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Nine Reasons To Choose Natural Minerals Over Organic Fertilizers
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, and can 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.
© Jim Kennard – 9/26/2024
Self Reliance – Grow Your Own Market Garden
Market Gardening – Smaller Gardens
Can a family be totally self-sustaining by using between 1 and 2 acres to grow, eat, and sell food? Yes! As a matter of fact, families in many countries are doing it, and they often have gardens much smaller than 1 acre. However, you should consider carefully what you are getting into. I’ll paint a picture of the problems first, then show you how blessed you are to be using the best possible growing methods for a family garden, and finally I’ll give you some ideas as to what and how to grow your market garden.
- Considerations Before Beginning
Your income depends on what you choose to grow, and how well you follow through in the growing process. It also depends on how well you learn the financial and marketing aspects of the job. Growing corn is easy, but doesn’t produce much for the amount of space used, or pay well, unless you like to eat corn stalks. And someone has to sell the produce and pay the bills, which take substantial time and effort by themselves!
“Self-sustaining” requires very different amounts of food and money, depending on the family size, the standard of living expected, and the debt load you expect the garden to carry. Debt of $3,000-5,000 per month requires a much greater effort to cover than a debt-free situation.
Location is also a factor. People in warm climates can often grow into or even right through the winter, while colder climates have a shorter season. Both locations can improve your production by using the Mittleider Gardening Method. Warm climates may require lots of water and even a little shade at the hottest times, while cold climates often require more greenhouse seedling production and covering garden crops in spring and fall to extend the season.
Before getting seriously into market gardening you need to understand the commitment involved, and be willing to do it right. Our grandparents grew gardens, and also often owned animals. They understood the necessity of working every day to feed, water, and care for their animals and plants. Regrettably, we’ve forgotten this requirement, as 99% of us have chosen other ways to make a living, and become dependent on the 1% who are highly competent farmers to feed all of us.
You must understand and accept that there is very little respite for vacations, etc. during the growing season. A good garden requires your attention on a daily basis!
On the other hand you, and especially your children, will benefit greatly by having a fixed and important responsibility that requires daily commitment and real effort to accomplish. Think of it as a paper route without the 2:30 A.M hours, the driving, the danger, barking dogs, etc.
And one last consideration: A hundred years ago, everyone used manure and compost, and it was a fairly level playing field between the family gardener and the market farmer. Not so today! Your competition includes hydroponic growers who have invested over a million dollars per acre in buildings and equipment, as well as dozens of employees doing the work. And by feeding and watering their plants accurately many times each day, they’re growing 330 TONS of tomatoes per acre each year!
- You have a big advantage over others
Is all of this daunting? Have you decided to just give up and forget about growing your own food? I certainly hope NOT, because it’s important for you and your family to grow a garden for many very valid reasons, which we can’t address in this article.
Understand this. You can produce much more in less space, using the Mittleider Gardening Method, than other small market growers are doing, so GO FOR IT!
The website at www.growfood.com, the books, CD’s and videos will teach you the gardening principles and procedures by which you will grow your successful market garden. In studying these things, remember that this unique gardening method has been proven highly effective in thousands of situations, in dozens of countries all around the world. It’s a recipe! It WILL work to give you a great garden – in any soil and in virtually any climate. But you MUST follow the recipe.
III. Creating Your Own Successful Market Garden
How do you prepare?
- The best gardening book you can have is essential! I recommend The Mittleider Gardening Course, by Jacob R. Mittleider, as the RECIPE for a great garden of any size. It is available in digital or paper at www.growfood.com/shop.
- START SMALL! Don’t plant more than you can care for properly, and sell, share or use.
- Determine the market or markets you will sell to: a) Wholesalers, b) small grocery stores, c) restaurants, d) farmers’ market, e) roadside stand, or f) home delivery.
- Learn what vegetables you should grow by determining those that: a) sell well, b) at a good price, c) that you can grow readily.
- Build proper facilities including a) a seedling greenhouse with tables, b) T-Frames and c) a good watering system. These are essential for success at this level.
