Food For Everyone Gardening Seminar Outline

Classroom Instruction – 2 /1/2 hours
1.History and development of unique world-wide gardening methods.
2.Six Laws of Plant Growth – DVD Presentation of Sustainable Gardening.
3.Instruction in “The poor man’s hydroponic method” of gardening.
4.Instruction in “The best of organic” method of gardening.
5.When (based on ADLF), how, and where to plant all 4 types of vegetables.
6.Extend your growing season both Spring and Fall – Protecting your plants.
7.Organic vs chemical feeding of plants – the best of both worlds.
8.Heirloom vs hybrid seeds and how to avoid GMO seeds.
9.Growing your own seedlings for healthier plants early and late.
10.Gardening in the soil – “A great garden in any soil, with no soil amendments.”
11.Tools and techniques for eliminating weeds from the garden.
12. Video on creating and caring for a soil-bed garden with only ½ the water.
13.Successful gardening in containers of any size – Introduction to Grow-Boxes.
14.Controlling bugs, diseases, and animal pests.
15.Vertical growing to increase yields and reduce losses from pests and diseases.
16.In-The-Garden greenhouse for protection from both cold and heat.

In The Garden – Hands-on Workshop – 2-4 hours
1.Introduction to essential gardening tools and equipment.
2.Demonstrate proper soil preparation including elimination of weeds.
3.Plan and organize garden space to maximize sunshine & water availability.
4.Create a working soil-bed garden with raised, ridged beds.
5.Build Grow-Boxes (containers) and fill with soil mix materials.
6.Apply balanced natural mineral nutrients to the soils for a healthy garden.
7.Build T-Frames, install and demonstrate their use in growing vertically.
8.Discuss and demonstrate planting and covering seeds in all types of soil.
9.Teach and demonstrate planting seedlings in soil and container gardens.
10.Demonstrate watering methods for maximum results with minimum water.
11.Build and demonstrate ease of use and other benefits of automated watering.
12.Daily and weekly care and feeding of your garden for maximum yield.
13.Build and Demonstrate use of mini-greenhouses to extend growing season.
14.Demonstrate greenhouse-in-the garden to protect plants from heat & cold.


Food For Everyone Foundation
4348 Spring Brook Lane
Gardendale, Alabama 35071
(205) 607-6210 - (801) 915-4449
www.foodforeveryone.org - jim@growfood.com

Black Krim tomato

One of the many tomatoes I grew in my Mittleider sustainable organic garden this year.

Lemon boy tomato

Lemon Boy low acid tomato, I grew these in my sustainable organic garden using the Mittleider method.

jalepeno pepper

Super happy with this years harvests

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Aisles, Paths, Walkways etc - Moving "improved" soil

Everyone please remember that 90-95% of the work of growing healthy plants is done by the process of photosynthesis using 3 elements that come from the air, and made possible by sunlight and the attendant warm temperatures, plus water.

5%+ of the work is done by the other 13 essential nutrients, which man can control and supply.

Soil provides 6 functions, including
1) Anchoring the plants,
2) Holding moisture,
3) Storing nutrients,
4) Allowing oxygen to reach plant roots,
5) Allowing for drainage, and
6) buffering the temperature.

All 6 of those functions can be adequately provided by the worst of soils, if the gardener uses level, raised, ridged beds, and provides water and small amounts of balanced natural mineral nutrients.

Therefore, amending your soil is not essential to having a good and productive garden.

Furthermore, adding organic materials to your garden soil, while it can improve soil tilth and add small amounts of nutrition, may also introduce diseases, weed seeds, and destructive insects into the garden. For these reasons we recommend you exercise care and caution in trying to "improve" your soil.

Moving existing "improved" soil to another location may provide a benefit, if none of the 3 negatives are present, but it is a lot of work, and is not necessary. Plus, it leaves the existing garden area with beds that are 4-6" higher than they should be from the aisles. This may make it difficult to keep moisture in the beds, and thus require much more water, or leave your plants suffering for lack of it. All things considered, I can't recommend it, but just know that your plant roots will reach out into the aisle area somewhat (depending on water availability there), and can thus benefit from the soil.

How does Hard Water effect fertilizers

Hard Water (high pH) - effect on fertilizers

Q. We’re told our pH is very high here. Can we grow a garden? What amendments do we need to apply so that we can grow in this soil?

A. Probably the only thing you need to do is use gypsum in your Pre-Plant Mix. However, if you were to test your water and discover that it is in the pH range of 8.5-8.9, since sulfur lowers pH, you might need to use some sulfuric acid in the water to bring the pH down closer to 7.

