Vegetables Gardening - Growing Organic Vegetables

Someone on another forum to which I contribute made a strong negative comment about the Mittleider Method being "chemical-based".  I believe we will be well served to review this topic here also.

Everything in this world is chemical! Leaves, compost, manure, rocks, your shoes, the floor you walk on, EVERYTHING is chemical.

And J. I. Rodale, the "father" of the organic movement and the publisher of Organic Gardening Magazine said "the plant cannot tell the difference between nitrogen from a leaf (compost) and that from a fertilizer bag."

Over-use of chemicals, no matter what their source, is bad for sure. That is why we apply very small amounts of BALANCED mineral nutrients to the root zone, several times during the growing season, rather than trying to apply enough (as in organic compost, etc.) at the beginning to feed the plants for the entire growing season. 

Let's make a comparison. We feed 2 rows of plants just 1/2 ounce of balanced nutrition per foot of row per feeding. When I became known as the "Zoo-Doo Man" in Salt Lake City, Utah,  I created probably the world's best compost, using a full-sized cement truck, balancing the compost between greens, browns, and moisture, and aerating it every day so that it composted very quickly at 140+ degrees.  It took only 3 weeks, and then 1 week to cool down, and I had amazing black sweet-smelling compost that lost almost no nutrition due to leeching or volatilization. 

Id used it in a few beds in my garden for 2 growing seasons. It required about 250# of compost per 30'-long bed, and that contained between 10 & 15# of fertilizer salts. In adjacent beds using the Mittleider protocol we applied 7 OUNCES of fertilizer salts to a 30'-long bed several times during the growing season, but never even came close to applying the same amount of salt as the organic beds required.

Even using "the world's best compost" I could not grow as good a garden as the Mittleider Magic Pre-Plant and Weekly Feed produced, right in adjacent beds.  And the cost, time, hassle, smell, risk of harm to plants or humans from disease, were far less using the natural mineral nutrients.

i've done it the best way BOTH ways and the Mittleider system is SO much easier, safer, and more productive.  I recommend you get your fall garden in now, for for the best, healthiest, and least costly food possible.  And don't forget the garlic, about the time of the first frost.  Easy to grow, and super healthy and tasty!)