and confident we will make a great difference in the lives of those who avail themselves of the opportunity.

Today at our church meeting Araksya, my wonderful and supportive young wife was invited to speak.

The ladies were exchanging ideas on how to feed their families healthy food with little money, since they all are very poor. Araksya pointed out the great value of growing your own vegetables, and reminded them of the help we had tried to give them in two previous years.

Only one woman’s family even cared enough to work on the garden we built for them behind the church last year, and she raved about the fabulous vegetables their family enjoyed clear into the winter. Several of the ladies became very interested. We’ll see if it lasts.

Now to bed, so I’ll be fresh for the challenge of the morning.

Recruiting the Right Students

Today we had a recruiting seminar. We showed prospective students many pictorial examples of wonderful gardens all around the world, including several right here in Armenia, and taught them what makes Mittleider gardens unique and better than others.

We also invited Ceda, a participant in the Mittleider Method of gardening for the past two years, to speak. Ceda wowed them!

As she described her garden – small but so prolific she had trouble using and giving away all the produce – others became convinced quickly. Ceda lives in a small village called Moosh2 that was created for refugees from the ongoing Azerbaijan conflict, and she has shown many of her neighbors how to grow a great garden.

We expect her to bring a couple of other folks from her village to the training program. I believe we can expect at least 6 and perhaps 12 good students from the day’s efforts. It looks like we’re on our way.