Mittleider Method Versus Traditional Gardening

Overall

High yields are hard to get. Each of the gardening tasks require so much skill and understanding that few beginners can raise a productive garden.

With proper know-how even beginners can raise highly-productive gardens.

The Gardener

To grow a garden, the gardener must have skill, experience, good soil, the cooperation of nature and a green thumb.

With the proper know-how and training, anyone can grow any vegetable in any soil, in any climate with minimal water and effort per unit of produce.

The Soil

A good garden begins with good soil. The richness of the soil is the single most important factor in gardening success.

Although good soils are desirable, highly productive gardens can be grown in any soil. Custom soils for grow-boxes can be made if necessary.

Garden Layout

Organize the field using regularly spaced rows designed to accommodate the wheel spacings of a tractor.

Organize the garden using soil-beds or grow-boxes, using row and aisle spacings based on human ergonomics.

Plant  Spacing

Use traditional spacings between plants to accommodate the horizontal growth plants use to seek the light.

Use narrower spacings and increase their precision with special markers. Train plants to grow vertically for light and thus conserve space.

The Seed

Plant in the spring when the soil is warm.  Because germination is always imperfect, expect some losses and weak plants

Get a head start by planting earlier in a Mittleider seed house. Increase the head start by transplanting only strong and healthy plants.

Feeding Plants

Use soil testing to determine which nutrients are needed.

Use manure, rotation, and composting to condition and build up the soil.

Use traditional fertilizers in their traditional Nitrogen-Phosphorus-Potassium combinations.

To reduce expense, apply as little commercial fertilizer as possible.

Only the plant can tell you what soil it needs. Many nutrients found in the soil are unavailable to the plant.

Although soil conditioning is good, precision placement of properly balanced commercial fertilizers is more efficient.

Most commercial fertilizers must be properly balanced and then supplemented with micro-nutrients for optimal effect.

Apply fertilizer before you plant and several time thereafter. Use fertilizer to control weeds between plants.

Watering

Use furrows, sprinklers, and flood irrigation to thoroughly water the land. To distribute the water evenly is very difficult.

Irrigate only the root zones with precision micro jets to conserve water. If you level the soil, water and nutrients will be distributed easily and evenly.

Weeding

Because weed seeds are ubiquitous, laborious weeding is a necessary evil which cannot be avoided.

Weed control can be easy. Plant promptly after soil preparation. Sprout surface weeds and destroy them as they emerge. Don’t water weeds.

Pruning

Pruning is something done to fruit trees, but it is never done to vegetables.

Let vine crops like tomatoes, squash, and melons grow horizontally, often occupying 10-30 square feet.

Careful pruning of certain plants can dramatically increase yields. Raise yields by removing leaves that do not support the plant or its fruit.

Garden in 3-D! Use stakes, strings, and A-frames to grow plants upward instead of outward, thus conserving space.

Harvesting

Harvest one crop per year. At the end of the season, plow the old crop under to decompose and build up the soil during the winter.

Harvest two or three crops per year. Increase yields by using seedlings, balanced fertilizers, and precision watering and pruning.

Crop

Rotation

Each crop depletes the land. Rotate crops regularly to restore and rebuild the land.

Crop rotation is good, but the land cannot be rejuvenated in one winter. The use of balanced fertilizer is a more efficient way to replenish the soil.

Summary

A vast body of traditional knowledge, practices, and prescriptions which beginning gardeners often find daunting.

A package of  “tuned” prescriptions which any gardener can use to grow any vegetable in any soil in any climate with a minimum of water and work.