Reasons to Choose Natural Minerals over Organic Fertilizers
There are SO many reasons for choosing the Mittleider system of growing over Certified Organic!
1 Let’s start with the MACRO “argument”. There is not enough compost/manure in the world to feed 10% of the population, if even that much. Before “ground-up rocks” as commercial fertilizers – and especially before man learned to create usable nitrogen the way lightning does it (see Haber/Bosch Method) – there were about 1 billion people on the planet. Take commercial fertilizers away and 6 out of 7 would die, and the world population would shrink to that size again.
And during crisis situations, or in the event of a breakdown in the fragile, interconnected and interdependent civilization in which we live (think supply chain disruptions), there will be much LESS organic material available because the animals will die or be eaten.
The great intelligence that rules the universe would not create a world in which the large majority of people were consigned to ill health and even starvation. And sure enough, the earth contains inexhaustible supplies of the 13 essential mineral nutrients plants require. These are mined and then concentrated to remove impurities, heavy metals, etc., and give exact percentages of the nutrients. This also makes them much less expensive to ship to distant locations.
2 The actual nutritional benefits of organic fertilizers are unknown.
a. The nutritional composition of the original plants is unknown.
b. The horse or cow kept some;
c. About half of the remaining nutrition is lost in the urine;
d. Some was lost to leaching in the compost pile, before it was applied to the garden soil;
e. Nitrogen is lost into the air due to its volatility, and
f. Because compost must be applied all at once before planting, much more is lost in the weeks and months before the plant takes it up and uses it.
3 While natural mineral nutrients can be balanced between Macro-nutrients, Secondary nutrients, and Micro-nutrients to give just the right amounts of each, organic fertilizers‘ nutrient composition is unknown, unknowable, andcan therefore not be “balanced” and thereby improved.
4 Plants cannot take in and use organic nutrients because of their particle size and structure, and therefore the compost must decompose, break down, and revert to its inorganic water-soluble mineral state before the next generation of plants can use it. This requires time and soil organisms.
5 Doing this composting is almost never done aerobically (with oxygen), which produces heat of 140 degrees for about 3 weeks, and in the composting process kills the weed seeds, bugs, and diseases.
Ninety nine percent of the time – at least in the family garden – composting is done anaerobically, or without oxygen, and consequently without heat. This of course does NOT eliminate the 3 bad elements, and instead encourages bugs, weeds, diseases, bad smells, AND rodents.
6 Harmful diseases such as e-coli, salmonella, and listeria are sometimes carried by organic fertilizers such that people get sick and sometimes even die after ingesting the food grown in them. This is why Certified organic fertilizers MUST, by the laws administered by the USDA, be applied to the soil 120 days before harvest if the edible part of the plant comes in contact with the soil, and 90 days before harvest if the edible part of the plant does not touch the ground.
7 Because the fertilizer for the entire crop must be applied all at once before planting. large amounts of salts are applied to the soil all at once. This often causes a condition called salinity – too much salt – and causes reverse osmosis, with the saline moisture in the soil drawing the moisture out of the plants and injuring or even killing the plants. Also, the excess salts are leached into the ground water, streams and rivers, killing fish, etc., and fouling the water supply. Meanwhile, by mid-season the nutrition is gone and plants stop producing.
8 Cost of organic fertilizers is often, at least in large population centers, more than that of mineral nutrients. And storage presents an entirely new set of problems. Compost takes up a great deal of space, smells, nutrition leaches out if stored outside, and invites problems as described above. Mineral fertilizers are without bad odors, do NOT attract bugs and diseases, take up MUCH less space, and store indefinitely without losing potency.
9 And finally the piece of the equation that has many people calling The Mittleider Method “the best of organic”. The laws established by the USDA, which governs organic growing, specify that a Certified Organic grower must plant using only organic fertilizers. Then, when they observe deficiency symptoms they must get soil tests. After documenting which nutrients are deficient the organic grower is permitted to use inorganic (mineral) nutrients, including the very same ones we use in the Mittleider Method from the beginning.
The average person never hears about the fact that the big organic growers actually use commercial bagged mineral fertilizers, and the family gardener has neither the time, the money, nor the expertise to go through all those steps that are necessary to grow healthy and productive crops organically, and so they suffer with poor production and much less nutritious garden produce.