- Set up a formal accounting system, including account names and numbers for every category of asset, liability, equity, income, and expense. Get help from your CPA.
- Stock up on tools, seeds, and fertilizers, and be sure to include all those costs, as well as your labor, in figuring your market prices.
You’ll have to meet or beat the competition to sell your produce at the beginning. However, by growing more, bigger, fresher, tastier, and healthier produce than others, you will develop a loyal customer base, and then you can adjust your prices as needed.
In choosing what to grow, consider a) the ease of growing, b) cost and risk of loss, c) the value of the crop, and d) varieties that are popular in your area. Cabbage is quite easy to grow; it can be started in early spring when many other crops would die; and it only requires about 60 days to mature, so you may get 2 or even 3 crops in a year. However, it doesn’t bring a very high price in the market, so you must decide if it’s worth it or not.
Let’s look at some scenarios of what could be grown and sold from one acre of ground, with good care and decent weather, and without losses from bugs and diseases (by strictly following the Mittleider Method you will minimize your crops’ susceptibility to those things):
Soil-Bed Garden – 250 30’-long Beds (as if all planted to one crop)
Beans-pole – 120 plants per bed, 1.5# per plant, $.50 per pound – – – $22,500
Corn – 92 plants per bed, 1 ear per plant, $.10 per ear – – – – – – – – – 2,300
Cucumbers – 45 plants per bed, 8# per plant, $.25 per pound – – – – – 22,500
Potatoes – 92 plants per bed, 2.5# per plant, $.10 per pound – – – – – – 5,750
Tomatoes – 40 plants per bed, 10# per plant, $.50 per pound – – – – – 50,000
The above examples are estimates only, and the actual results could be – and have been – much higher or lower, depending on many factors, including experience & care, weather, direct retail marketing vs. wholesale sales, etc.
If you are growing for the retail market using a roadside stand or farmers’ market booth, you will probably want a fairly wide variety of produce, to attract customers. While corn has low value in terms of yield for a given amount of space, it is VERY popular with customers when it’s fresh, so you may well treat it as a “Loss Leader” and have it available. But don’t try to plant too many vegetable varieties. Ten or twelve key types are far easier to handle than twenty to thirty. And three varieties of tomatoes are usually plenty. I would plant Big Beef, Italia Mia, and Grape tomatoes. One planting of Blue Lake pole beans will allow you to sell beans all season long, but bush varieties come on much sooner, and are harvested in just a few weeks.
If your customers are restaurants, you will need to grow the specific things they use, such as specialty lettuces, tomatoes, Ichiban eggplant, small red potatoes, etc. And you may need to plant a few beds of the single-crop things every couple of weeks, to have them maturing throughout the season.
If your primary market is the large grocery store or wholesale suppliers, they will usually want a large steady supply of a few things, so you may be able to plant everything to the “money” crops of beans, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes, or multiple plantings of lettuces and other quick-growing crops.
I recommend you consider this material seriously, because the day may come (and much sooner than any of us want) when your garden will be the only way you can feed your family.
Prepare NOW, and be successful no matter what the future brings!
Jim Kennard
Introducing “the Best Gardening Method on the Planet”
Introducing “the Best Gardening Method on the Planet”
The Food For Everyone Foundation’s recent 5-month humanitarian gardening training project in Armenia was a great success in helping people learn to grow their own food, and it is evidence that the Mittleider Gardening Method (MGM) is “the best gardening method on the planet” for the home vegetable gardener.
The Mittleider Gardening Method helps people in several ways. Of greatest interest to the American home gardener may be our policy of providing free vegetable gardening information, training, tips, and advice on the internet at www.growfood.com. People from all over the world visit the website to receive free training and advice, as well as to obtain the great gardening books, CDs and software written by Dr. Jacob R. Mittleider.
The Mittleider Soil-Bed Gardening Basics Course ebook is free on the website at https://growfood.com/learn/. The free FAQ section also has 365 short gardening articles that answer people’s questions and give advice on many important vegetable gardening subjects.
In addition, the Foundation’s website provides free greenhouse plans, free plans to automate a garden watering system, and a free gardening group where people share tips and experience with thousands of other successful gardeners – .
