Help with propagating vegetable plants!

Ten-four on that, ernie! I whole-heartedly agree and will bet others here do too!

Horseshoe and all:

There is no argument that potatoes can produce lots of tubers when the soil is hilled up several times - or if they are grown in tires, and new tires continually added.

Please be encouraged, however, that NO EXTRA WORK OR EFFORT of any kind is necessary to produce a good potato crop. For 40 years, in 77 projects, in 29 countries, we have grown potatoes the same as other crops, without hilling them at all.

We have large crops of healthy, large tubers, usually increasing yields previously produced by a factor of several times. And potatoes are among the easiest of all crops to grow.

Jim Kennard

Jim, I'm convinced to try a couple of the boxed beds as one of my demo gardens. I'll even use the soil mix decribed by Mittleider. (I can't help it! I just luv trying different growing methods and techniques!)

Thanks for the info!

shoe, tell me where I can get Leek PLANTS... you've convinced me that we need to try baked Leeks, we love sauteed onions, so would probably love the Leeks too.

I appreciate ALL of the information here! It's never too late to learn new things!

Melissa

Hi I'm Norma Lewis, as a kid I used to grow strawberries from the seed of the fuit that we got from the store. Now is strawberry season here. So if the strawberry was sweet, great I would save those seeds. We would just toss the seeds in a flat of good soil, put gause or cloths diaper over them making sure they got some light, and watered. In the winter we would pick up the plants and dust with sulpher, and wrap them in toweling and put in refrig. to keep cool until the next spring, now these gave us fruit the second year. The plants without the leaves need to be chilled during the winter months. I have grown Luffa sponge in 3 gal. containers as well as tomatoes. I took cuttings of tomatoes and sank the stem at least 7" below the soil line leaving just
4 leaves above, I also feed the Eleanor's VF-11 product, which is excellent for all vining plants. Most root vegies, were grown from seed. Corn I saved the kernels of corn to dry and planted them the next season, just like our Am. Indians. Any dried beans that you use for cooking can be planted, and dryed peas also. I have even plants twigs of water cress near a dripping faucett. Beets, Carrots, Lettuce
Turnips, onions, from seed. To get Onions to sset bulb be sure to trample the green leaves in Sept. I live in the far West so my time schedule may be different than yours in other parts of the county. Brussel sprouts, cabbage, spinach are a winter crop. so plant out Oct 1, which here anyway give them some warmth to set good roots before it turns cold. Rotate your crops, and be sure to have the largest plants in the back not to shade the small ones. I always had my rows going from north to south, they got sun all day.

Most anything can be planted in large 1/2 wine barrels and on the driveway for warmth, and I have hear that old tires make excellent pots on top of soil filled with planting soil.
Good luck, Bon Apetit. Glad to meet all of you.

Melissa....one of the best (and family owned for umpteen years) is Dixondale Farms.

Their products are very good, and the prices are super reasonable.
I buy onions plants and also leeks from them. Better hurry, the leeks sell out fast.

http://dixondalefarms.com/

Horseshoe:

May I just suggest that you go all the way on those two beds. Feed them the way we do, so you have a true test of the methods I've been describing.

I can help you get the natural mineral nutrients you need to do it "right".

Jim Kennard

Will do, Jim. Thanks. I enjoy reading that website. there is good info there but I can't consider the technique there a "given" for all people. (I really haven't seen one single way of gardening that will work for all, and perhaps that is why.) However, it will certainly help many many people to garden and see results from their labors.

Over-all, spelling out so many different areas in a step by step manner will make it very easy for many folks to learn.

I'm not much on chem fertilizers, and altho I realize nitrogen is nitrogen (for example) I prefer non-man-made plant food in my gardens, particularly the food crops. (We do use Osmocote in the flower beds tho and see great results from it.) I hope to one day see an "organic" preference that your people offer.