Dr. Mittleider chose to feed his crops very small amounts of all of the natural mineral nutrients plants require for fast healthy growth, in the right amounts and as and when they need them, avoiding all of the problems associated with organic fertilizers, including weed seeds, bugs and diseases, salinity, higher cost and availability issues, and time and dependence on soil organisms to change the organic materials into water-soluble minerals that plants can use.
Fertilizers and Particle Size: What’s it All Mean?
In my travels, the subject of fertilizers comes up often. In these discussions, we sometimes center on the topic of fertilizer particle size—specifically when someone asks me about “nanoparticle” fertilizer. When it comes to liquid fertilizers, the difference between whether something is a solution, a colloidal dispersion, or a suspension depends on the particle size. I thought a brief discussion on the matter might shed some light on this exciting topic and make us better-informed consumers.
First, I think it’s important to define the size of a nanometer. A nanometer is 1 billionth of a meter. Typically speaking, a nanoparticle is generally anything from 1 to 100 nanometers. The easiest distinction to make is whether something is actually in solution. For there to be a solution, there needs to be a solvent (water, for example), and a solute (often a fertilizer salt). If the solute is soluble enough in the solvent, the solute goes into solution completely, meaning that the size of the molecule is now simply just its molecular size. Here’s an example to help clear this up:
Ferrous sulfate heptahydrate is a fairly common iron supplement. It comes as a water-soluble powder that’s typically around 70,000 nanometers in size (which is approximately the size of a salt granule). Once this ferrous sulfate goes into solution though, its particle size is now its molecular size, which is a diameter of approximately 0.122 nanometers.
With this example in mind, one could theoretically claim that any molecule in solution is literally a “nanoparticle.”
Molecules that aren’t in solution graduate to making either a colloid or a suspension. Again, the distinction here is the average particle size. Colloidal particles are typically in the range of 10-1000 nanometers. Suspended particles are larger. Using this measuring stick, some colloidal particles can be defined as nanoparticles, while others are probably a bit too large. So how can you tell the difference just by looking at it? You can’t (at least not without a piece of equipment that can characterize particle size). While this all may seem pretty abstract, did you know that milk is a colloid? According to the experts, milk is approximately 87.5% water, 3.5% protein, 3.7% fat, 4.9% lactose, and 0.7% salts. The white color comes from casein particles, which are proteins that have combined with calcium and phosphate; the average particle size of these casein particles is around 100 nanometers.
So why does particle size really matter?
Some folks claim that nanoparticles can move more efficiently into the plant. For colloidal or suspended particles (particles not in solution), I think it’s safe to say that the smaller the particle, the faster it can break down and go into solution (which is typically how molecules move into plants). This is known as the dissolution rate—how quickly a particle moves into the solution. In addition, particle size dictates how reactive a material is. The smaller the particle, the greater the surface area per unit volume ratio; this leads to a greater portion of the particles on the surface of the material (as opposed to the interior).
So, what’s this really mean to you?
Theoretically, the entire argument about particle size centers around an increased availability of the nutrient to the plant. If you’re paying good money for your fertility product though, you’d want it already reacted and enhanced in some way aside from just being a smaller particle. With this in mind, an even more efficient method of application would be to simply apply nutrients that are already reacted and soluble (as particle size no longer matters at that point in time). Of course, the pitfall here is to make sure it stays soluble—meaning that complexed or chelated nutrients are often more effective as they sidestep the theoretical issue of the molecule precipitating, and then being in the same boat as a colloidal or suspended particle.
All of this information brings us to an important point though: whether the molecule is in solution, a colloid, or a suspension, the plant still needs a certain amount of the nutrient that is a part of that molecule. I usually explain it like this: Iron has a molar mass of 55.845 g/mol or a diameter of approximately 0.024 nanometers. It doesn’t matter how small the particle size is of the iron molecule, or whether it’s in a solution, a colloid, or a suspension. The plant still needs to acquire a certain amount of that 55.845 g/mol iron. While the most efficient means to deliver a nutrient to plants is certainly up for debate (we’re still partial to amino acids and amino-acid polymers), plants will always need a certain amount of that nutrient for optimal growth. Not all nutritional formulations are equal, and some will allow the plant to acquire a larger percentage of nutrients than others (allowing for lower use rate, etc.). Still, there’s a limit to the efficiency of any nutritional formulation, and short of genetic engineering or breeding, plants will always require a certain amount of each nutritional element regardless of the particle size of the nutrient that’s applied.