Important distinguishing features of the MGM set it apart from other methods and make it “even better than organic” as I will explain below.
Most of the time our gardens are grown right in the soil, with no soil amendments. We promise ‘a great garden in any soil, in almost any climate’. From straight sand to the worst clay, we show people how to have success growing healthy, delicious vegetables the first time and every time.”
We learned that “Grow-Boxes” or containers are sometimes needed for people in urban settings. I assure you that container gardening can be just as effective as growing in the soil, and that 3 of Dr. Mittleider’s 10 books are dedicated to the unique features of the container gardening process.
Because the costs are very low, the Mittleider Method is sometimes called “the poor man’s hydroponic method”, because it borrows from greenhouse growers such things as vertical growing, feeding plants accurately with natural mineral nutrients, and extending the growing season in both spring and fall, all of which greatly reduce costs and increase gardening yields.
The Second major element in the Foundation’s mission is teaching, training, and assisting people directly. One way we do this in America is by conducting free ½-day group gardening seminars. These can be arranged by contacting me by email at jim@growfood.com.
The third leg of FFEF’s global mission is conducting humanitarian projects, such as the above mentioned training project in Armenia. From February to mid July we created a gardening training center in the village of Getk, with housing, classroom, greenhouse, and a 3/4 acre garden. We taught a concentrated college-level gardening course to several students, who became the gardening experts in their own villages, and then we assisted those student graduates in working with 200 families in their villages. The training center and garden were left in the able hands of an Armenian couple, and we expect the work there will continue.
In Armenia, as in other places we’ve worked, we grew many kinds of vegetables the locals thought couldn’t possibly be grown in “their region”, and often have many non-participating village families coming to our garden for advice, coaching, and free produce”.
Humanitarian projects sometimes take the form of training others who are becoming missionaries for their churches. One example is Howard (a retired dentist with little previous experience in gardening) and Glenice Morgan, from Southern California, who completed a 2-year mission to Zimbabwe. They were sent to teach Mittleider gardening to their church members throughout the country, and they did a fabulous job.
After some study and nominal training in FFEF’s garden at Utah’s Hogle Zoo, the Morgans “had the time of their lives” as they created 84 large gardens and taught over 10,500 people throughout Zimbabwe and three other countries to feed themselves by growing their own healthy vegetables. And the only teaching material they used was the simplest and most basic of Mittleider’s books, called 6 Steps to Successful Gardening.
I promise that whatever level you are currently on, you too can experience this kind of success – whether it’s in your own home garden, a community effort, or as a humanitarian missionary in some distant country.
The foundation welcomes tax-deductible donations to help extend our efforts. Gifts can be made at https://growfood.com/non-profit-organization-donate/
Jim Kennard, President
Feed Your Family On 1/50th of an Acre
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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.
Jacob Mittleider – The Garden Doctor – Has Traveled the World Teaching Gardening – by Dennis Lythgoe, Deseret News
THE GARDEN DOCTOR: UTAHN HAS TRAVELED THE WORLD TEACHING PEOPLE HOW TO GROW CROPS IN ANY SOIL, CLIMATE OR CIRCUMSTANCES.
By Dennis Lythgoe, Staff Writer
Published: April 6, 1995 12:00 am
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JACOB MITTLEIDER is an Idaho baker turned agricultural wizard. For 30 years, he has specialized in turning “devil land” into genuinely productive crops that will feed families many times over.
His is a single-minded effort to help people all over the world to become self-sufficient.A Utahn for almost 20 years, he grew up in California but has spent extended periods in such underdeveloped countries as Ethiopia, India, Lebanon, Tonga, Fiji, Samoa, New Guinea and several African countries teaching people how to grow crops that will never disappoint, whatever the climate, materials or circumstances.
He is best known for his “grow-box garden,” which is known for the elimination of weeds and the production of a large crop in a small space. The old grow-box garden was planted in raised beds in open wood frames and filled with custom-made soil.
The beds were usually about 30 feet long, 5 feet wide and 8 inches high, and the nutrients were mixed in. The soil was a mixture of sawdust and sand. The boxes were purposely bottomless so the roots could penetrate the subsoil.
