Vegetables Gardening - Growing Organic Vegetables

Sonshe,
Growing greens indoors is not so hard and you do not need any special fertilizers if you have reasonable soil. However, it is great to have soil prepared in an opened top barrell, plastic bucket etc., that has been treated with Mittleider method fertilizers (This way you have the best mix.). I have friends who live in big cities who take 5 gallon plastic buckets or large plastic wovevn feed bags (the 100lb bags when you can still get them work great) to friends homes who live in rural areas to get soils for free.
I take prepared soils to freinds who live in NYC when I go for visits. If you use Mittleider micronutrients adn fertilizers you will not need to rotate your soils...just sterilize inbetween....and dont smoke around tomatoes or any plant really....

It s nice to have the extra soil all ready so that when you want to build an extra container you can do so without needing to dig up the frozen ground.

I use a rotation method and cut down the greens each time...I dont cut back for regrowth as I use a huge amount of greens all winter long (I eat over 5 lbs of greens daily...am juicing and on the Gerson cancer program and have greens outdoors as well as indoors...but the indoor racks are producing a great deal of greens every day....large large amounts, not just a small salad everyday). If you cut back and wait for regrowth with only using indoor limited spacing you reduce the amount of greens you can use. When you are seeding, you dont need so much light, what you need is warmth, so containers with seeds germinating can be put most anywhere. I rotate up and it works very well.

You might want to think about putting a rack in front of that window with Southern exposure (although my zone 5B Northern window provides plenty of light as well). Or maybe you would want to put a window add on http://www.ronhazelton.com/projects/how_to_put_in_a_garden_or_greenhouse_window

I use racks with 5 shelves from floor to ceiling that measure 4 feet 6 inches wide, 2 feet 6 inches deep, and as tall as space allows. I only use cheap full spectrum 4 foot flourescent lights on some of the shelves though (none on the seed germinating rack, and none on the mature greens racks...I eat these so quickly that a couple of days with light coming from any direction through windows makes no noticable difference in color or nutrition. Most greens grow within a 6 week time frame so I rotate along a time line...new boxes in and cut greens boxes out every day with the amount I am using....

I make up boxes to grow in and these are all 12 inch cubes or 2 feet by 1 foot and fit nicely in the rack shelves. When greens are first starting you do not need such a tall space on the shelf...just enough for a week or 2 so they can get as much light under the grow lights as possible.....the next shelf up is taller as the greens grow taller....this allows you to add an extra shelf and provides a great deal more growing room.

When I grow tomatoes indoors I make a floor to ceiling grow tent from PVC pipe, wood or whatever....I hang my 4 foot long grow lights vertically by drilling a couple of holes in the very end of the shop light ballasts and hanging them from the ceiling. You can put 3 or even 4 shop lights back to back in a triangle or square and hang these vertically so you can grow all around the outside...like this... http://www.hydroponic-growing-systems.com/hydroponic-round-room.html

I start my tomatoes on the grow racks and at 6 weeks they are set on the floor in the tomato tent around the outside of vertically hung flourescent grow lights...I dont use the expensive lights anymore...my tomatoes are ripening, taste sweet, etc..and I run a trellis line vertically to a couple of struts I place across the top of the grow tent. For example another way, in September, I started tomatoes under my outdoor unheated hoophouse as it was very warm this year and in middle October, some of these came indoors for my indoor tents...they are now 14 weeks old from germination and the photovoltaic leaves, those left on to catch sunlight from the grow lights have targeted all along the grow bulb and the suckers have been trimmed and in 2 more weeks I have ripened tomatoes, just in time for Christmas on the fast ripening varieties. Others will ripen through out January.

I also am rotating in tomatoes indoors. Last year was the first year I started rotating in tomatoes successfully. The year before I had a poor crop because I didnt give them a vertical trellis to start them. So last year I let these start under the tallest grow rack shelves and put a wooden dowel (it is gentle to climb) with a long (10 foot long)string that I wind up on an empty thread spool and stick at the top of the dowel ...the spool sits around a little nail I nailed on the top of the wooden dowel so it is easy to just wind up the string on this...the dowel which is about 14-15 inches tall....I do it this way so I can get the starting tomato plant under the grow lights on my trellis shelf in my greens growing rack with the dowel to climb adn still have it get plenty of good sunlight coming in from the window and the grow lights. and...the string is being climbed as the dowel is being climbed and the rest of the string needed inside the verticle tomato tent is wound around the empty thread spool and ready to go into the tomato tent. So when in the tent just unwind the string and attach to the overhead struts . so if you want tomatoes indoors in Novemeber you need to start them in August. Most tomatoes ripen from seed in 4 months if rapids or 4.5 months if longers...and there are some variations...there is a tomatoe that grows much more rapdily and is an heirloom that I am watching do some amazing things right now.

OK so for tomatoes you just also rotate them from seed germination shelf with no light up to shelves allowing for growing height as they get taller and add something solid for them to climb up vertically while also running a climbing string up that solid stick and windup enough to trellis them up at the top and keep moving them to taller shelves until ready or space is available in the tomato tents. If they get backed up a bit it is perfectly alright to take them off the grow racks and set them somwhere in indirect light and they will do just fine if it is not more than a week...

This way you have tomatoes...and this is just an example....coming on every month until yours are ripe in your garden....

I am also doing this with melon, as melon is an anti inflammatory fruit and a good fruit to use on the Gerson diet. I have a whole melon every other day right now.

I do have tomatoes that are ripe in my outdoor passive heated hoop house right now.

This takes constant vigilence and keeping an accurate record.

