Introducing the Best Gardening Methods on the Planet

My name is Jim Kennard, and as President of the Food For Everyone Foundation I am excited to help in fulfilling the foundation’s mission of “teaching the world to grow food one family at a time.”

We do this by providing a wealth of free vegetable gardening information, training, tips, and advice on the internet at www.foodforeveryone.org. People from all over the world come here to receive free training and advice, as well as to obtain the great gardening books, CDs and software written by Dr. Jacob R. Mittleider.

The Mittleider Gardening Basics Course ebook is free on the website. The book-length FAQ section also has 365 short gardening articles, which answer people's questions and give advice on many vegetable gardening subjects.

In addition we have free greenhouse plans and free plans for automating your garden watering system, as well as a free gardening group where you can share knowledge and experience with thousands of successful vegetable gardeners.

I’ll briefly introduce you to the Foundation’s gardening methods by describing a few things about the Mittleider Method that are important, and which distinguish it from other gardening methods.

Most of the time our gardens are grown right in the native soil, with no amendments. We promise you "a great garden in any soil, in almost any climate". From straight sand to the worst clay, we’ll show you how to have success growing healthy, delicious vegetables the first time and every time.

Grow-Boxes, or containers are sometimes needed for people living in apartments, and for disabled people. Container gardening can be just as effective as growing in the soil, and 2 ½ of Dr. Mittleider’s 10 books are dedicated to the unique features of the container gardening process.

Even though the costs are very low, the Mittleider Method is sometimes called "the poor man's hydroponic system", because it borrows from greenhouse growers, such things as vertical growing, feeding plants accurately with natural mineral nutrients, and extending the growing season in both the spring and fall, all of which greatly increase gardening yields.

The Second major element in the Foundation’s mission is teaching, training, and assisting people directly. One way we do this in America is by conducting free ½-day group gardening seminars. These can be arranged by contacting me by email at jim@growfood.com.

We also conduct humanitarian projects in many countries throughout the world. In 2006 I went to Armenia with my wife Araksya and spent 5 months - from February to mid July. We created a gardening training center in the village of Getk, with housing, classroom, greenhouse, and 3/4 acre garden. We taught students, who became the gardening experts in their own villages, and we assisted them in working with about 200 families in those villages. We left the training center and garden in the able hands of an Armenian couple, and expect the work will continue there, with our occasional visits.

In Armenia, as in other places we've worked, we grew many kinds of vegetables the locals thought couldn't possibly be grown in "their region", and often had many non-participating village families coming to our garden for advice, coaching, and free produce.

Another way in which we extend our reach is to train others who are becoming missionaries for their churches. One example is Howard and Glenice Morgan, from Southern California, who just returned from a 2-year mission to Zimbabwe. They were sent to teach Mittleider gardening to their church members throughout the country, and they did a FABULOUS job.

They prepared by studying the Mittleider gardening books. Then, after some training in my garden at Utah’s Hogle Zoo, and using only the simple 6 Steps to Successful Gardening, the Morgans created 84 large gardens and taught over 10,500 people to feed themselves by growing their own healthy vegetables.

And Howard and Glenice thanked me for helping them have the time of their lives! Howard was a retired dentist, by the way, with very little previous experience in gardening.

So, whatever level you are currently on, you too can experience this kind of success – whether it’s in your own home garden, a community effort, or as a humanitarian missionary in some distant country.

Join us as a Mittleider Method gardener, for the best gardens of your life.

Jim Kennard

Is it ok to use lawn fertilizer on my vegetable garden?

Dear group members:

I do not recommend using lawn fertilizers as weekly feed, because
they have double the nitrogen and less than half the phosphorus and
potassium that vegetables need.

they are designed to make grass green, but not to grow healthy fruits
and vegetables.

Any mix - between 10-10-10 and 20-20-20 will do as a starting point.
And if you can find a 2-1-2 ratio that's even better.

What about crop rotation - is it important?

Author: Jim Kennard

There are three reasons for crop rotation: 1. Some crops utilize more of a specific nutrient than others, and by rotating crops soil fertility can be better equalized. 2. Some crops attract specific insects. By rotating the crops the cycle of insect build-up is minimized. 3. If a crop becomes diseased, rotating to a crop that is not susceptible to that disease can break the cycle of the disease pathogen. All of these conditions are of only minor importance, however. When plant nutrition is really understood, fertility can be maintained easily. And by keeping a weed-free, clean garden and uniform, healthy, fast-maturing crops, insect and disease build-up are seldom experienced.

How is your garden doing this year?

We had major storms but because of the strength of the plants they surived, thank goodness.

