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.

Extending your Vegetable Garden’s Growing Season by 4 to 6 Weeks – In Both Spring and Fall

Today I want to assist many of you who are wondering how to extend your growing season for a few more weeks. For some it may be too late, as in high elevations like Randolph, Utah, where it was below freezing more than one night in August, but most of the lower elevations in Utah and around the country are still frost-free as I’m writing this article.

How can you deal with the special challenges of living in colder climates? Several difficult weather conditions make successful vegetable gardening an “iffy” proposition, unless you learn how to protect your plants against them. The Mittleider vegetable gardening books are excellent sources of information on this topic. Let’s discuss briefly what these challenges are, and how you can successfully mitigate their negative effects.

First off, many places have late spring frosts, which keep us from getting started in our gardens – often until mid or late May. Second, many of us have strong winds throughout the growing season that buffet our plants and dry everything out. Third, others of us face the scarcity and cost of water. And finally, we often have early crop-killing frosts, usually followed by several weeks of mild weather that could support continued growth and harvesting.

So how do you handle the shorter growing season with unseasonable frosts, the constant drying winds, and the lack of water? Let’s deal with the wind first, since the solution to that also helps reduce the other problems. To protect your garden’s tender plants, build solid fences or plant trees and shrubs between your garden and the prevailing winds – but put them far enough away that you do not shade your garden! So rifaximin help me to do my work best, because this antibiotic https://www.buygenericmds.com/rifaximin-xifaxan-rifagut work very good, generic Xifaxan can be delivered to United States, United Kingdom. Always remember that the First Law of plant growth is light, and growing vegetables need direct sunshine at least 6-8 hours, and preferably all day long. This means that you also want to place your shade trees so as to leave the garden in full sun.

Some of you do container gardening, or raised boxes. When these are subjected to hot winds they are difficult to keep cool and moist. Consider either larger Grow-Boxes – we recommend 18″ or 4′ wide and up to 30′ in length – or growing in the regular soil. Remember that Dr. Jacob Mittleider promises “a great garden in any soil, in almost any climate.”

Next is watering. You will save ½ or more on your water usage by following these procedures. And it’s amazing how much heat and wind plants can handle if they are properly fed and watered. First, make certain your Grow-Boxes or raised soil-beds are accurately leveled, and that soil-beds have a 4″ ridge around them. Then apply 1″ of water right at the soil surface (not by sprinkling!) before your soil becomes the least bit dry – even every day in the heat of summer if needed. This will place the precious water right at the plant roots, and waste none. Finally, automating your watering using ¾” PVC pipes, with 3 tiny #57 holes every 4″, will make watering fast, easy, and efficient.

Extending your growing season is accomplished in two ways. Next February and March we’ll discuss the first, which is how to grow healthy seedlings in a protected environment and transplant them into the garden after the danger of frost is past. The second thing you can do, even right now if frost hasn’t already killed your garden, is to make “Mini-Greenhouses” for covering your plants. By themselves they are good, but with a small heat source they can extend your growing season in both Spring and Fall even more, often by 4-6 weeks.

Use PVC pipe, bent in a capital “A” shape, but with a 6″ flat top, to fit your bed or box, and covered with 6 mil greenhouse plastic. This provides some protection against frost at night, and will warm the plants on cold days. Cover the edges with dirt all around, and open up when it gets warm. More details are at http://www.growfood.com in the Blog and FAQ sections. And of course the best source for Dr. Jacob Mittleider’s gardening wisdom is The Mittleider Gardening Course book at the same location in the Shop section.

Free Vegetable Gardening Seminars – Tips & Techniques to Turn a Weed Patch into the Garden of Eatin!

I am delighted for the opportunity of presenting free ½-day vegetable gardening seminars again this winter and next spring to groups who request them. My availability is necessarily limited, and timing is critical, so get your church, community, or gardening club involved now!

Seminars include 2+ hours of fast-paced video instruction in the classroom, and 2+ hours of demonstration and practice in the garden. Your group will learn the unique world-renowned Mittleider Method of vegetable gardening that’s been called “the best of organic”, “better than organic,” and “the poor man’s hydroponic system,” and that promises you a great garden in any soil and in virtually any climate.