Consider that Dr. Mittleider himself lives 20 miles from Yucaipa, California (notoriously high pH) and does nothing other than using gypsum. And his daughter lives IN Yucaipa, and they do nothing other than using gypsum, and they have wonderful gardens.

In Duccor, California several years ago, Dr. M. had water with a pH of 8.6-8.9 and he used sulfuric acid in the water. Other than that and one other place in Idaho, he has never had to go to those extremes.

He says to treat your blueberries like everything else, and if they aren't thriving, a little more gypsum, or in the worst case, a little sulfur will take care of it.

Mixing Square Foot Gardening with The Mittleider Method?

Q. I would like to get the fertilizing method clarified. For the past 3 years I have used the square foot gardening method in raised beds. Last year I wasn't as happy with my tomato production and realized when my husband turned the bed that I would have to do something with the soil. Initially it was 1/3 top soil, 1/3 peat moss and 1/3 compost.
So this spring I decided to do some online research on how to fix my soil and came across the Mittleider Method. I thought I would be able to incorporate some of these methods with the square foot method. So, we added a bag of manure to each raised bed. They are 4' x 10' for 3 and 4' x 8' for two. We worked this into the beds along with some chopped leaves and peat moss. Once the soil was well mixed, we leveled it off and added 5-10-15 pre-planting fertilizer. In addition bone meal 7-5-0 was sprinkled on tope of each bed as rabbit
control. This was done before I read the ebook on the Mittleider method for fertilizing. Can I continue on with the weekly fertilizing? Do I really add fertilizer on a weekly basis? Since my beds are only 10' long, how much fertilizer would I use?

BTW, last year our garden with the exception of tomatoes did well. I was able to can 21 quarts of green beans besides what we ate fresh. It was a bad gardening year too. It was too hot and too dry. Tomatoes were really so so. Even zucchini did poorly which is why I started looking for other methods. I like the square foot method for higher yield production in small areas yet the fertilizing makes a lot of sense to me. So this year my garden is a mix of the square foot method and Mittleider method along with a heavy reliance on companion plantings.

A. I can't answer for what you can do, since you didn't say how much of anything you put in your beds, except the manure. I suspect you added more of the things you mention than needed, and you say nothing about the important secondary and trace minerals.

The reason fertilizing using the Mittleider Method produces such great gardens consistently year after year is that we always know just what we are adding to the soil, and we provide just what the plants need of all 13 natural mineral elements, without taking the risks of disease, weed seeds, and bugs that are so often associated with compost and manures.

We apply only small amounts of the Weekly Feed mix (5 ounces to a 10' row of plants) on a weekly basis until 3 weeks before harvest for single crop varieties, and until 8 weeks before first frost for ever-bearing plants like
tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, etc.

Best of success to you. I do hope you'll give the Mittleider Method a fair chance. I'm confident you'll be pleased with the easy and simple procedures, and especially pleased with your yields of beautiful healthy produce.

How much water pressure is needed for auto watering?

Watering System Question

Q. When I set up my watering pipes, I made a separate hose attachment for each row.
Now I would like to connect them to a manifold to water several rows at a time.
How many rows can be watered at once with a typical house faucet pressure? The
south side of my garden has 9 rows, and the north side has 4. Thanks!

A. With a water source of a 3/8" (sometimes smaller!) water hose you won't have much
success watering multiple rows at the same time, unless your rows are
substantially shorter than 30'.

I water 25 rows at one time, but I have a 2" main line with water delivered by a
5 HP Honda pump. The laterals that feed 20-25 rows are 1 1/2", and T's that feed
individual beds are 3/4".

A 1" main line could water several beds at a time - the number being dependent
on the water pressure to your garden.

Gardening seminars

Great news Jim is giving gardening seminars much more info to follow, we are also shooting videos of the presentations and will be uploading them to Youtube,

Whopper tomato Mittleider garden 2009

Six factors to control in your garden

Six Elements to Control PP Presentation – Narration
Source Food for Everyone Foundation


1. The Mittleider Method of gardening is sometimes called “The Poor Man’s Hydroponic Method” – and for good reason. (Hydroponic growers are able to consistently control all elements of the growing process, and therefore get maximum yields.)

In the next few minutes you will learn how to control the 6 elements that are necessary to healthy and productive plant growth.

2. The large commercial hydroponic growers do it best, and as a consequence they are able to produce as much as 330 TONS per acre!

However, in order to do that hydroponic growers must invest about $1,000,000 per acre in buildings and equipment, and in addition they have very high labor costs.