Why use a Grow Box versus soilbeds

What are the advantages of a Grow-Box?Dr. Jacob Mittleider's books on container gardening are among thevery best you will find anywhere. This is because Jacob learned hisgardening lessons for 20 years as a highly successful nursery growerof bedding plants in Southern California, and then he applied andadapted that knowledge to humanitarian projects in gardeningsituations and conditions for another 35 years all over the world.Mittleider books devoted to illustrating and teaching containergardening include such classics as Grow-Box Gardening, Gardening bythe Foot, Let's Grow Tomatoes, and The Mittleider Gardening Course.

They are available at the Food For Everyone Foundation website at www.foodforeveryone.org, and as digital downloads on that websiteand www.howtoorganicgarden.com.Why do people want or need to grow in containers anyway?! Isn'tgrowing in the dirt natural, and the way nature intended it bedone? Or is something actually lacking in the soil today?It's true that the natural soil will give you a great garden. Eventhe worst soils - if you follow the Mittleider Method carefully -will produce bountiful, healthy crops, even without ANY soilammendments.

However, There are still many reasons some of you may choose to growin containers, or Grow-Boxes, as we call them. Soils everywhere areindeed lacking – in decomposed organic material, or humus. Theycrack as they dry, and they become very hard and difficult to workwith. These hard clay soils are especially difficult places forplant roots to grow, and often result in poor crops.Most soils that are available for family gardener's use today arealso lacking or deficient in the essential water-soluble mineralsrequired for healthy plant growth.

Thousands of years of weather-caused leaching and erosion, as well as natural and man-caused cropremoval, have depleted most soils of their water-soluble minerals,and therefore garden crops are hungry almost everywhere today.Furthermore, these soils do not even do a good job of providing thefive basic functions required of soil for healthy plant growth.These functions include:1. Afford anchorage for plant roots.2. Retain water and oxygen for plant use.3. Store minerals for plants to use for food.4. Act as a temperature regulator, especially in hot weather.5. Afford good drainage around plant roots.Grow-Boxes, and the custom-made soil mixes used in them arespecifically designed to solve the above problems of native soil.Using a combination of clean, slow-decomposing organic materials andsand, Grow-Box soil mixes absorb water well, they never crack orbecome hard, and they remain light and easy to work with. Meanwhile,your plant roots grow easily and fast through the light-weight,porous material.These custom soil mixes absorb large amounts of water quickly, whilestill maintaining high levels of soil air. That soil air makes Grow-Box materials excellent temperature regulators, almost like a swampcooler.

The organic materials also provide excellent drainage, especiallybecause the box is sitting on top of the natural soil. A realdrainage problem is almost unheard of when using containers. Andwhile perhaps not being as strong per square inch for purposes ofanchorage as natural soil, the plant roots grow so much more readilyand become so much bigger and stronger, the anchorage is taken careof very well also.The uncertainties of nutrition are taken care of by the scientificapplication of small amounts of scientifically balanced naturalmineral nutrients. And the Grow-Box soils are excellent storageshelves for these nutrients, so they are readily available to theplants' roots.Instead of requiring a tiller, or heavy digging with a shovel,preparing the soil for planting in a Grow-Box is a joy, and can beaccomplished with a light-weight hoe, or even a rake.There are no weeds, bugs, or diseases to contend with in Grow-Boxes! Starting with clean materials is essential, and everafterward, with proper care, you will enjoy working with much lessneed to fight these enemies of a successful garden.Because your Grow-Boxes are 8" off the ground, you don't have to getdown on your knees to work with your plants, as you do in naturalsoil.

Watering is a breeze, especially if you build and use the simpleautomated watering system illustrated and described in chapter 16 ofthe Mittleider Gardening Course and chapter 19 of Gardening by theFoot. These are available in paper-back at www.foodforeveryone.org,and by digital download on this website and atwww.howtoorganicgarden.com.Meanwhile there is virtually no waste of precious water! Thismethod uses less than ½ the water of traditional methods. Inaddition, since you never apply water in the aisles – where the dirtis – there is almost no mud to contend with, so you and your plantsremain much cleaner when working in a Grow-Box garden.Root crops are a real pleasure to harvest! You can pull them easilyby hand, and anything growing in or on the ground is clean and bug-free.One of the best advantages of growing in a Grow-Box garden is thefact that you can grow so much more in the same space than you canin the dirt. Planting close together in the narrow boxes, andleaving clean 3'-wide aisles provides ample light for your low-growing plants with no more effort than occasional pruning of oldleaves from off the soil surface.Growing many plants vertically is the other way in which youmaximize your yield in a small space. Again, Grow-Boxes are themost efficient way to do this, as every bit of growing space iscontained and used to advantage. Using stakes or T-frames, andpruning to maximize light to your plants, will give you rewards inbigger harvests than you probably have ever seen.