As the total global population continues to rise and economic growth drives a transition towards more resource-intensive diets, a growing number of consumers are concerned with how to reduce the environmental impact of their dietary choices. Consumers often see organic food as an effective way to reduce their impact: surveys reveal that regardless of geographic location, the primary motivations for organic food purchases are health1 and environmental concerns.2 Furthermore, consumers are often willing to pay more for organic products – some studies indicate a willingness-to-pay of up to 100 percent above standard prices.3 But is this a wise choice? Is going organic really the best way to reduce the environmental impact of our diets?
Before we explore the relative impacts of organic vs. conventional agriculture, it is worth clarifying their definitions. Organic agriculture refers to the farming of crops or livestock without the use of synthetic inputs, including synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, plant growth regulators, nanomaterials and genetically-modified organisms (GMOs).4 Note that organic does not necessitate ‘chemical-free’ or ‘pesticide-free’; chemicals are often used in organic farming, however these cannot be synthetically manufactured, with the exception of a small number which have been approved by the National Organic Standards Board.5 Conventional (sometimes termed ‘industrial’) farming is therefore any agricultural system which uses one or more of the above synthetic inputs.
The methods applied for weed and pest control in conventional and organic systems can also impact on choices of planting and tillage techniques. Conventional farming often utilises synthetic herbicides for the control of weeds; this approach is typically more conducive to low- or no-till management techniques.6 Since herbicide applications cannot be widely adopted in organic farming (with some approved exceptions), options for no-till farming can be more limited and places greater emphasis on approaches such as mechanical controls and/or mulching.
In arable farming (which concerns the production of crops), nutrients can be added to the soil in the form of organic matter, such as green compost, animal manure (human sewage sludge is typically prohibited), or bone meal. For livestock, organic methods mean animals must be fed organically-certified feed (or graze on land with no synthetic chemical inputs), and antibiotics cannot be used throughout their lifetime (except in emergency cases such as disease or infection outbreak). In conventional livestock production, there are no constraints on feed certification and antibiotics or growth hormones are often used. Animal welfare standards for organic certification can vary by country, however for many, livestock must be raised with access to the outdoors (i.e. caged hens are not permitted). Conventional livestock farming covers a range of production methods: they can be produced in either ‘free range’ or ‘caged’ conditions. These are typically monitored and labelled as such on product packaging.
In this post, we present the empirical evidence comparing organic to conventional agriculture in terms of environmental impact. Despite strong public perception of organic agriculture producing better environmental outcomes, we show that conventional agriculture often performs better on environmental measures including land use, greenhouse gas emissions, and pollution of water bodies. There are, however, some contexts where organic agriculture may be considered appropriate.
Organic vs. conventional: what are the relative impacts?
When aiming to provide a comparison of the relative impacts of organic and conventional agriculture, it can often be misleading and misrepresentative to rely on the results of a single comparative study: there will always be single, localised examples where the environmental impacts of a conventional farm are lower than that of a proximate organic farm, and vice versa.7 In order to provide a global and cross-cutting overview of this comparison, Clark and Tilman (2017) published a meta-analysis of results of published organic-conventional comparisons across 742 agricultural systems over 90 unique foods.8
Their analysis reviewed relative impacts across the range of food types – cereals, pulses and oilcrops, fruits, vegetables, dairy and eggs, and meat – and across a range of environmental impact categories – greenhouse gas emissions, land use, acidification potential, eutrophication potential, and energy use. ‘Eutrophication’ refers to the over-enrichment or pollution of surface waters with nutrients such as nitrogen & phosphorous. Although eutrophication can also occur naturally, the runoff of fertilizer and manure from agricultural land is a dominant source of nutrients.9 This disaggregation of food types and environmental impacts is important: there is no reason to suggest that the optimal agricultural system for cereal production is the same as for fruits; and there are often trade-offs in terms of environmental impact – one system can prove better in terms of greenhouse gas emissions but higher in land use, for example.