Thanks for your offer and help. Please feel free to holler (email) if you'd like anytime. Trust me, I'll give the Mittleider method a great try-out, and do it honestly. No worries. Okay?



.

Leeks ordered...
Thank you very much.

I've been meaning to ask you, how come down in the south you got that fancy ending on Hillsboro? LOL

Hillsboro, OHIO is the county seat of the county I grew up in. :-)

Hah! Beats me! Guess it goes back to the original spelling umpteen hundred yrs ago. I think it''s changed over the years. As for me, when I write it I leave off the "ugh"!

It looks interesting....how do you come up with the "right" nutrient requirements? soil analysis combined with what you are going to grow? or what? ;D

Sorry to be so slow. The internet was down here while Qwest upgraded our system to a faster DSL connection.

Thanks, Horseshoe, and best of luck to you. For all who may be "listening in" my belief is that the 12 nutrients (other than nitrogen) we use are natural - ground-up rocks - and the best possible source of nutrition. And the %'s are known, so we can give the plants exactly what they need.

Jim Kennard

The first post to this thread has been edited to include identification of the location and some of the people involved. Propagation made a tremendous difference in this country. I've included the edit below, as well.

This picture was taken at a school in the interior highlands of Papua New Guinea, where Dr. Jacob Mittleider increased their food production by a factor of 10, while teaching the native people self-sufficiency and independence. The young man on the left, Silas, who was their Yard Boy to pay his way through school, learned his lessons well. He is known today as His Excellency Sir Silas Atapari, Governor General (President) of Papua New Guinea.

HELLO MELISSA FROM HT.

I have never grown leeks before and the ones I saw on Dixondale look like, to me, they're ALREADY ready to eat. How BIG do they get? I see they still have some and was going to order. How many could I plant in 5G containers?

Also, If one were to cut the top off the carrots like we do horseradish and plant it will it produce a plant under there like the horseradish?

Hi Electric Bob.

Horseshoe can probably answer your questions, I've never grown leeks before either!

Howdy Bob...
Hah! I can see your confusion with the pic! They are showiing you the mature leek, not the young plants that you'd be ordering/receiving. (See the pics of the "sampler packs?...those are the size of the plants you'd be receiving.)

As for growing them in a five gallon bucket...I never have but you could try. Leek are usually set in 4-6 inch deep holes and placed 4 inches or more apart. You'll have to stare into a five gallon bucket and figure out how many you can fit in there.

As for the carrot top..we had some input on that further up in this thread. Scroll up to around Feb 14th.

Hope this helps!

See, I knew he could! I'd love to borrow him for a few days so he could teach me how to really make things grow around here!

Thanks, both.

I didn't understand about the mention on the carrots. Am I to take it that they will just sit there and go to seed without growing? What if they're topped a bit before setting?

I DO know that to have nice long carrots (if that's the kind you're growing) you have to till about 18" deep so they can stretch their "legs."

I've never tried the little fat ones but I may do that. I have an old refrigerator that I can grow the long ones in. In case you didn't catch it, I'm a container/square-foot gardener. And all my flower beds will be raised. We just moved here in July.

Eighteen inches deep would be great to grow carrots and other crops in! I'd be nearly in Heaven! Carrots I grow will do fine in about 6-8 inches of growing space (and some of those varieties do well in nearly all-clay soil if it's kept moist).

Bob, let's each try the "carrot top experiment"! (I can say 'carrot top' cuz I was originally a redhead, now turning to a bit of gray!)

I'll pilfer a few carrots from my daughter's lunch box stash and cut off the tops. I think to see good life in them I'll then set them in a shallow pan of water till they show top growth, then set them in my No-work garden and we can discover exactly what they do. Just in case something happens to my experiment how 'bout you do the same? Next time someone asks us this question we'll have experienced answers! (I love that part!)

Anyone else wanna get in on ...
"The Great Carrot Top Will-It/Won't It Experiment of 2004"!