3. Our garden yields approach the hydroponic growers, and yet the investment is a TINY FRACTION of the typical hydroponic grower’s.

That’s why the label “The Poor Man’s Hydroponic Method” fits – anyone can do it. And some call this method “The best of organic” also! You’ll learn why as we go along.

Using the principles and procedures illustrated here you can have a GREAT garden in ANY soil – or in NO soil – in virtually any climate. You discover that soil and climate differences are NOT major problems.

You’ll learn to control the 6 basic physical conditions necessary for healthy plant growth.

(By borrowing hydroponic growers’ principles and procedures, and adapting them to the small family gardener – we increase the quality and quantity of our garden yields MANY times as compared to traditional methods.)


4. The most important factor to control is LIGHT – for reasons that should be obvious.

Light is life! And nowhere is it more obvious than in the world of plants, where 95% of the structure is the result of that marvelous miracle called photosynthesis.

Using just the three basic elements carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen plants create CARB-O-HYDRATES.

(Number one in importance is providing maximum sunlight – for as long as possible. In the far North plants go crazy in the summer with 18 and 20 hours of sunlight!)

5. Therefore you must AVOID planting where there is shade – from trees, houses, walls, shrubs, etc.

Even tall vegetable plants will produce shade, unless you plant tall varieties to the North OR East of short ones.

(Any fruit-bearing plant MUST have direct sunlight for at least 6 hours per day, and 10 is much better. In this picture, tall plants – tomatoes and corn - were planted East AND West of the short peppers. Even with wide aisles the peppers suffered some for lack of sunlight.)

Notice the row of short pepper plants between rows of tall plants. The peppers produced very little, because they lacked direct sunlight many hours of the day.

6. A plant can even shade itself more than is healthy! Remove sucker stems from climbing plants, and prune excess leaves – to allow light everywhere.

(Crop yields can be increased significantly by pruning. For example, removing sucker stems on tomatoes is important to maximize crop yield.)

7. The second element to control is TEMPERATURE. Plants thrive in a rather narrow temperature range, and this is especially true when they first germinate.

Sustained temperatures above 70 degrees Fahrenheit are essential for fast germination and high germination rates. Even 10 degrees colder will greatly slow the germination time and reduce the number of plants.

(Is your garden too small for a greenhouse? Start your plants on a heating pad in your house. Somewhere warm is essential.)

8. Even after germination young plants need favorable temperatures to thrive. In early Spring this may require some protection – and sometimes even a little supplemental heat – whether in the greenhouse or in the garden.

(A small seed-house like Dr. Jacob Mittleider’s can grow hundreds of healthy seedlings. Mini-greenhouses right in the garden help to keep them warm on cold nights.)

Covering your plants with plastic as illustrated helps warm the soil and eliminate cold winds, and on cold nights even the heat from a couple of light bulbs can be enough to prevent freezing.

9. In this way – by covering your plants and protecting from frost – you can extend your growing season by up to 4 weeks in both Spring and Fall.

(The arched frames in back can easily be covered to grow plants clear into December in Utah. T-Frames work just as well as those A-Frames.)

10. The third element to control is AIR. Remember that plants receive carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen from the air. However, they access those things mainly through their ROOTS.

Therefore, good drainage is necessary. Why?

(To use this area as a successful garden just required drain ditches to remove the standing water.)

11. You must avoid flooding the roots for any extended length of time. Even a few hours under water can kill your plants.

(Soil that is soaked with or covered with water drives out the soil air. Roots get oxygen from the air, not the water, so the plant can drown in a fairly short time.)

So, to insure your plant roots receive the soil-air they must have, never plant in a low spot with poor drainage.

12. We solve the drainage problem by RAISING the planting area of our soil-beds slightly higher than the surrounding aisles.

13. The fourth element to control is WATER.

Water obviously should be clean, and it MUST be non-toxic. Any concentration of harmful elements, such as chemicals from a nearby industrial plant, can quickly kill your plants.

How much and how often do you need to water?

Understand that “a plant is a continuous water pipe, from the tip of the smallest root to the top of the highest leaf” - JRM.

And a plant is over 80% water!

Water should therefore ALWAYS be available to the plant roots. The soil should be MOIST but not completely WET. One inch daily is enough.

14. In addition to being slightly raised –

Your soil-beds should be LEVEL.

This avoids the loss of water; plus your seeds, small plants, and fertilizers are not washed out and lost.

(Do not plant until your beds are level. Much grief is avoided by following the procedures accurately.)