The “garden doctor” has learned a lot since he introduced grow-box gardening and now believes in a more refined system with even greater simplicity.
The irony is that Mittleider has never liked farming.
“I grew up on a farm, but I never could understand why we could have so many bad patches in a corn field. I remember asking my father, `Why can’t we grow it all the same?’ He said, `The ground makes the difference.’ But it just didn’t make sense to me.”
Even though he became a baker, then spent 20 years in the nursery business – growing flowers and vegetables commercially, he never forgot that conversation with his father. He was unsure of his future when some agricultural specialists at the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Loma Linda University approached him about taking a trip.
Mittleider’s nursery was located near the university. Besides, he is a devoted Adventist and had taught gardening classes there.
“I had never taken any education in agriculture, but they said, `We’d like to have a disinterested party give us a report on why the yields in these underdeveloped countries are declining.’ ”
Mittleider talked it over with his wife, Mildred, and they decided to do it. “We spent 41/2 months in 1963 in 24 developing countries, and I was never so shocked in all my life with what I saw. I said to myself, `There is absolutely no excuse for people to be going hungry, and why doesn’t some-body do something about it?’ ”
When he returned, the Australasian division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church questioned him about what he found. He was typically blunt. “You get the sunshine, the rain and the land free, and you waste all three.” Their wise response was to challenge him to spend two years in New Guinea demonstrating how to make the best use of natural resources.
Mittleider immediately remembered a simple statement about farming he had memorized years earlier: “The narrow plans, the little effort put forth, the little study as to the best methods call loudly for reform. If any of them do not wish you to speak to them of advanced ideas, let the lessons be given silently. Keep up the culture of your own land. Let the harvest be eloquent in favor of right methods. Demonstrate what can be done with the land when properly worked.”
That statement was “as loud as loud can be” in his head. He knew he could never convince anyone unless he was willing to make a demonstration, even though there was no money to underwrite the project. “Even today the same thing exists. You can find money for anything, but you can’t find it for agriculture.”
He proposed that a scientific method of agricultural production be simply taught to people in a variety of countries, and they could then care for their needs. So he went to New Guinea, where they had a plethora of weeds and did not get 2 percent off the land. He used a shovel and a rake, plus a tractor, to plow the land. Then he made a seedbed, planted and finally added nitrogen, phosphate and potassium for fertilizer. It’s called NPK.
“They hadn’t fertilized, so they got nothing. I won’t let the plants die. I can’t just look at it and forget it. I want healthy plants.”
The 110-acre farm he started is still operating today – and continues to make a profit every year. After his stay in New Guinea, Mit-tleider went to Fiji, where he transformed more wasteland into a successful modern farm.
After spending years teaching people to grow gardens in every imaginable circumstance, including Monument Valley in Utah, he was convinced anyone could do it. “I don’t care what kind of ground it is. You can grow the same kind of crops that you can on what is called `good ground.’ ”
Mittleider’s method is synonymous with simplicity. He says it is easy, eliminates guesswork and guarantees success anywhere. It is based on maximum utilization of space, time and resources. His crops tend to be large because the plants are placed close together, nourished by supplemental feedings of mineral nutrients. No special equipment is required.
“When people are sick, they go to the doctor and he takes a blood sample. And if they need potassium, he fills them up with potassium – and they go home and they’re well. With the stresses of the nursery business, I lost part of my stomach, and because of that I have to take iron now every day or I’m sick. We do the same for animals – but we have never told people that with a plant it’s just as easy to do it as it is for people and animals.”
It is Mittleider’s claim that anyone can look at an animal or a person and tell if either is healthy. “We don’t have to carry a sign saying we’re healthy. But when we look at vegetables, most of the organic produce you see is discolored, small, woody – and we say that is food we should eat.”
Mittleider has seen all the extremes of weather and circumstance in his long career – “heat, cold, wet, dry, all kinds of soil – and we grow the same kinds of crops.”
The secret is fertilizer.