Whatever size garden you have to work with – whether 100 square feet or one acre; whether on a patio, in containers, or in the dirt; and whether it’s organic, or even hydroponic, you will learn to solve your unique problems and improve your gardening success. And you’ll enjoy gardening for a change!

You’ll learn tips and techniques for maximizing your limited space – eliminating weeds – using less water more efficiently – increasing yields – improving quality – extending your growing season – and minimizing problems with bugs and diseases.

Next summer you can eat fresh garden-grown tomatoes almost as soon as others are getting theirs established and growing in the garden! And you can still be enjoying them in December, long after your neighbors are paying top prices for “plastic” store-bought varieties. And you don’t need expensive greenhouses or hydroponic equipment to do it!

Dr. Jacob Mittleider developed these methods specifically for family gardeners all over the world. And we keep the procedures simple and the costs down, so that families, whatever their financial situation, can grow their own food and achieve health, self-sufficiency, and independence, while enjoying the experience.

You’ll want a large group (50-100 minimum) and a tilled garden space near the classroom (2-3 minute drive maximum), to assure the maximum benefit for all participants.

Email the Foundation with the details of your request at jim@growfood.com, or call 801-915-4449 or 888-548-4449. Let’s make 2020 the best, most productive, and most enjoyable gardening year you’ve ever had! i had great results with my husband when i use Tadalista wich i received from http://buymdonline.com/tadalista/ i bought generic tadalafil under brand name Tadalista, guys ship medications from India

Meanwhile, if you live too far away, or can’t get a large group together, you can get most of the benefits of an in-person seminar by ordering the Gardening Seminar DVD , or the Mittleider Gardening Library CD from the Foundation at https://growfood.com/shop. And if you don’t already have it, the latest edition of The Mittleider Gardening Course book is 304 pages – all in color, with 150 great garden pictures and dozens of illustrations – of the best gardening book on the planet. Get yours now!

Growing a Sustainable Vegetable Garden

Do you wish you could grow a sustainable vegetable garden? Now you CAN have a sustainable garden of your own in a very small space. And it can be fun as well as VERY productive!

Whether you use organic gardening, container gardening, hydroponic gardening, raised-bed gardening, or straight soil-bed gardening, the things we discuss here will work to give YOU a sustainable garden!

Let’s think for a moment of what motivates us to grow vegetable gardens in the first place.

Many of us want the taste of fresh picked-when-ripe tomatoes, corn, peas and etc. Some folks believe it’s the healthiest way to live. Others love the fresh air and exercise, digging in the dirt, and the joy of being a co-creator with God.

The idea of having our food grown by strangers on huge farms in far distant places, while perhaps using harmful pesticides and herbicides, makes others want the security and control of growing their own. And at times like 9/11 we all feel vulnerable to disruptions in the complex delivery system that brings food to our doors. Also when i work in the garden my husband order http://buycenforce.com Cenforce from India to the USA, Cenfroce work for him better.

Sustainable Gardening is really quite simple, and most of the work is already done for you by nature. All you need to do is learn and follow 10 basic rules. The following steps will assure you a great gardening experience. Learn and enjoy!

1) Choose a location A) away from shade of all kinds B) that’s reasonably level, C) has a good water supply, and D) has easy access

2) Remove everything from the soil: rocks, rubbish, and vegetation, including roots and runners of perennial weeds and shrubs. Then till or dig everything 8″ to 10″ deep.

3) Plan, stake, and build level ridged soil-beds in which to plant seeds or seedlings. An 18″-wide soil-bed or open-bottom box, with aisles of 3 1/2′ is ideal.

4) Assure balanced nutrition for your crops. Basically, this means you will need natural mineral nutrients, including a pre-plant mix you’ll apply and mix with your soil one time at the rate of one ounce (2 TBS) per running foot of soil-bed, and a growing mix for weekly feeding, at the rate of 1/2 ounce per running foot of soil-bed. These are mixes you can make yourself at very little cost. We’ll tell you exactly how to make these two mixes in another article.