I learned how to watch for lengths of times needed by starting seeds at different times in 2 liter soda bottles. I do this with every different variety of seed I grow. I take notes on these as well as what the soil is doing, thermometers in side the bottle garden and so on. like this: http://astrosynergy.com/aqua/2-liter-bottle-garden-examples.html or this http://www.stormthecastle.com/terrarium/soda-bottle-terrarium.htm It helps to see how they progress with a controlled environemnt as opposed to ambient environements. As you can start to grow anytime you want indoors this makes for faster experiment results. So I find that some varieties like a certain environemtn and I try to manipulate my systems to accomodate what they like best. Fpr example if you need a plastic covering or mylar to reflect back more light you can figure this out.

I am learning for myself more and more and more about the incredible food that I am growing and becoming more and more respectful of their diversity and possibilities.

My garden journal is a lab book really.

We all need to be our own scientist.

Guess what I am eating right now at 10:45 AM after a really long night on the job... a 10 oz glass of freshly ground and pressed red rocket and bright orange nante carrots, carrot greens, hoop house freshly picked Northern Spy apples (yes I found a way to fool apples trees into fruiting when I want them to....wait until Cornell University sees this...it is all about manipulating light angles through the use and change of overhead greenhouse materials), tatsoi, romaine lettuce, green onions, freshly picked celeriac, and parsley. I will drink a glass of this every hour for 13 hours today...thereby bombarding my body with nutrients it needs to heal.....I'm on Gerson Cancer therapy....

If I were eating from one of my 180 plus lunch recipes, that is part of my provident living/food storage regimine I would be eating.....young grilled salmon from the fish tanks I have installed in a basement in a large long room that is seperated from my food storage...lemon sauce made from the miniature lemon trees (you can stagger their growth also the same as with apple trees...it depends more on light and angle of light than on temp really...although colod temps set hormones....mimick cold temps by running air over large ice blocks for a short time adn this is powered by solar charged batteries) that are being fed in part by the fish tank products....fresh french fries with aioli dipping sauce....hearth bread.....red and green cabbage salad and because I have red raspberries at their height right now under hoop (raspberries take up a lot of room for what they produce so having them outdoors and covering them in their natural habitat with a covering is the best way to go)....I have red raspberrie sauce over bean milk icecream (this is the best icecream I have ever had....absolutely so much better than traditional icecream and it does not glow in the dark).....

I have produced everything (except for the REAL salt I use) for this meal including the oils for frying and the eggs for the aioli sauce from chickens I am co-opping with (a few of us are sharing in cost and upkeep on some very cool chickens and it is working great).

I am in process of testing indepth some of the processes I have described above so that I can present this in a scientific journal article. I believe that the few of us working on this have uncovered a new plant hormone in fruit trees. We have isolated and analyzed this. It is not among the present agreed upon hormones.
I am working on live classroom and other means to get this information out to you...but I think most of you can figure this out for yourselves.
We are in a time where we need to see and hear and experience how to do these things for ourselves with the most inexpensive and found materials.
So the question is...how can I do these things and how can I use what I have or what I can find for free or for very little cost.....?

One reason I quit PRN radio hosting is because you cannot see what I am talking about.

For example, you cant see or taste how delicious and preferable is the bug out kit food we make up....and that you can grow everything needed for this yourself...and then you cant even see how its processed to retain its best nutrients for us......

even in the mittleider VS the other micronutrient study I did with the pictures supplied didnt even come close to showing you the radiant difference in these plants....you could see the vibrant health and watch it as it progressed....with a different method we can get a better idea of what is happening here....

I am sure you want to see how a group of us worked together to set up a fantastic salmon run in a basement that feeds flora as well and how we produce our own algae for fish food in 2 liter soda bottles....Our salmon have a maize to swim through and vegetation and all kinds of fun 'toys' and it makes them happy and there is a difference in these than in the other commerically grown salmon. And the aquatic vegetation cleans the "tanks." Can you make your own large fish runs adn tanks from scrap heavy duty plastics....YES YOU CAN....start to learn to manipulate PVC pipe plastics and I will show you how to make your own set ups.....some plastics can be easily reworked at home...just need to know how to make the molding for what you want and a little something about temps adn plastics....and yes you can do this in a zone 4 without utilities...its all about insulation and going with nature...gotta run.....KO

so there you have a couple of ideas from me as well Sonshe......

----- Original Message -----
From: Sonshe
To: MittleiderMethodGardening@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2011 11:34 AM
Subject: Re: [MittleiderMethodGardening] Re: planting for zone 5ers

Do you do any thing special to grow plants on your window sills? I never
have been able. I've now moved and do have a couple south windows. Do you
supplement with artificial light? What about fertilizer? I really want to
grow things, especially lettuce, inside.

----- Original Message -----
From: "seedplanter_max" <seedplanter_max@yahoo.com>
To: <MittleiderMethodGardening@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2011 12:56 PM
Subject: [MittleiderMethodGardening] Re: planting for zone 5ers

I could grow on my window sills until my husband replaced the windows with
'energy efficient' windows. These windows seem to block out just the rays
that the plants need to grow correctly. I'm not a fan of 'energy efficient'
because it cuts off another source of growing plants.

--- In MittleiderMethodGardening@yahoogroups.com, Cherlynn Bell
<brchbell@...> wrote:
>
> I'm in zone 4B so a little colder. We get way to much snow to bother
> trying to grow outside but I do grow green onions, baby carrots, several
> kinds of lettuces in my window sills all winter. I don't pick the whole
> lettuce, just a few leaves off each one so they keep growing and replace
> what I use. It's not a lot but we have all the green onions we need and a
> fresh salad once a week for the 7 of us here. We are considering a green
> house with a biomass rocket stove but it will be a year or two for that.Â
> The biomass would be a grow bed so we should be able to even grown
> tomatoes if we do it.  I learned to grow on the window sills when we
> lived in a high rise apartment in Japan many years ago. I've done it ever
> since.
>
> Cherlynn

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