Making Liquid Foliar Feed From Mittleider Magic Granular Weekly Feed

Turn Mittleider Weekly Feed Into Mittleider Super-Natural Nano Nutrients 

  1. Before planting your garden apply and mix into the soil both the Mittleider Pre-plant mix (1 oz/ft) and the Mittleider Weekly Feed mix (1/2 oz/ft).
  2. Begin applying foliar spray as soon as leaves appear. Do not wait until plants have true leaves.
  3. Place 8 ounces of Weekly Feed Mix into a good, strong blender, such as a Blendtec or Vitamix. If an electric blender is not available, use a manual grinder and grind as fine as possible.
  4. Blend Weekly Feed at high speed until it is as fine as cake flour (“micronized” powder – no granules).
  5. Add 1/2 Tablespoon of granular Humic Acid (com/shop) and 1 pint of boiling water to blender (distilled water if possible – pure water dissolves maximum amount of Weekly Feed and does not introduce other minerals).
  6. Blend at high speed for up to 2 minutes, adding water as possible without causing spillage.
  7. Add liquid to 3 ½ quarts of distilled water in a gallon-size plastic jug. Yields 1 gallon of Weekly Feed “NANO+” or Mittleider Super-Natural Nano Nutrients ™ concentrate.
  8. Cap and store in a safe place until needed.
  9. Shake thoroughly before each use.
  10. Add 8 ounces of this Weekly Feed NANO+ concentrate and 1/2 teaspoon Hi-Yield Liquid Spreader Sticker (Walmart, etc.) or other Non-Ionic Surfactant to 1 gallon of water in spray equipment.
  11. Preferred spraying time is morning, before the temperatures rise (below 80 degrees), or late afternoon after extreme temperatures are reduced, but at least an hour before sundown, because the stomata close around sundown.
  12. Water plants before applying foliar feed, and wait to spray nutrients until leaves are dry.
  13. Spray upper and lower leaves. Nutrients enter plants primarily through the stomata on the underside of the leaf.
  14. Observe plants carefully for scorch or wilting (will not happen unless much higher dosage is used). If either of these occur flush the plant leaves and soil with plain water and reduce concentration of the foliar feed by half.
  15. Nutrition enters plant leaves in as little as 1 hour, and is generally completed within 24 hours. Effects are often observed within a day or two.
  16. Repeat every 2-3 days, depending on growing conditions and observed results, throughout crop growing cycle. Spraying three times each week is a good place to start.
  17. Rinse sprayer tank, re-fill with clean water, and spray to clear hose and nozzle after each use.
  18. Adjust frequency of foliar spraying as needed to maintain rapid growth of your plants.
  19. Not seeing desired growth and vigor? Increase the amount of Weekly Feed concentrate you are using per gallon of spray solution. Also, consider supplementing with an application of Mittleider Weekly Feed in the soil, and document your progress and findings.
  20. For lawns, feeding 3 times at 3 to 4 week intervals is usually sufficient for a temperate climate growing season.

Since you are not watering the plants, but rather just wetting the leaves (continue watering the soil as normal – see Watering Lessons in The Mittleider Gardening Course book), a great deal less fertilizer is applied, thus saving greatly on fertilizer costs.  Our experience indicates a savings of at least 10 to 1, and often much more! 

As an example, during the months of April 24-May 21, 2024 we used just 6 ounces of Weekly Feed for a 130’ garden.  Traditional feeding by applying ½ ounce per foot of Weekly Feed to the soil per week would have required 262 ounces or 16.5#.  So, if this works the same for you, you would be using 1/43rd as much Mittleider Weekly Feed with foliar spraying the NANO+!

 Worth doing?  I know it is!

Jim Kennard – 5/22/24

Philippines Humanitarian Project – Update 2019 (And Beyond)

In 2017 I was asked to conduct a gardening training project near the town of Carigara on the very poor island of Leyte in the Philippines, for a group who are doing a lot of good over there called the Rise and Rebuild International Foundation.  It was supposed to happen in the fall of 2017, but by the time they got me there it was January, 2018.

They had purchased 15 acres of land with a river right alongside, on which we were to create this project.  By the time I arrived they had two 20 X 40 greenhouses mostly constructed (I had to change and fix some things), as well as a brick storage building complete and a large brick classroom/kitchen/bathroom facility mostly ready. 

They did NOT have electricity or running water the whole time I was there, and we had to use a loud diesel generator every day as we taught classes, in order to project the training materials and have a microphone.  Great fun!

