| Our bodies were designed to be herbivores, and as you eat primarily a whole food, plant-based diet you will be healthier, need less volume of food, avoid many chronic health problems, and live a longer, happier life!
Follow the Sample Garden Plan included on a following page and you can eat fresh, healthy and tasty vegetables from your own garden – even one as small as 1/50th of an acre.
By planting a spring garden, a summer garden, and a fall garden (using the same beds over again) you can harvest as much as 1,600# of 24 different vegetables. That’s 4 1/3# per day of fresh home-grown food!!
You have made a very wise choice by starting with fresh seeds with a high germination rate. Good seeds are very inexpensive but SO important! You have a multi-year storage pouch containing almost 23,000 of the best Heirloom Seeds you can buy. We’re calling it the Sustainable Family Garden Heirloom Seed Pouch.
The Sample Garden Plan shows that your spring garden has only 7 plant varieties, with only 101 seeds that need to be grown beforehand and transplanted into the garden. Of the 1,104 seeds to plant 1,003 can be planted directly into the garden! Follow the attached Garden Planting Details Schedule for pretty much everything you need to know about when, where, and how to plant everything in your garden.
Growing your own seedlings is simple and straight forward. If you don’t know how to do this, consider getting the complete Mittleider Gardening Course book (www.growfood.com/shop), and just follow the instructions in Lesson 22. We’re only talking about 7 plant varieties, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, kale, and the two lettuce, and most of them grow at about the same rate, so they can all be grown in a single 10″ X 20″ or 18″ X 18″ seedling flat, Place the celery on an outside row, as it is slower growing.
And for the plants you’ll put directly into the garden maximize yield and minimize thinning by mixing1part seeds with 100 parts sand. Then give your plants protection in cold weather with PVC “mini a-frames” covered with 6 mil plastic, and a little heat on cold nights. Lesson 23 of the Mittleider gardening course book includes detailed instructions for this as well. J
For your summer garden 151 seeds go directly into the garden, and only 52 seeds, including broccoli, cabbage, cucumbers, peppers, and tomatoes are best transplanted as seedlings into the garden.
Again, one seedling flat is ample. Just start your tomatoes and peppers about 8 weeks before you expect to put them in the garden, and the others – broccoli, cabbage and cucumbers – start 3-4 weeks before they go into the garden.
For the fall garden carrots and potatoes are planted directly in the garden. That’s 368 seeds, and 168 seeds of 5 others we recommend transplanting. Broccoli, cabbage and lettuce are best transplanted, and onions and turnips benefit from an early start in the seedling flat to allow them time to mature in the garden
Prune your plant leaves at least weekly, and EAT the edible leaves daily (listed as R/T)! Eating the outer leaves and celery stalks regularly keeps your plants producing for MANY MONTHS, increases your harvest substantially, and keeps them from going to seed. Notice that Kale, chard, and celery only need one planting for the entire growing season!
You are now on your way to getting more than 3/4 of a TON of vegetables, pretty much every variety you need and want, in order to sustain a healthy eating lifestyle.
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