15. Level beds also ensure UNIFORM DISTRIBUTION of water and natural mineral fertilizers to all plants’ roots.

16. Even when watering almost every day we conserve water, using about ½ that of traditional methods.

This is because we only water the root-zone of the plants - about 17% of the garden area.

(No water is lost to run-off, nor wasted in the aisles. In Armenia village neighbors are AMAZED at how little water we use.)

17. Never water your garden by sprinkling – for 3 reasons:

Sprinkling encourages weed growth in the aisles and on the ridges;

It wastes a great deal of water through evaporation as well;

It promotes diseases, which thrive in a moist environment.

(On a hot day evaporation wastes up to ½ of the water when sprinkling is used. And even more than that is wasted on the aisles and ridges. Sprinklers may be needed for lawns, but they have no place in the vegetable garden!)


18. Four-inch-high ridges surrounding the planting area accomplish several things;

They define the bed aesthetically and afford some protection to small seedling plants;

They keep the water and fertilizers in the root zone of the plants.

19. Automating your watering will greatly increase the pleasure you receive from your garden.

It makes watering EASIER, FASTER, and more EFFICIENT!
(Many beds can be watered at the same time. 125 beds at the Utah Zoo garden are watered in only 60 minutes.)

20. Simple illustrated plans for automating your watering system are available in the Mittleider gardening books, and it’s free online at http://foodforeveryone.org/pdf/MGC_Chpt_16.pdf

(The main water pipe should be as large as your water source. Use threaded connections – NOT GLUED! Use Schedule 200 – NOT schedule 40 for watering pipes.)

21. The fifth element to control in your garden is your plants’ FOOD.

Besides the 3 elements plants receive FREE from the air there are 13 other elements that plants must have for food.

Most people know about the 3 MAJOR nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, or N, P, & K.

However, 3 SECONDARY elements are used almost as much by plants as phosphorus, and these are calcium, sulfur, and magnesium.

In addition there are Micro-nutrients – also called Trace Elements - because plants use only small amounts of them. They include zinc, boron, manganese, iron, copper, chloride, and molybdenum.

People in the Mountain West can get these complete balanced plant foods pre-mixed.
WHEREVER YOU live simply get Micro-Nutrients from the website at www.growfood.com and mix with NPK and Epsom Salt according to instructions to have the complete balanced nutrient mix.

22. Plants require feeding in two ways, with two separate natural mineral nutrient mixes. They are called the Pre-Plant Mix and the Weekly Feed Mix, indicating how they are used.

Unless materials are water-soluble plants can’t get or use them. They receive their nourishment as water-soluble MINERALS through their ROOTS.

(WATER SOLUBLE is the key! Dirt often has most or even all the minerals in it, but it’s usually NOT water soluble – therefore it’s not available to your plants.)

How are we “The Best of Organic”? The nutritional value of manure and compost are unknown. We know what plants need and we supply exactly that – in balanced amounts.

And we supply small amounts weekly throughout the growing season – just as they are needed.

23. The sixth and final element we must control is COMPETITION. (And disease certainly competes to rob you of your crop! Beat the big four for sure success.)

Competition from weeds, bugs, and animals is usually fierce and constant.

And diseases are very difficult to control, and sometimes almost impossible to eliminate after they get established.

24. Eliminate all weeds! Success STARTS with a weed-free garden! (Starting right is all important! Don’t expect a great finish if your beginning is sloppy.)

“No amount of scratching after the crop is planted can overcome the ill effects of poor seed-bed preparation.” JRM

You must remove both annual and perennial weeds, and for perennials that includes the roots, rhizomes, and runners.

25. And after planting you must KEEP UP the weeding! (People often ask what our secret is to our weed-free gardens. It’s E & O Weeding – early and often! Get those weeds out of the END aisles also, or they’ll come into your beds! After beds are built, the 2-way hoe and rake are your main weeding tools.)

Be sure you remove the weeds every time from within the rows, on the ridges, AND in the aisles!

26. How do you eliminate bugs from your garden? Cultural practices that greatly reduce your risk include maintaining a weed-free DRY perimeter, aisles, weed-free beds, and keeping the garden free of mulch or other ground coverings.

(Rather than providing bug hotels throughout your garden, make them walk the Sahara Desert to get to lunch or dinner. Most won’t make it! Because of the above cultural practices, and growing HEALTHY, FAST-GROWING PLANTS, we RARELY have to resort to pesticides or herbicides.)

27. You must take POSITIVE and sometimes AGGRESSIVE steps to control and eliminate animal pests.

Those steps may include fencing, traps, baits, and/or netting.