We had 25 adults as students (7 women and 18 men), and there were 15 men hired to do the construction work, clear the jungle, remove boulders, and level the garden area. The construction crew cleared several acres of jungle while we began classes, started seedlings, mixed fertilizers (some of which we had to bring in by boat), and created a garden.

Scorpions, venomous spiders, and cobras were fairly common, and several times a week torrential rains stopped the garden work, but in every possible minute the work went on apace.

One sweet married man with children, whom I called Jean ValJean, and the other construction workers called Hercules, died of over-exertion when his heart failed, I believe from manually moving giant boulders.  That was super sad!  These men were being paid $6 per day, and were happy to have the work.  The students were paid $3 per day, but were hoping for a job running the garden after the training – for $6 per day.

Language was a real problem.  The native language is Tagalog.  I was told the students would be fairly fluent in English, but only 8 of them could read English, and some had very limited speaking vocabulary as well, so classroom teaching and testing had to go through the 8, in a tedious process every day.

In the garden it was better because they were good visual learners, plus the 8 English speakers translated to small groups as we went along.

Almost all of them were hard workers (about 4 did not take the training very seriously), and there were 4 leaders with good English skills who were intelligent, really diligent, and had good attitudes (were teachable).

We managed to keep the two 20′ X 40′ greenhouses, which were built to The Mittleider Gardening Course book specificatons busy, and we created and planted a garden of 250 – 30’-long soil beds while I was there.  Within 4 weeks of the first planting harvesting had begun, and by the time I returned home at the end of March harvesting and re-planting were going on every day.

By the time we had 200 beds, watering had become a major problem, taking half of the students much of the day just to water on the days it did not rain, until I convinced the Foundation leaders to build an elevated 6,000 gallon concrete storage tank.  With 2” pipes running throughout the garden, and faucets at the head of every few beds, the watering time became MUCH quicker, and was manageable.   Soon after that step was completed they ran pipes to the head of every bed.  Thank goodness for level beds!

And it seems that they only picked up the pace after I left!  Classes continued for 2 or 3 weeks, but then everyone focused full time on the garden/farm.

Difficult?  Probably the most challenging thing I have ever done.  Successful and worthwhile?  History will be the judge, but that history is being written rather quickly, and so far it looks very promising!

They built a refrigerated building to store, sort, clean, and pack vegetables, and continued to expand the garden, which by now they were calling a farm.  And by the end of August/early September they had expanded the one-acre garden I had left into 15 acres, and 250 beds had become 3,750!

They purchased a couple of produce trucks, began delivering fresh vegetables to the schools on the island, and now provide the noon meal for 10,000 students every day!  And they sell the excess produce for sufficient to pay all of the project expenses, including the wages of what has now become 100 workers!  (After Covid-19 reached the islands schools were closed, businesses, churches, etc. were shut down, and one of the few things that was allowed to go forward was the Rise & Rebuild produce trucks.  At every blockade/check point our trucks were ushered through, and since 2019 R & R has been feeding many thousands of families from the 100+ acre farms on 4 main islands).

Ray Goodson, the President of the Rise and Rebuild foundation told me by telephone just two weeks ago (January 2019) that the produce is known as “the biggest and best in all of the Philippines”, and that they are expanding onto 3 other islands already.  They expect to be feeding more than 20,000 school children their noon-day meal before this year is out, and they are only limited by trained workers and leadership.  (See above changes due to the pandemic).

I hope this story inspires you to see what can be done with the best gardening system on the planet, when it is used in the best way possible. 

Jim Kennard

Get 2 Years’ Supply of Nutrients NOW!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The answer is no to both questions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Healthy is Produce Grown in a Mittleider Garden?

An important question was recently asked by a member of the MittleiderMethodGardening@yahogroups.com group.

He asked “Has any type of testing ever been done on the MM produce? Just curious as I am just learning about the MM and putting in my first garden this year.” Ron

One memorable “test” of the quality of Mittleider Method-grown produce that I believe everyone will benefit from learning about is a situation that took place in Russia in 1989, when Jacob first went there to set up an Agriculture Program in a small newly established Adventist college in Zaokski – about 2 hours from
Moscow.

It was still the USSR at that time, and they were very suspicious of this American. They were just SURE he was doing something to hurt the Russian people.

Their Agriculture Agents came several times to the gardens and “stole” his beautiful healthy-looking plants, in order to test them for nitrate toxicity, etc.