Food systems are made up of many phases – ranging from pre-farm activities, crop production, animal feed production, and harvesting, to transportation, distribution, and cooking. To fully and consistently account for the various stages of production, a process called life-cycle analysis (LCA) is used. LCAs attempt to quantify the combined impacts across several stages of production by considering all inputs and outputs in the complete process. The key in comparing LCAs between products is ensuring that the same number of stages of the supply chain are included in all analyses. For this meta-analysis, Clark & Tilman (2017) compared 164 LCAs which account for inputs pre-farm and on-farm (up until the food leaves the farm).
The aggregated results of Clark & Tilman’s study is shown in the chart below. This comparison measures the relative impact ratio of organic to conventional agriculture, whereby a value of 1.0 means the impact of both systems are the same; values greater than 1.0 mean the impacts of organic systems are higher (worse) (for example, a value of 2.0 would mean organic impacts were twice as high as conventional); and values less than 1.0 mean conventional systems are worse (a value of 0.5 means conventional impacts are twice as high). We see these relative impacts measured by food type across our range of environmental impacts with averages and standard error ranges shown.
We see large differences in impact patterns across environmental categories and food types. For some impacts, one system is consistently better than the alternative; whilst for others, results are mixed depending on crop type and the local agricultural context. The clearest results are for land and energy use. Organic systems consistently perform worse in terms of land use, regardless of food type. As we explore in detail in our entry on Yield and Land Use in Agriculture, the world has achieved large gains in productivity and gains in yield over the past half-century in particular, largely as a result of the availability and intensification of inputs such as fertilizer and pesticides. As a result, the majority of conventional systems achieve a significantly higher yield as compared to organic systems. Therefore, to produce the same quantity of food, organic systems require a larger land area.
This produces the inverse result for energy use. The industrial production of chemical inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides is an energy-intensive process. The absence of synthetic chemical inputs in organic systems therefore means that their energy use is predominantly lower than in intensive conventional agriculture. The exception to this result is vegetables, for which energy use in organic systems tends to be higher. Some of this additional energy use is explained by the use of alternative methods of weed and pest control in organic vegetable farming; a technique widely applied as an alternative to synthetic pesticide application is the use of ‘propane-fueled flame weeding’.10 The process of propane production and machinery used in its application can add energy costs – especially for vegetable crops.
Acidification and eutrophication potential are more mixed, but tend to be higher in organic systems; average values across all food types are higher for organic, although there are likely to be some exceptions in particular contexts. Why are organic systems typically worse in these measures? The supply of nutrients in conventional and organic systems are very different; nitrogen supply in conventional agriculture is supplied with the application of synthetic fertilizers, whereas organic farms source their nitrogen from manure application. The timing of nutrient release in these systems is different: fertilizers release nutrients in response to crop demands, meaning nitrogen is released when required by the crops, whereas nitrogen released from manure is more dependent on environmental conditions, such as weather conditions, soil moisture and temperature.
Nutrient-release from manure is therefore not always matched with crop requirements – excess nutrients which are released but not taken up by crops can run off farmland into waterways such as rivers and lakes. As a consequence, the pollution of ecosystems with nutrients from organic farms are often higher than conventional farms, leading to higher eutrophication and acidification potential.
Across all food types, there is no clear winner when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions. Results vary strongly depending on food type, although most lie close to a ratio of one (where differences in impact between the systems are relatively small). Based on average values, we might conclude that to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we should buy organic pulses and fruits, and conventional cereals, vegetables, and animal products. In general, the greenhouse gas emission sources of organic and conventional systems tend to cancel each other out. Conventional systems produce greenhouse gases through synthetic fertilizer production and application, which is largely balanced by the higher emissions of nitrous oxide (a strong greenhouse gas) from manure application.11
Should we treat environmental impacts equally?
Organic agriculture proves better for some environmental impacts, and conventional agriculture for others. These trade-offs can make it difficult to decide which we should be choosing. But should we be considering all environmental impacts equally? Should some have higher importance than others?