I'm in! My daughter and I love these kinds of experiments!

This message was edited Mar 4, 2004 11:59 PM

Definitely sounds good to me. I'm in. They don't have any fresh carrots in the stores yet, besides, they like to rip the tops off, throw them in that brushing machine and bag 'em and refrigerate 'em!

I'll have to check Giant. They usually try to stay away from the commercialization of fresh food. I'm pretty sure the refrigeration won't hurt them, though, as long as they still have their ferns.

Good luck, science partners! :o)

So whats the deal here all I need to do is

go to garden pick carrots

Cut off tops leaving 1/2 Inch of carrot on tops

put in shallow pan of water

With Fert?

heat?

diffuse or strong light?

Maybe I will eat the carrots I hack off for RX purposes LOL any way since I have carrots in the ground maybe I should do something differently from what you are all doing so let the carrot master speak. Ernie the one playing truant from work today planting seeds and messing in green house.

Truant! Truant! For shame for shame! :>)

As for carrot experiment...I was gonna keep about an inch of the top, put in shallow pan, and then get top growth. Diffused light, and change the water if it yucks up (a scientific technical term), no fertilizer. Once there is green top growth plant it outside in loose friable soil. (Feed the soil.) Thass all!

(PS...once again, didn't keep your addy. Found the light meter.)

You all need to start a carrot experiment thread. That way we can keep track of you without scrolling down through all the above threads.

I agree. Please start the carrot experiment site!

Peter

I'm in too but will have to wait a while so that I will actually have unfrozen dirt in which to plant them

Sorry someone else will need to start it Im computer challenged and don't know how to move the stuff written to it
Ernie without links lol

Ok shoe will send tonight gotta go to town to see about buying Linda a weeping pussy willow tree.

This message was edited Mar 5, 2004 2:30 PM

Please go to:

http://davesgarden.com/t/420485/

I want to do the potatoes in a garbage can, or would a wire mesh be better?

Can I use cypress mulch, or do I need to use straw or leaves?

Guide me wise ones, I really want to do this!

WOW! I have a Mittleider book I purchased back in the 70's and always looked forward to a time and place to try his methods. Never seemed to work out, but I kept the book. Now I live in HOT southern Nevada with horrible dry winds and ran across my old book just a couple of weeks ago and am looking forward to fencing off some of the rocky, bare back yard and building some grow boxes. (The fencing will be to protect garden from large Akitas) They are good diggers. I will definitely find time to check out your website links. Dave's Garden is really incredible, I've only been a member for about a week and have found so much info useful for my current stip of garden alongside driveway.

Many of you are aware of our member Jim Kennard, who posts threads related to the Mittleider Method of Gardening which he teaches all over the world, mainly in Third World countries, enabling those people to feed themselves. He has just lost his wife, and here’s the note:

Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 15:48:54 -0000
From: "Joe Kennard"
Subject: Death in the Family

It is with much sadness that I inform the group that Eleanor Kennard, the beloved wife of Jim Kennard, passed away last night.

Eleanor and Jim have fought a long and courageous battle with Breast Cancer for several years and today she is released from the intense suffering she has been enduring.

Services are slated to be on Saturday, Sept. 11, 2004 at noon.

Thanks,

Joe Kennard
Jims' "little" brother

My prayers will be with you in this time of sorrow. Your loss is great; strength and love will see you through.

Jim doesn't read these forums much because he is so busy. Y'all might want to send him an email of personal condolences to let him really know how close our DG family really is, and how much we care: http://davesgarden.com/members/JimKennard/

just an update - I did try leeks this year and it worked!!! Great way to go for next year. Did anyone ever get edible carrots from their experiments.

jagon...my carrots thrived for a while then the heat got to them. I really should have tried this experiment either earilier in the year or perhaps NOW, eh?

Mine got nice roots on them and then slowly started turning mushy and finally mouldy and yukky!!