5) Plant seedlings or seeds at the proper time, so they don’t freeze, and space them based on their size at maturity, to give them ample growing room.

6) Immediately after transplanting seedlings, give them a boost with 34-0-0 or other nitrogen fertilizer. Apply 4″ from plant stems along the row of plants, using 1/4 ounce per running foot of soil-bed. Water thoroughly.

7) Three days after transplanting, or immediately upon emergence of sprouted seedlings, begin applying the growing mix, using 1/2 ounce per running foot of soil-bed. Continue weekly until 3 weeks before crop maturity. Look for more about feeding your crops in another article.

8) At the first sign of tiny weeds, use a 2-way hoe to remove them. Never let weeds get even one inch high, but continue weeding until they give up. E and O weeding (early and often!) will assure you a weed-free garden, along with much more abundant and healthier crops.

9) Water down the center of your level, ridged soil-beds daily, or as needed to maintain moisture in your soil-beds. Never let the soil dry out, since wilting plants are already dying.

10) Harvest your crops at the peak of maturity for best appearance, taste, and health benefit. Never leave crops in the garden after maturity, or they will quickly lose their food value and attract bugs and diseases.

Just learn these few basic rules, follow them accurately, and watch nature’s miracle turn your bare ground into a cornucopia of tasty and healthy fruits and vegetables.

In coming articles we’ll cover these steps in more detail so you can feel comfortable about why and exactly how to do things the best way – for your plants, your own health, and the environment.

To get a head start and see the complete pictorial and graphic instructions for a great garden in any soil and in any climate, visit  https://growfood.com/shop/the-mittleider-gardening-course/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/26194

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.

Understanding Salinity & Osmosis for a Sustainable Garden

The physical law known as osmosis affects plants and animals alike, and it is important to understand how it works, so your garden can benefit, rather than be harmed by its universal effects. You will also be healthier if you pay attention to salinity and osmosis in your own body.

The principle of osmosis states that where there are two saline solutions separated by a semi-permeable membrane, the solution with the lower salinity will migrate across the membrane to the saltier solution until the two solutions are equal in salinity. I recommend you re-read the foregoing statement and really understand what it means, because it is VERY important.

In humans, animals, and plants mineral salts are essential to life. They are taken into the bloodstream of the body by mouth, or the sap of the plant through the roots, and are then used to build the cell structure and maintain the health of the living organism.

In plants, so long as the salt solution in the plant is stronger than the solution outside of the plant, available water will continue coming into the plant. A plant is more than 80% water by weight, and so plants need water constantly. In hot weather it’s especially important, since as much as 95% of the water that enters a plant is used to perform transpiration – like human sweating – to keep the plant cool.

Most everyone understands that if water is withheld from a plant it will quickly wilt and die. What most folks don’t understand, however, is that even if ample water is available to the plant roots, if it is as salty as the solution inside the plant, the plant CAN NOT absorb any of that water. And if the water being applied is saltier than the water inside the plant, water will LEAVE the plant.

How can something like that happen? Who would be so foolish as to water their plants with salty water? Actually it can happen fairly easily, and it does happen more than people realize. Let me mention two ways that are probably the most common, so that you can avoid having it happen to you.

First, many people apply 2-3″ of manure to their growing beds, in the desire to fertilize the plants and improve the soil structure. The problem is that many times manure – especially feed-lot manure – is quite salty, containing from ½ to 2% each of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, in addition to other elements, even including such things as sodium chloride or common table salt because of salt-licks provided to the animals.

Applying 2+ inches of manure to a 30′-long soil-bed requires 200-300# of manure, and can add several POUNDS of these various salts to your soil. The salinity this creates will often pull water out of your plants, “burning” and even killing them. By contrast, the Mittleider method of feeding your garden adds about 7 ounces of salts to the soil in a 30′ bed a few times over the course of the growing season.

The second way saline water can get into your garden is if you use water that has had some kind of salt added upstream from your garden, or from a well with saline water. This almost happened to me just this morning.