To evaluate these trade-offs we have to consider a key question: how important is agriculture’s contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions, land use, acidification and eutrophication potential, and energy use? Agriculture’s role in land use, greenhouse gas emissions, and energy use is summarised in the three charts below:
The first chart shows that agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU) is the dominant land user, consuming half of the world’s habitable land;
The second chart shows that it accounts for approximately one-quarter of greenhouse gas emissions;
The third chart shows that it accounts for only two percent of energy use;
The contribution of AFOLU to acidification and eutrophication is more difficult to quantify, however it is widely considered to be the dominant source of nutrient input to aquatic ecosystems.
We might therefore conclude that energy use – the only category in which organic agriculture has a clear advantage – is comparatively substantially less important than other impacts.
Greenhouse gas emissions by sector, World
Breakdown of total greenhouse gas emissions by sector, measured in tonnes of carbon-dioxide
equivalents (CO₂e). Carbon dioxide equivalents measures the total greenhouse gas potential of the full
combination of gases, weighted by their relative warming impacts.
If we are most concerned with areas of environmental change for which agriculture has the largest impact – namely land use, water pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions – for which conventional agriculture tends to be advantaged, is the answer to make global farming as intensive as possible? Not necessarily. There are several reasons why this view is too simplistic.
The impacts quantified here fail to capture another important ecological pressure: biodiversity. Conclusive comparisons of the relative impacts of agricultural systems on biodiversity are still lacking. Biodiversity is affected by a number of agricultural impacts, including pesticide application (which can be toxic to some species), soil erosion, and disruption from land tillage methods, and either habitat destruction or fragmentation.12 Intensive agriculture undoubtedly has severe impacts on local biodiversity.13 A recent study by Hallmann et al. (2017) reports a greater than 75 percent decline in insect populations over the last 27 years; although unclear as to the primary cause of this decline, it’s suggested that pesticide use may be a key contributing factor.14 Organic farming systems also impact biodiversity, but perhaps less dramatically per unit area, due to lower fertilizer and pesticide use. However, as our land-use metrics show: organic agriculture requires far more land than conventional agriculture. This creates a divide in opinion of how best to preserve biodiversity: should we farm intensively over a smaller area (with understanding that biodiversity will be severely affected over this area), or should we farm organically, impacting biodiversity (perhaps less severely) over a much larger area.15 There is no clear consensus on how best to approach this issue.
Another point to consider is that conventional agriculture is not necessarily better across all food types. Context, both in terms of the food commodity and the local environment, can be important. For example, if greenhouse gas reduction is our main focus, we might be best off eating organic pulses and fruits, and conventional cereals, vegetables, and animal products, based on the results presented above.
This leads us to three key conclusions in the organic-conventional farming debate:
The common perception that organic food is by default better, or is an ideal way to reduce environmental impact is a clear misconception. Across several metrics, organic agriculture actually proves to be more harmful for the world’s environment than conventional agriculture.
The debate between organic and intensive agriculture advocates is often needlessly polarized. There are scenarios where one system proves better than the other, and vice versa. If I were to advise on where and when to choose one or the other, I’d advise trying to choose organic pulses and fruits, but sticking with non-organic for all other food products (cereals, vegetables, dairy and eggs, and meat).
The organic-conventional debate often detracts from other aspects of dietary choices which have greater impact. If looking to reduce the environmental impact of your diet, what you eat can be much more influential than how it is produced. The relative difference in land use and greenhouse gas impacts between organic and conventional systems is typically less than a multiple of two. Compare this to the relative differences in impacts between food types where, as shown in the charts below, the difference in land use and greenhouse gas emissions per unit protein between high-impact meats and low-impact crop types can be more than 100-fold. If your primary concern is whether the potato accompanying your steak is conventionally or organically produced, then your focus is arguably misplaced from the decisions which could have the greatest impact.
Land use per 100 grams of protein
Land use is measured in meters squared (m²) per 100 grams of protein across various food products.
Greenhouse gas emissions are measured in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents (kgCO₂eq) per 100
grams of protein. This means non-CO₂ greenhouse gases are included and weighted by their relative
warming impact.
As we try and stay warm during this cominf cold winter season probably very few of us are thinking of gardens or growing our own food – but maybe we should be! When God cursed the ground it was for our sake, so when He said we were to eat our bread by the sweat of our brow perhaps He was pronouncing a blessing on us. At the very least it was instruction on how we were to live, but today too many of us , if we exercise at all, pay to “work out” in the gym instead of working out in the garden.
