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Prepared – Got Your Wheat, Beans & Rice? So What Are You Going To Eat?!
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.
Short videos demonstrating many steps in the gardening process are available free at. Start there, and if you feel you want to join one of the Food For Everyone Foundation’s free gardening groups to learn more and share with others, simply go to either https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/MittleiderMethodGardening/info or https://www.facebook.com/groups/2304852529528161/
So, what are YOU going to eat when the stores are all closed? If you’re serious I will give you some very exciting and important details next time.
Mittleider Gardening Magic – Fertilizing Advice and Tips for Your Vegetable Garden
Welcome to Mittleider Gardening Magic advice and tips! I’m excited to be sharing the wisdom of “the world’s greatest vegetable gardener.”
I’ve been a Mittleider gardener ever since the mid 70’s when Jacob Mittleider moved about a mile from my home, and I became his student – patterning my own garden after his prolific backyard masterpiece.
We became friends as I worked with him over the years, and after assisting him on a major teaching project in Russia in 1993, I continued working with him on other projects. And finally in 1998, after more than 20 years of study and work under Jacob’s tutelage, I was given the responsibility and privilege of carrying on his work. I accepted this full-time non-paying job with the proviso that he would continue to stay involved and answer any and all questions, to which he readily agreed, since gardening was his life’s greatest love (just ask his wife, Mildred). Sadly, Jacob died just one month after his 88th birthday, on May 23, 2006. Therefore anything you need to know that Jacob hasn’t already taught me, I will research from his prolific writings.
So, just who is Jacob Mittleider, and what’s his Method all about? You may have seen a neighbor’s beautiful and highly productive Mittleider vegetable garden, and wished yours looked and produced like that. Or perhaps you’ve heard of the great work he’s done around the world. Maybe you even have one of his books and have experimented with growing your own vegetable garden this way. If so, then you may know Jacob’s history, but for those who don’t know him let me tell you very briefly why he’s so famous, and why he promises you a “great garden in any soil and in any climate.”.
For the past 43 years Dr. Jacob Mittleider has quietly and without fanfare dramatically improved the lives of multiplied thousands of people, and even changed the economies of countries, by teaching people how to better feed their families by growing healthy and highly productive vegetable crops – both personally and commercially. He has created 75 teaching and demonstration projects in 27 countries – and has documented his experiences and the great lessons he learned in 10 books, 9 manuals, and 86 video lectures.
To help tell the world’s families about this great gardening method, we have established a 501©(3) Public Charitable Foundation, and created a website at http://www.foodforeveryone.org, with a section for free Gardening Techniques and one for frequently asked questions (FAQ’s). The Mittleider Gardening Basics book is there for you free, with Dr. Mittleider’s best wishes for gardening success. There is also a page where you can buy any or all of his books and CD’s, as well as his Mittleider Magic natural mineral fertilizers, also known as “the poor man’s hydroponic mix,” because it is a scientifically balanced and complete plant nutrient mix.
So much for introductions! Let’s get down to learning about growing better vegetable gardens, shall we?
What problems or questions do you have? I will teach you the principles of successful gardening, but I also want to resolve any concerns you may have. There are many conflicting ideas, methods, and procedures out there, and we will do our best to give you factual “works every time” advice and counsel. A few topics we’ll discuss, about which you might have some concern, include:
1. “My soil is terrible, and nothing will grow. What must I do with my soil so that it will grow a good garden?”
2. “I hear that chemicals are poisoning our waterways, and that organic growing is much healthier, how do I grow a healthy, productive garden without hurting the environment?”
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3. “It seems like so much labor-intensive work, with little reward. Is there a way to have a garden that makes financial sense?”
4. “Weeds just take over our garden, and the vegetables don’t really have a chance. What’s the answer?”
5. “Bugs, diseases, and critters get most of our produce! It’s hardly worth growing for the little bit we manage to save – what can we do to minimize our losses?”
6. “We want to be self-sufficient in food, but we’ve heard it would take 2 ½ acres in order to be truly self/sufficient. We live on a 1/3-acre lot – what practical chance do we have to accomplish that?”