I was watering the Armenia Project’s model garden I’m using to demonstrate and teach the Mittleider Method in Ashtarak, a small city near the Armenian Capital city of Yerevan. The water comes in a small canal, and it was clear when I began, but as I started to water a bed of eggplant, the water suddenly became very cloudy and dirty. Luckily, I noticed what was happening and stopped watering immediately.

If you ever find yourself with saline water in your plants’ root zone, you should flush the salts out as quickly and completely as possible. This requires heavy watering several times with clean water. Sometimes it’s fairly easy, and sometimes it’s difficult or even impossible to accomplish before your plants have died.

As with most everything in life, prevention is much better than cure, so avoid the conditions that can lead to a salinity problem, and you’ll help assure yourself of a sustainable garden with healthy, fast-growing plants.

Soil Tests for the Family Garden – Necessity or a Waste?

The question is often asked if the family gardener should pay for a soil test before planting his garden.  Our advice is to not pay for a soil test.  However, a few students have discovered a statement by Dr. Jacob Mittleider in the book Food For Everyone (P 137) wherein he states that “The soil test is the beginning of operations…”.  Following is my response.

The book Food For Everyone was written in 1972, and at that time Dr. Mittleider was having soil tests done wherever he went, including numerous developing countries. However, over the ensuing years he learned enough that by the time most of his GARDENING books were published Jacob no longer used nor recommended soil tests, and here’s why.

Two reasons for soil tests were (1) to determine the soil pH, because plants are best able to take nutrients from the soil and use them when the pH is between 6.5 and 7, and (2) to determine any nutrient deficiencies in the soil.

Through long experience and field testing in gardens all over the world Jacob learned that whenever annual rainfall is 20″ or more the soil pH is below 7 (acidic), and the simple solution is to use lime – to raise the pH and to supply essential calcium.

When annual rainfall is 18″ or below the soil pH is above 7 (alkaline) and the solution is to use gypsum as the calcium source. It will not raise pH because it contains almost equal parts calcium (raises pH) and sulfur (lowers pH).  And Jacob learned that this was usually all that was necessary to grow successfully in high pH soils.

If the high pH in the soil continues to be a problem simply apply sulfur to lower the pH.

Furthermore, Jacob’s long experience with soil tests taught him that they often did not accurately predict the availability of the nutrients to the plants. The natural state of the many mineral compounds in the soil is to be “fixed” or adhered to the soil particles, and in order for the plants to use them the minerals must be water-soluble and pass in the soil water into the plant through the root hairs. That availability changes quickly, and a test taken last month, even if accurate at the time, may not be accurate today or tomorrow.

Jacob also learned that soils throughout the world were almost universally low in available nutrients, and he created a balanced formula containing all 13 essential plant nutrients that he applied everywhere in the world with great success.  And they are applied weekly throughout the growing season so that they are available to the plants as needed.

This knowledge allowed Dr. Mittleider to eliminate the need for soil testing, thus saving time and costs for everyone.  This is a tremendous boon, especially for the family gardener, because they have neither the time, the money, the knowledge, nor the patience to order and wait for soil tests.

Hydroponic or Organic – What’s the Difference?

HYDROPONIC OR ORGANIC – What’s the difference? by Roger H. Thayer
www.simplyhydro.com/hydvsorg.htm

I’d like to have a dollar for each time I’ve been asked, “Is it organic?”, since I started in the hydroponics business in 1972, I’d be rich!

Is hydroponics organic? Is it chemical? What are the similarities and the differences? These questions have never really been answered to the satisfaction of most people as evidenced by the fact that I am asked the same questions today as often as I was nearly 20 years ago.

Many people are confused by the word “organic” as it means different things to different people.To the farmer, the word organic means no pesticides or herbicides. No potentially toxic or hazardous materials are to be used on crops to control bugs, weeds and diseases.

To the gardener, the word usually means all of these things, plus that no unnatural or man-made chemicals are to be used. Only “organic” fertilizers and natural controls.

They must: be made by nature, not by man.
To the chemist, on the other hand, the word “organic” means something totally different. In chemistry there are two distinct branches: inorganic and organic chemistry. Inorganic chemistry deals with non living materials. Organic chemistry focuses on the carbon and carbon containing compounds, typically associated with life.