It is time to change that!
Great and wise men have said every family should have a garden, and that we should “Grow all the food that you possibly can on your own property…grow vegetables and eat those grown in your own yard. Even those residing in apartments or condominiums can generally grow a little food in pots and planters.” Spencer W. Kimball
Evidence all around us points to the wisdom of those words. Today much of what we eat comes from places we know not and contains things that sometimes harm us. And a diet of fresh vegetables and fruits would eliminate many of the chronic health problems plaguing our society
I suggest now is a good time to begin preparing for your own garden next spring. Why? Because it makes sense to follow wise counsel at any time, but also because like someone recently said, when times get tough you’re not going to want to live just on rice and beans and wheat.
In talking with a motivated Mittleider gardener I asked how he became interested in gardening as an important component of his family’s preparedness regimen, and his answer was both humorous and instructive:
“Years ago my wife and I were going over our Preparedness list, basically taking an inventory of where we were in the process, and I asked her “what are we going to eat”, to which she replied “well, we’ve got wheat, beans, and rice . . . “. I thought about that for a few seconds and then said “so what are we going to eat”? She repeated “we’ve got wheat, beans, and rice”, and I responded again “so, what are we going to eat!”
“As we talked about this we decided that we really needed to have an on-going, fresh and sustainable source of nutritious food if we hoped to maintain any degree of long-term health and activity, and so we determined that we had to get serious about growing a garden.”
And here’s “the rest of the story” as Paul Harvey would say. His wife became a Certified Master Gardener, and for 30 years she worked diligently at trying to grow food for their family. However, until recently their success was very limited, even though they tried every method they could find. Their amazing success sfter finding the Mittleider Method of gardening is truly inspiring, and it is documented in some excellent short instructional videos at http://www.ldsprepper.com. I recommend you go there and see for yourself what they’ve done (and what you can do) in the back yard of a small lot in a gated community, with homeowners’ association rules dictating what your yard can look like.
So, what CAN we do in the winter in order to be prepared when it comes time to plant our gardens? Let me describe several important things you can begin doing immediately:
Certainly, planning next spring’s garden is important. And the Garden Planting Details Schedule lists most all of the common garden vegetables and then gives you valuable information in 14 categories including when to plant, where to plant, how far apart to plant, whether to plant seeds or seedlings, how long you can harvest, how much yield to expect, and 8 other important categories of information to guide your decisions. This is available free in the Files section of the gardening groups listed below, as well as in appendix B of The Mittleider Gardening Course book.
Other important areas of planning you should be covering this winter include ways to lengthen your harvest time, and this can be accomplished by growing your own seedlings, and by protecting your plants in the garden.
Seedling production is surprisingly simple, but requires following closely the basic laws of plant growth. Soil temperatures must be in the 70-85 degree range for optimum germination and growth; maximum light must be applied immediately upon emergence; soil must be damp but not soaking wet; and plants must be fed a balanced nutrient mix on a regular schedule – preferably with every watering.
Protecting your plants from the cold (and heat in mid-summer) can be done simply with hoops and clear greenhouse plastic immediately over the plants (low tunnel), or using something larger, again with hoops and plastic sometimes called high tunnels. A third way, costing more but allowing you to grow crops vertically and increasing yields by 4-6 times in a given space, is what I call the in-the-garden greenhouse. These are built using a set of T-Frames tied together by 2 X 4’s and again covered by clear greenhouse plastic, and they can be used to grow seedlings in late winter/early spring and then to grow ever-bearing crops clear into the next winter. Gardeners in southern-tier states even use them to grow successfully year-round.
A family of 4 can live out of a garden of less than 1/20th of an acre! So start planning and preparing now, and expect to have your highly productive sustainable garden in place and growing by the time your neighbors begin even thinking about their gardens.
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.
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.
In my travels, the subject of fertilizers comes up often. In these discussions, we sometimes center on the topic of fertilizer particle size—specifically when someone asks me about “nanoparticle” fertilizer. When it comes to liquid fertilizers, the difference between whether something is a solution, a colloidal dispersion, or a suspension depends on the particle size. I thought a brief discussion on the matter might shed some light on this exciting topic and make us better-informed consumers.