7. “I hear using hybrid plants will only make us dependent on the big seed companies, and I want to use heirlooms, so I can save the seed and be assured I’ll always be able to have good plants, is this something I can do, and how do I do it?”
Exciting stuff, don’t you agree? Join me for real, practical advice and answers to the hard gardening questions. You may also pose your own questions, and you’ll find many answers by going to http://www.foodforeveryone.org and looking in the Gardening Techniques or FAQ pages. Until next time – Great Gardening!
Little-Known Tips & Techniques for Growing a Highly Successful Garden Anywhere
I’m often asked by people how they can maximize the use of the limited space they have for a vegetable garden. Many urban dwellers only have a couple of hundred square feet of ground that’s sunny enough to grow a successful garden. Others, in the suburbs or in more rural settings, might have as much as 5,000 to 10,000 square feet. Those folks can actually feed their families from their gardens using the tips I’ll give you.
I will describe the steps to a highly successful gardening experience in a garden of 1,000 square feet. These tips and techniques are the secrets to give you a great garden in any soil, and in virtually any climate.
A 1,000 square foot garden can grow a tremendous amount of produce if you do it properly (how about 5,000# of tomatoes)! If left alone, or done haphazardly, however, it will be a big disappointment, and you will grow weeds instead, so following the recipe is critically important.
Most people seem to be “afflicted” with clay soil, and believe they cannot grow successfully without substantial time, effort, and money spent in amending it. Clay soil is NOT a problem, and NO soil amendments are needed if you will create slightly raised, level, ridged beds as described in the free e-book at https://growfood.com/freebies/ . And be sure to use the lime and other natural mineral nutrients as instructed!
Lay out and stake your garden with 18″ soil-beds, and aisles at least 3′ wide. Use 4 – 2″ X 2″ X 18″ PAINTED stakes per soil-bed. Depending on your dimensions you can have 11 – 20′-long beds with 3′-wide aisles. I’ll use that shape for my example.
Another common mistake family gardeners often make is planting too much of the single-crop vegetables, such as lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower, etc.
I would only plant a small amount – say 1/4 bed of each of these things at most – for the following reason. Single-crop plants mature all at once. This means that even with only 5′ rows of each you will have 20 heads of lettuce, 10 heads each of cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli all maturing at virtually the same time, and THEY’LL ALL NEED TO BE PICKED AT THE SAME TIME. Otherwise they get bad, and they attract both bugs and diseases.
Whenever you plant single-crop vegetables, plant only what you can use, give away, sell, or store in the 1-2 week ideal harvesting window. If you want them all season you MUST do several small plantings – spaced at 2-3 week intervals.
Here’s an important tip to greatly reduce the problem of these crops all maturing at once, and increase your yields from these, as well as others, such as kale, Swiss Chard, carrots, celery, etc. As soon as the leaves are big enough, begin removing one or two outer leaves each week, and eating them. We have eaten fresh, sweet, green celery stalks for almost 9 months!
In order to get the most from your gardening efforts and limited space, I recommend growing EVERBEARING crops like tomatoes, cucumbers, pole beans, peppers, eggplant, melons and squash. They are often considered the highest-value crops. And I recommend you grow everything vertically using T-Frames! This is a BIG secret to multiplying your yields AND reducing your losses to diseases and pests.
Start your garden by being certain that it’s totally weed free, including 4-5′ on all sides at the time of planting. Then use a 2-way (also called a shuffle or hula) hoe to quickly and easily weed again about a week after planting, or as soon as the weeds begin to show their faces. NEVER WAIT for the weeds to grow bigger! They’re most vulnerable when they are tiny, and they are very easy to eliminate. You might have to do this two or three times, but then you will have a healthy, weed-free garden all season long. Having a weed-free garden will also reduce your problems with bugs and diseases!