After doing this several times some of the Agriculture Department scientists came to Jacob and admitted what they have been doing. They said that not only was there no toxicity in any of the plants they tested, but that Jacob’s plants were the healthiest they had ever seen.

They wanted to know all about what he was doing, and how he managed to get such healthy vegetables. Jacob was happy to teach them.

The Communists ended up sending some of the graduating students from Timorjasjev (sp), their most prestigious Agriculture University, to Jacob’s 3 month-long intensive training classes, and some of those students said “we learned more about growing
food in 3 months than we did in 5 years at the University”.

The government also for several years gave formal Certificates from that University to the graduates of Jacob’s classes.

They honored Jacob with a PhD from Timorjasjev, and they made him the featured speaker at the Yalta Conference of Agriculture Ministers.

And the Agriculture Minister went on their national television and announced that “The only food grown in Russia that’s fit to eat is grown in a Mittleider garden.”

Mittleider Method gardening in Russia today

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

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

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

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

Growing and Feeding Bananas

The question was asked by a grower in the South Pacific if the Mittleider Method works on banana trees. Following is my answer:

Yes, the Mittleider Method and the Mittleider natural mineral nutrient fertilizers work well with bananas. Let’s first learn a bit about growing them:

Banana plants are perennials which grow from underground rhizomes. The stalks are not real tree trunks, but are pseudostems, or tightly packed concentric layers of leaf sheaths, which support the leaves, and the flower and fruit bearing stalk.

One pseudostem may produce as many as 40 leaves. The plant also has an underground rhizome or corm, and a large fibrous root system. The entire plant is called a mat

The banana inflorescence (flowering stalk) emerges from the center of the pseudostem 10 to 15 months after planting, and 3-4 more months are required to produce mature fruit.

When the fruit reaches full size, and before it turns yellow the entire stalk is cut down, leaving only a stump, and the process begins again.

This entire cycle traditionally requires 15 to 18 months, but it can
be shortened when properly using the Mittleider nutrients.

Bananas are typically grown by propagating the larger “sword” or “maidenhead” pseudostems (including roots and some rhizome) from a mature rhizome, and then reducing the growing time for the following crop by allowing a second stalk to begin growing from the main rhizome of each of those propagated plants about 6 months after the first stalk emerges.

Recommended feeding times and amounts of the Mittleider fertilizers are as follows:

Mix 8 ounces (240 grams) Pre-Plant (PP) and 4 ounces (120 grams) Weekly Feed (WF) with the soil under and around the rhizome before planting.

Immediately after planting apply 2 ounces of nitrate or urea nitrogen to the soil around the plant, keeping at least 4″ (10 cm) away from the stem.

After one week apply WF, and continue monthly, starting with 4 ounces and increasing by 4 ounces each month to 32 ounces after 8 months, applying fertilizer to the root zone and watering thoroughly each time.

Continue feeding monthly until one month before the fruit is mature, increasing the amount by 4 ounces each time.

Loosen the soil at the surface and apply Pre-Plant mix again at the
end of every 6 months, using twice as much as the amount of WF you are currently feeding.

Conduct Your Own Gardening Seminars!

We are happy to conduct free gardening seminars for groups, and do so whenever possible, however the super majority of you are neither in Utah nor Alabama (where we live), and so can’t easily arrange to attend a seminar with us.

However, after you become a competent Mittleider gardener yourself YOU can conduct seminars for your own groups, becoming more competent yourselves while helping others, and really do some good for the world around you!

Simply order the Gardening Seminars CD from me, study the 4 PowerPoint Presentations and additional files I’ve included, and offer your services to others who are interested. The seminars range in length from 1/2 hour to 2 hours, and include lots of excellent pictures and instruction.

I’ve priced it very HIGH, so only those who are truly committed and wealthy can do it! That’s a joke folks – it will cost you $10 plus $3 shipping.

You can pay through PayPal to jim@growfood.com and include your address. Or you can call me at 205-607-6210 to make other arrangements.

Meanwhile, I recommend you look in the Files section of the Group site at MittleiderMethodGardening@yahoo.groups.com for two files you can use to remind yourselves of the steps, and show
others to help them learn. They are called 6 Steps Recap and
Traditional Method, and they fit on legal-sized paper – preferably
front and back on one sheet.

How to Grow Peppers from Seed

Pepper seedlings are among the hardest vegetable plants to grow, and some of the hot peppers are even more difficult than sweet peppers.