Mittleider remembers being snickered at when he went to the old Soviet Union to teach his methods. “One of these guys admitted they didn’t put the fertilizer on the land. They dumped it in the creek. So they thought the fertilizer from the land killed the fish. In the collective farm days, they got paid 200 rubles a month whether they did anything or not.”
Today Mittleider maintains manure or compost are not needed to grow successful crops. “I’m not against manure or composts, but how are you gonna feed people if they don’t have it? The fact is you don’t need it. That’s what I’ve demonstrated now for 30 years. We’ll take ground as hard as this floor, but we’ll prepare a seedbed, plant, water, feed and harvest – that’s all. We don’t care what kind of ground it is.”
According to Mittleider, “The plant is going to fight, if you give it half a chance. We’ve been doing this since 1964, and we’ve never had a crop failure. We feed regularly and watch for signs of the plant’s nutrition. If it needs boron, we give it to them. If it needs more calcium, we give it to them. Plant nutrition is the key. You need 13 nutrients. This whole thing is very simple. You can’t run an automobile unless you put gas in the tank.”
So Mittleider watches his plants very closely, and if a deficiency becomes apparent in any of the 13 nutrients – whether nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, chlorine, magnesium, manganese, sulfur, copper, zinc, iron, boron or molybdenum, he treats them accordingly.
Mittleider’s analogies trip off the tongue. “There is a bank on many corners. I lean against the bank on the corner with 10 cents in my pocket. In the bank vault there is a million dollars. How much of that million dollars and 10 cents can I spend? 10 cents. That’s the way the ground is. Man doesn’t have the ability to loosen these things up and make them water soluble. Osmosis is the key to what I’m doing. These inorganic soils are loaded with nutrients.”
If anyone is critical of Mit-tleider, it is likely to be because of his conviction that chemical or inorganic fertilizer is acceptable – as opposed to organic fertilizer. He notes that organic materials are often characterized as natural, such as leaves, grass, compost, animal manure and other decayed materials. Yet such “natural” materials can be deficient in important nutrients.
In fact, Mittleider believes the most important function organic materials provide is loosening soil and adding fiber to absorb and hold moisture.
On the other hand, some people assume that because inorganic mineral fertilizers are commercially prepared and packaged, they’re unnatural and not good for plants or those who eat them.
Mittleider says, “The organic material has to rot to such a state of decomposition that it reverts to inorganic solution. Plants use nothing in the organic form. Everything a plant uses is inorganic. It’s converted to organic material in our bodies.”
Mittleider has written 10 books, the most recent of which is “6 Steps to Successful Gardening,” a quick-read paperback guide to simple, dependable gardening. In it he says, “Soils are soils and vary surprisingly little in fertility, regardless of the area or country. Even though specific minerals may vary from place to place, water-soluble minerals (those that plants require) nearly always are deficient. Thus the same type and amount of balanced, essential nutrients can be fed to all garden varieties.”
Among his other books are “More Food From Your Garden,” “Grow-Bed Gardening,” “Let’s Grow Tomatoes,” “Gardening by the Foot” and a three-volume set titled “The Garden Doctor.”
Because he is “way into” his 70s, Mittleider and his wife do not plan to travel as extensively in the future to teach gardening techniques. His friend Jim Kennard has prevailed upon him to assist in planting a piece of property he owns adjacent to Hogle Zoo, near the giraffes.
When the numerous zoo patrons look at the giraffes, they are likely to get a good glimpse of the new garden. “Jim wants to put in a showcase, and I’m going to support him. If I fail, it’ll be the first time.”
Over the years, Mittleider has worked tirelessly with various groups, including Catholics, Baptists, Apostolics, Mormons and his own Seventh-day Adventist Church, teaching the tricks of the trade. He is convinced that his work is more spiritual than practical as he dedicates himself “to the Lord.” The key to his success in teaching others his theories is that he always insists on demonstrating rather than talking.
“I’ve been to about 30 countries, and I often have several projects going at once. If I have to travel 229 miles a day to keep the gardens growing, I’ll to it. I won’t let them fail.”
And remember this – he’ll do it in the worst possible soil.