Rather than planting everything by seed directly in your garden soil, I highly recommend growing seedlings in a mixture of sawdust and sand – in a 2 to 1 ratio – using plastic or wooden trays, as the best way to start many varieties of plants. You can extend your growing season by several weeks by transplanting healthy seedlings of almost all large plants. They will grow faster and will be healthier in a protected environment than what you grow in the ground from seed. The seedlings must have constant sunlight to thrive, however, just as if they were in the garden. Growing seedlings is very rewarding, and is a simple process, but again you MUST follow the steps accurately and consistently.
You can very quickly and easily learn to become competent at growing your own seedlings by reading Lesson 22 of The Mittleider Gardening Course book – www.growfood.com/shop.
If you decide to grow directly from seeds in the ground, make sure your seed-bed is soft and smooth. Scratch a SHALLOW furrow on both sides of the bed near the ridges. For very small seeds mix seeds with sand in a 1 to 100 ratio, and sprinkle carefully the length of the row, as evenly as possible. Then cover the seeds WITH SAND rather than the clay soil (this goes for ALL seeds), and less than 1/8th inch deep. Meanwhile, remember that only ONE OUNCE of small seeds like tomato seeds includes TEN THOUSAND SEEDS, so don’t plant too many!
For every crop in your garden you can learn everything you need to know about when, where, how far apart, and how deep to plant, plus 10 more critically important pieces of the gardening puzzle, simply by using The Garden Planting Details Schedule, in Appendix B of The Mittleider Gardening Course book. That Schedule is priceless, and should be in the garden with you every day!
Which crops you should plant depends on the temperatures in your growing area. Most places cannot grow warm-weather crops like tomatoes, peppers, beans, melons, and squash in the winter months. Wait to transplant those into the garden until daytime temperatures are 65-70 and night-time temperatures are 50 or above.
Cool-weather crops like cauliflower, broccoli, spinach, beets, lettuce, and the like, can be planted when it’s colder, but don’t plant if you have frosts at night, and remember that even these hardy plants need daytime temperatures above 50 degrees fahrenheit to grow.
Some people like to minimize the chore of weeding by putting black plastic everywhere. Using black plastic is generally NOT a good idea when planting seeds. The open space needed for seeds to emerge and grow successfully leaves room for weeds to grow as well. And weeds from all around the opening will find it and choke out your tiny vegetable seedlings as they emerge. Meanwhile, the plastic makes it very difficult to weed thoroughly and successfully.
Black plastic can be used successfully when growing seedlings, but it is not a cure-all, and it is less desirable than leaving the ground bare and weeding properly.
Proper and timely watering is essential to a successful garden. Sometimes people think they can save time by sprinkling everything, or by leaving soaker hoses on while they do other things. Soaker hoses are less than ideal for several reasons: First, the holes are easily plugged; second, weeding around the hose is difficult; third, the hose is easily cut when attempting to weed around it, and fourth, water quantity is uncertain and often inadequate.
You should never sprinkle a vegetable garden. It is terribly wasteful of water, it waters the ridges and aisles, encouraging weed growth, and it increases diseases and pest problems.
The best and easiest watering method I know is the semi-automated method taught in chapter 16 of the Mittleider Gardening Course book. This uses 3/4″ Schedule 200 PVC pipe, drilled with 3 #57 holes every 4″, with the pipe running down the center of the soil-bed and lifted off the soil about 2″ by small 2 X 4″ wooden blocks. Water is controlled by an inexpensive ball valve placed at the head of each row, and the whole garden is plumbed together for fast, accurate, and highly efficient watering.
If you can’t or don’t want to automate your watering, simply attach a large old towel around the end of your garden hose, then place the hose in the soil-bed. If your beds are level, as they should be, the entire soil-bed will quickly receive the needed 1″ of water. And whichever method you use, remember to water daily – especially in warm weather – unless it rains. Whether your watering is automated or manual, watering only the root zone of the plants will save you more than 1/2 the water you’d use with traditional methods.
Finally, feed your plants the 13 natural mineral nutrients they must have for healthy growth. And provide those nutrients regularly throughout the growth cycle to maximize your yields of tasty, healthy fruits and vegetables. The free ebook on the Foundation’s website gives complete instructions for fertilizing your garden.