(Deer and many smaller animals, as well as birds, will love the salad bar you provide if you don’t keep them out.)

28. DISEASE is the last thing you need to control, but not the least. It’s recently been discovered that healthy plants naturally resist disease. (Read about HIGH BRIX LEVELS. Your sustainable Mittleider-Method garden vegetables will have them!)

29. In addition to minimizing bugs, a dry periphery and aisles are inhospitable environments for diseases.

(Disease thrives in MOIST conditions. Keep everything possible DRY! This garden THRIVED in BLOW-SAND – in HOT Santa Clara, Utah.)

30. The best disease control is PREVENTION.

Pruning plants reduces those moist conditions diseases love, and provides light and air to ripen tasty fruit.

(These tomatoes were NOT pruned properly – Production suffered greatly, and they were subject to bugs and disease.)

31. Don’t give diseases OR bugs an easy path to your tender plants. Remove everything touching the ground.
32. Follow this recipe accurately and consistently for “a great garden in any soil, in any climate.”
THANK YOU!

Interview with Jim Kennard Food for Everyone

Growing rice with the Mittleider method

Do you have any experience, or did Mr Mittleider have any experience
using his system to grow rice? Rice is cultivated in what is
essentially a huge grow bed,(often called a rice paddy) which is
flooded with water, rice seedlings are then planted in the flooded
paddy. Any thoughts on using the Mittleider system to increase yields?
I will be living in Thailand, and hope to find ways to apply the
Mittleider method to traditional gardening and farming techniques. If
you have some fertilizer formulas, can compute using a per acre
formula? I can then convert to the Thai unit of area the "rai" equal
to .396 acres. Thank you.

Ray and Group:

Dr. Mittleider did indeed have experience growing rice. Instead of transplanting seedlings in "wet paddy" growing he broadcast seed into a dry paddy and used the fertilizers with only 3 applications. He increased yields 5 times.

To get the per-acre amount of fertilizer you want to have 110# of actual nitrogen, 60# of actual phosphate, and 110# of Potash.

I have searched my program discs of Mittleider books and cannot find where the info is for making the drum of continuous feed for watering in the greenhouse. I believe it was 16 oz per 50 gal barrel, but I'm not sure. Anyone out there know? and also WHERE it is found in the books. Thanks much!

The instructions for using the Weekly Feed mix as a "continuous feed" or "dilute fertilizer solution" mixed with water are in several places, including (but not limited to)Let's Grow Tomatoes - 1981, Gardening By The Foot - 1993, and The Mittleider Gardening Course - most recently published in 1999.Those of you lucky enough to have the Mittleider Gardening Library CD can simply type in either of those phrases and find every place that subject is discussed in any of the books. Easy, huh!For the rest of you (until you get the Gardening Library :-)) I'll mention some of the basics.

In Let's Grow Tomatoes, on page 49 Jacob recommended 8 ounces of Weekly Feed for a 25 gallon barrel, and 16 ounces for a 50 gallon barrel.In gardening By The Foot, on page 76, Jacob recommended using 1 ounce of Weekly Feed in 3 gallons of water.In the Mittleider Gardening Course, on page 183, Jacob also recommends using 1 ounce of Weekly Feed in 3 gallons of water.

I don't remember where it might be in the books, but while working with jacob on several projects we have used 16 ounces of Weekly Feed in a 55 gallon drum, which is a bit less than the 1 ounce per 3 gallons of water.

Therefore, I recommend you use one of the following - depending on the size container you're using:1 ounce in 3 gallons of water, or8 ounces in 25 gallons of water, or10 ounces for 30 gallons of water, or16 ounces for 50-55 gallons of water.Always be CERTAIN that you have adequate drainage in your pots or flats. Failure to provide proper drainage will cause the fertilizers to accumulate, since the water will be eliminated mainly by evaporation, and you will can burn and even kill your small plants because of the salinity.

Just this spring we saw 65,000 tomato seedlings dying from this very thing, until we rescued them by improving the drainage and flushing the salts out.Jim KennardP. S. Forgive Jacob for not always having the exact ratios in these things. The different books were written over the course of more than 20 years, and he continually experimented and changed as he saw the need.

Whats your Mittleider garden going to be

Well the frost in upstate NY have been causing major problems with my Tomatoes and Peppers. I made an ad hock row cover with clear plastic and 5 gallon pails. I hope they survive there is supposed to be frost again tonight. YUCK.

I am going to plant some more Peppers and Tomatoes tonight indoors to make sure, just incase the ones in the garden cant take the cold tonight.

Atleast all my soilbeds are done so If I do have to replant I will be all set.

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