Seeds should be planted at least 8 weeks before the ALFD (average last frost date) in your immediate area. And you should not transplant the seedlings into your garden until after the ALFD.

Use a soil mixture of 65% sawdust and 35% sand. Peat moss, perlite, Coconut husks, rice hulls, coffee hulls, or pine needles can substitute for the sawdust, alone or in any combination.

Mittleider Magic Pre-Plant mix should be applied to and mixed with the soil before planting seed – at 1 1/2 oz (3 tablespoons) per cubic foot of soil – then NO fertilizer should be applied until after the seedlings emerge. Water with plain water and keep the soil moist, but not soaking wet.

If you’re only growing a few (less than 50) plant the seeds 2″ apart in a seedling flat. For hundreds or thousands of plants place 100-125 seeds per row in 1/4″-deep furrows 2″ apart in a tray.

Cover the tray with burlap to avoid moving the seeds as you water.

Keep the planting soil-mix moist and between 75 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit. No light is best until the seeds show above the soil, then immediate sunlight is needed for 8-12 hours each day, to prevent the stem from “stretching” to seek adequate light.

If you can’t give the seedlings direct sunlight they must have grow-lights within 1″ of the plant leaves for 16+ hours per day. Two Fluorescent lights – one warm and one cool – work well.

Again, constant temperatures should be maintained in the 75-85 range.

A Constant Feed solution of 16 ounces Weekly Feed mix to 55 gallons of water (a scant 1 ounce per 3 gallons water) should be used for watering the seedlings immediately after emergence.

Seedlings should be transplanted 2″ – 2 1/2″ apart by the time they get their second set of true leaves. The soil for this transplant should contain both Pre-Plant at 1 1/2 oz and Weekly Feed at 3/4 oz per cubic foot of soil mix.

Peppers grow slowly and need warm temperatures to do well. They will also require a few days to recover from the transplant, so don’t be discouraged if they are still small after 3-4 weeks.

Before transplanting to the garden take seedlings outside onto tables in full sun for 2 to 3 days, to “harden them off”, or acclimatize them to the outside growing conditions. If the nights get very cold bring the plants back inside.

Some protection may also be needed after the seedlings are in the garden. Mini-greenhouses made with greenhouse plastic over arched PVC frames will keep cold winds off the plants and allow the sun to warm the soil much faster.

Remove the covers when outside temperatures approach 70 degrees, and make sure that temperatures in the beds do not exceed 80-85 degrees. Some air flow during the daytime is important.

Article on Need for Reconnecting With The Land

A Mittleider gardener recently brought the following article to my attention. It talks about the need to update the methods of growing food worldwide. news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7795652.stm

The article has some good points, especially the idea that the people of Great Britain (and everywhere else) should re-connect with their land. What they REALLY need to do is to adopt the Mittleider model as taught in this website!

Instead of doubling the world’s food output, we can increase food production as much as TEN TIMES over traditional methods.

And FAMILIES need to be taught how to do it THEMSELVES. That way control and responsibility, as well as the benefits, are all where they NEED and DESERVE to be – in the hands of the common people.

The problems of biodiversity, energy, water scarcity, and urbanization are best addressed and solved by FAMILIES taking control of their own food production needs. Let’s teach EVERYONE the system that saves more than 1/2 the normal water and is very efficient in space and energy conservation, while greatly increasing the quantity and QUALITY of their food.

The fact that the large majority of people live in urban environments only argues more strongly for the Mittleider growing system, because we teach people how to grow in the dirt OR containers ANYWHERE, and to grow VERTICALLY, to maximize the use of any available space.

A prime example of how this has worked in the recent past is the former USSR. I believe history will show that the Mittleider Method played an important role in saving the people of the Russian Commonwealth countries from returning to communism in the 90’s.

Those people were terrified of freedom and the responsibility it entailed when it was thrust upon them in the summer of 1991, but God sent Jacob Mittleider over there to establish his agriculture training program in a small college in 1989, and by the summer of ’91 there were a cadre of teachers available, plus books, videos, and other materials translated and distributed throughout the country.

These things provided hope and a highly successful model to follow, and I’m told the Mittleider Method is now the most productive and popular way of growing family gardens throughout many regions of those vast countries.

One of these days – hopefully soon – the “tipping point” will be reached here in America, and people will wake up to the importance of growing their own food in the most sustainable and productive way possible.

Congratulations on being a part of it!