Mittleider Gardening Magic – Advice and Tips for Your Vegetable Garden
Welcome to Mittleider Gardening Magic advice and tips! I’m excited to be sharing the wisdom of “the world’s greatest vegetable gardener.”
I’ve been a Mittleider gardener ever since the mid 70’s when Jacob Mittleider moved about a mile from my home, and I became his student – patterning my own garden after his prolific backyard masterpiece.
We became friends as I worked with him over the years, and after assisting him on a major teaching project in Russia in 1993, I continued working with him on several other projects. And finally in 1998, after 20 years of study and work under Jacob’s tutelage, I was given the responsibility and privilege of carrying on his work. I accepted this full-time non-paying job with the proviso that he would continue to stay involved and answer any and all questions, to which he readily agreed, since gardening was his life’s greatest love (just ask his wife, Mildred). Sadly, Jacob died just one month after his 88th birthday, on May 23, 2006. Therefore anything you need to know that Jacob hasn’t already taught me, I will research from his prolific writings.
So, just who is Jacob Mittleider, and what’s his Method all about? You may have seen a neighbor’s beautiful and highly productive Mittleider vegetable garden, and wished yours looked and produced like that. Or perhaps you’ve heard of the great work he’s done around the world. Maybe you even have one of his books and have experimented with growing your own vegetable garden this way. If so, then you may know Jacob’s history, but for those who don’t know him let me tell you very briefly why he’s so famous, and why he promises you a “great garden in any soil and in any climate.”.
For the last 43 years of his life Dr. Jacob Mittleider quietly and without fanfare dramatically improved the lives of multiplied thousands of people, and even changed the economies of countries, by teaching people how to better feed their families by growing healthy and highly productive vegetable crops – both personally and commercially. He created 75 teaching and demonstration projects in 27 countries – and documented his experiences and the great lessons he learned in 10 books, 9 manuals, and 86 video lectures.
To help tell the world’s families about this great gardening method, we have established a 501©(3) Public Charitable Foundation, and created a website at http://www.foodforeveryone.org, with a section for free Gardening Techniques and one for frequently asked questions (FAQ’s). The Mittleider Gardening Basics book is there for you free, with Dr. Mittleider’s best wishes for gardening success. There is also a page where you can buy any or all of his books and CD’s, as well as his Mittleider Magic natural mineral Micro-Nutrients, from which you can make his Mittleider Magic Weekly Feed fertilizer mix, also known as “the poor man’s hydroponic mix,” because it is a scientifically balanced and complete plant nutrient mix.
So much for introductions! Let’s get down to learning about growing better vegetable gardens, shall we?
What problems or questions do you have? I will teach you the principles of successful gardening, but I also want to resolve any concerns you may have. There are many conflicting ideas, methods, and procedures out there, and we will do our best to give you factual “works every time” advice and counsel. A few topics we’ll discuss, about which you might have some concern, include:
1. “My soil is terrible, and nothing will grow. What must I do with my soil so that it will grow a good garden?”
2. “I hear that chemicals are poisoning our waterways, and that organic growing is much healthier, how do I grow a healthy, productive garden without hurting the environment?”
3. “It seems like so much labor-intensive work, with little reward. Is there a way to have a garden that makes financial sense?”
4. “Weeds just take over our garden, and the vegetables don’t really have a chance. What’s the answer?”
5. “Bugs, diseases, and critters get most of our produce! It’s hardly worth growing for the little bit we manage to save – what can we do to minimize our losses?”
6. “We want to be self-sufficient in food, but we’ve heard it would take 2 ½ acres in order to be truly self/sufficient. We live on a 1/3-acre lot – what practical chance do we have to accomplish that?”
7. “I hear using hybrid plants will only make us dependent on the big seed companies, and I want to use heirlooms, so I can save the seed and be assured I’ll always be able to have good plants, is this something I can do, and how do I do it?”
Exciting stuff, don’t you agree? Join me for real, practical advice and answers to the hard gardening questions. You may also pose your own questions, and you’ll find many answers by going to http://www.foodforeveryone.org and looking in the Posts or FAQ pages. Until next time – Great Gardening!
