Vegetables Gardening - Growing Organic Vegetables

I enjoyed reading your post but have a question.

If you get the yield described in the Mittleider yield charts, you must have
an awful lot of surplus food. What do you do with it all?

For that matter, most of us can easily out produce our needs and have
significant excess. I have never sent any to a food pantry or tried to sell
any but we do get a lot extra of some things. I have tried to grow what we
could/would use and still see a lot of waste.

What do others do to balance what you grow vs. what you (need) can you?

Blair Scoresby

_____

From: MittleiderMethodGardening@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:MittleiderMethodGardening@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
incoming.verizon.net
Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 2:51 PM
To: MittleiderMethodGardening@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [MittleiderMethodGardening] Re: Counsel from someone who's
really serious about self-sufficiency

I built my own 4 season cold greenhouses.

I have (10) 30 foot long 4 foot and 6 ft wide beds.

I visited Coleman's incredible farm some years back when he was still giving
tours. He has some pricey movable greenhouses. But he also uses some hoop
houses with plastic coverings.

I use hoop benders to make my own hoophouses, which cover my beds.

2 of my greenhouses are 32 feet long and 10 feet wide.

These cover my 6 foot wide beds.

I place 55 gallon drums painted black, so they absorb energy from the sun
easier, on their sides down the entire side inside the greenhouse. These are
3/4 filled with water. They collect energy during the day and give this off
at night when it is cooler.

I walk down the middle of the bed on a foot wide path, which is all I need
for this cold house.

So I have (2) 30 inch wide beds under this one 32 foot long
greenhouse/hoophouse with plenty of room on the sides for water barrells to
collect energy. I walk down the middle...OK so these are Mittleider beds in
every way...they are just carrying some extra equipment to keep them
warm....this is why I have some 6 foot wide beds in the summer, which are
really 2 30 inch wide beds with a walk area in the middle.....these work
better than any other bed size I ahveresearched with...

In the cold weather I cover with a hail resistant polyethylene plastic
sheeting.

I went to the feed store and purchased cheap heavy duty straight livestock
fencing wire and made little frames to stick in the ground across my beds.

I drape agribond or any heavy duty covering (Ihave some I have used for 4
years straight now) over the plants when it is really cold...usually at
night.....this picture is from Elliots manufacturing greenhouse...if you do
it just like this you will not be sorry...

What you are doing is to protect your food store in a fairly dormant state
during the cold months. You will need to start growing earlier in the Fall
as cold weather slows growth considerably.

Elliot is in a zone 4.5/5 I think as I recall... I am in a 5B, which is not
quite as cold...gets down to -15--25 in the Winter.....

I use no other energy other than the passive solar energy set up.

I made my 10 foot wide complete with everything for about 400.00 a piece.

I have delicious greens all winter long, carrots, potatoes, turnips, onions
and much more from the outside greenhouses.

I have been using indoor grow racks for sometime now....would not be without
them.....but these will need energy unless you have them in an indoor atrium
set up as you need light...

I have 5 tiers and they are ceiling high, 4 foot 4 inches wide and 2 feet 4
inches deep.

Each of these has 2 sets of 4 foot shop lights,,,OK....

I bought a 4 foot by 24 inch long heat mat....most of them are 22 inches
wide...mine is a specailty matt.

I put 4 full size garden trays with slits inside a tray without slits (for
drainage, a really great investment at many garden stores and also thrown
away quite often by others)

Then I use promix BX (I put one bag in an open top 55 gallon drum to use
throughout the winter) or any of several soil blocking mixes, along with
Mittleider home produced fertilizers (the only fertilizer I would ever
use)....I make my own seed plugs all on one shelf. These seed plugs are all
germinated on one rack and I plant every kind of seed this way...none of
them fail....ever...

Then I plug thse inside larger blocks on the next 2 racks up and finally
these are transplanted into either winter time grow boxes or into larger
soil blocks or straight into garden beds outside.

What this does is allow you to totally control the environment for
germination and early growth. This is pesticide free, constant warmth, and
constant moisture levels in controlled soil settings. These young plants are
picture perfectly healthy and strong. They only need hardening to go out or
to be given a little extra room and they grow very well.

I do plastic or mylar sheet in my indoor grow racks. I bought a large
quantity of mylar sheet rolls in Cranberry PA for very very cheap. THis
helps to keep heat inside your grow rack system, especially useful if you
keep your indoor temps low in th3 winter months...I like 50 degrees F in the
winter time. My indoor plants need more though. so by having a heatr mat
which pulls very little energy, and having the sides tented in....it is nice
and warm and sunny in there for them.