Biologists and botanists, and others who deal with the life sciences, are stuck in the middle. When they deal with chemists and other scientists, they have to adhere to the chemical definition of organic. When they talk to the farmer or gardener, they have to talk in different terms. To them, organic means “natural,” not carbon based. They can say one thing, but really mean something else.

There is really no difference between an atom, mineral or the element itself. What matters is whether or not they are in a form that is non harmful and that can be used by plants. If so, they are beneficial whether natural or man-made.

Plants do not take up carbon at the roots, they get all they need from the CO2 in the air, so the term “organic gardening” is confusing. The same minerals are needed in either hydroponic or organic growing.
These minerals are provided to plants in the organic garden as they are released from organic matter by the action of microbes, worms and bacteria. In hydroponics, these same elements are provided by water soluble mineral salts.

In hydroponics, mineral elements are provided by the use of mineral salts. These may be either naturally derived or man-made, but most have been purified and processed so that they are water soluble and in a form that can be used by plants. Many start out as mined minerals or naturally concentrated deposits that are dissolved and processed into compounds with a definite molecular structure and composition.
In the refining process, these mineral salts are usually purified to remove heavy metal contaminants and toxic substances that could harm plants or people.
Since the chemical composition is precisely known, different mineral salts can be combined to form a balanced hydroponic nutrient. When dissolved in the proper proportions with a good quality water, a hydroponic nutrient solution can provide all of the mineral elements needed for plant growth without soil.
By its nature, the hydroponic method eliminates much of the uncertainty and guesswork found in organic growing. Some adjustments are normally made for proper pH, controlling nutrient concentrations (parts per million), and to maintain balance between the nutrients provided. These are usually easy adjustments and within the control of the grower.
In a well built hydroponic installation, all conditions are controllable so optimum plant growth can be achieved, even surpassing nature.
But is it organic? Can a hydroponic plant nutrient be classified as organic? Probably not, unless you go back to the chemical definition of the word, that is a substance that contains carbon. By this definition, many “chemical” nutrient formulas would be considered organic. These include the chelated trace elements as well as urea, which contains carbon in the form (NH2)2CO.
It is also possible to define a hydroponic nutrient solution as organic by drawing on the definition many people use that organic is “natural”. Most of the mineral elements used in hydroponics start out as mined rock or mineral deposits which are as natural as the earth itself. The important point is that it is not the elements that are different in organic and hydroponic growing, it is how these elements are obtained and delivered to the plant.

Pros and cons: There are definite advantages and disadvantages to both organic and hydroponic growing. Land is still available for conventional agriculture. With proper techniques and care, organic growing can yield good, nutritious crops on a large scale with minimal expense, although it can be labor intensive.

Organic growing has an element of uncertainty, as already mentioned, but with care and knowledge, that can be kept to a minimum.

Still, optimal mineral and element composition is going to involve guesswork unless expensive chemical soil analysis is routinely done and soil amendments are used to correct deficiencies.

Most of the amendments used in modern agriculture happen to be the exact same mineral salts that are used in most hydroponic nutrient formulas.
The advantages of hydroponic growing are increased yield through complete nutritional and environmental control, the absence of competing weeds and soil borne diseases, increased crop density and reduced water consumption.

With recycling systems, hydroponics uses one tenth the amount of water used by irrigated agriculture. Growing media are easily sterilized and conditions can be altered quickly to suit specific crops or the growth stage of a particular crop, such as during flowering or fruit production.

The main disadvantage is the initial set up cost. The cost of a good installation is fairly high ($1,000,000+/acre), but if quality materials are used that cost can be spread out over many years.

What about using hydroponic nutrients in an organic or soil garden! There are many advantages to this kind of hybrid application, combining organic compost with hydroponic nutrients similar to Mittleider Gardening.

Care must be taken not to overdose the plants with such a system. If a full strength chicken manure is used with a full strength hydroponic solution the plants can be burned. Handled properly the system could eliminate mineral deficiencies.

Plants grow faster and healthier as long as pH, drainage and water/nutrient retention are adequate. Because the plants are healthier they are able to ward off insects and diseases, further enhancing yield.