I grow vine vegetables indoors such as tomatoes by making a tall closet
shaped rack using the same materials I make my horizontal grow rackjs withy.
so it kind of looks like a closet frame. I hang the very same grow lights
vertically from the middle of this frame and place the tomaTO PLANTS AROUND
THE OUTSIDE OF THE LIGHTS. i USE 3 SHOP LIGHTS WHICH ARE 6 4 FOOT LONG FULL
SPECTRUM TUBES AND PLACE THESE BACK TO BACK INA TRIANGLE DOWN THE MIDDLE. SO
THE TOMATOES, CUCUMBERS SQUASH ETC CAN GROW IN A CIRCLE AROUND THESE LONJG
LIGHTS.

I have used several tube light spectrums with the tomaotoes and to be
honest, as long as they have those good full spectrum lights on about 16
hours a day, they set fruit easily by me tapping the bar where they are
tetherd, the vibration causes pollination to be able to happen or take
sterile Q tips and pollinate them your self....I havent grown larger market
tomatoes indoors becasue of room...like Glamour or big Beefsteak...but last
winter I was able to get a good 3/4 bushels of tomatoes from one tomaote
plant on average from both a Rutgers sauce tomatoe and one of the Campbell
tomatoes.....

I cannot describe to you how wonderfulk it is to have a blustery snowstorm
outside where everything is shut down and be able to go outside and harvest
fresh oproduce and then inside have every herb and melons, tomatoes etc.
available....last winter I grew a watermelon inside of a square lucite cube
with a hinged top....It of course grew square and I had amazing watermelon
indoors in February.....

As this represents a higher energy cost on your fuel bill...you may need to
cut down on other appliances etc...

Here is how I do it....I cut out Sattelite TV...I do not miss it.....we use
the computer for streaming etc...
Then I cut our garbage pickup and am taking care of my own...we don not miss
it.....

Some of ur indoor grow racks are in our large formal :) dining room. The
lighting provideds light for us so we do not need to turn on any other
lighting.

I di not use an electric grain/bean mill in the winter...I use a hand
mill....

Our energy costs are no higher and even less now.

Let me tell you what I am having tonight for supper from my garden.

It is cold and raining and windy right now....so I made a hearty whole grain
pizza (I rolled cheese up into the crust) with fresh garden tomatoes, fresh
basil, minced fresh garlic, lots of olive oil dribbled here...wheat gluten
and bean sausage, fresh homemade mozzarella cheese, arugula, cucumber,
greenonion with crouton salad with a vinegrette using homemade vinegar (yup
I figured out Balsamic about 15 years ago and some of that first I am using
now...If I can do it anyone can), olive oil (the only thing I have not
produced is olive oil here...but I do manufacture flax, grape seed oils
myself), raspberries from the garden, sea salt, cayenne, rosemary that is
fresh....and we are having fresh peach shortcake for desert tongiht....I
have guests coming for supper, am working nights this week...and put
everything together in about 35 minutes....

I can tell you that these poeple will ooh and ahhh at the pizza and
everything else becasue they are so accustomed to pasty crap pizza etc...and
this will pop their eyes out....it is always the same with this....when it
is fresh and from scratch like this there is no comparison....
.....on top of this, they will be eating on Leslie Lindslee style decoupaged
glass plates...all pictures from my garden...costing me about 6 dollars
total for 8 place setting as I found these at a garage sale.....

These people are from our County GOV. They are coming to visit to learn some
ideas on how to help others who are now living in poverty, have a better
life by gardening and learning to do some things for themselves that they
never thought was possible.

These gardens take time to develope and if you do not get them started you
will not have the time to joy in what they provide.

Oh, did I tell you I shop outside of my own pantry about twice a year? Think
of the gas savings that is????????

I hope someone feels inspired to get started and enjoy the triple AAA
cusine...
Kathleen O'Meal

----- Original Message -----
From: Mrs. Tips
To: MittleiderMethodGardening@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:MittleiderMethodGardening%40yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 3:25 AM
Subject: [MittleiderMethodGardening] Re: Counsel from someone who's really
serious about self-sufficiency

Leah,
Elliott Coleman talks about greenhouses (and every other conceivable winter
garden outbuilding) you can build for well under 10K. I am very tempted to
build a small greenhouse in my side yard for my winter garden if only to
protect lettuce and spinach from frosting over during our cold winters in
Utah county.
Yvonne

--- In MittleiderMethodGardening@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:MittleiderMethodGardening%40yahoogroups.com> , K BOWTHORPE
<bowthorpe1@...> wrote:
>
>
> Wow, I don't usually respond very often but this is amazing, can you show
a picture of your greenhouse with an apple tree? How expensive was your
greenhouse? I have a co-worker whose greenhouse was 10,000 dollars and it
couldn't house fruit trees because it is small. I would love to try to build
one or something in order to have fruit trees, what kind of weather do you
have were you are? I would love to learn how to do some of the things you
are talking about, how do you grow your greens indoors? and what is a grow
rack? Please also explain amaranth? Where can you buy this? Or did you grow
that too? Are you a stay at home mom? I feel I don't have that much time to
do all of what your doing, but I sure would like to learn how to, and if I
cut some hours from my schedule maybe I can start.
> Leah B

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