The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

Gardening in Sisters Country can be hard, hard, hard!

In Sunset's "Western Garden Book," one of the definitive go-to manuals for the West, there's no section that adequately addresses long cold springs, crazy night-and-day temperature fluctuations, and freezes in July. So, whenever something comes along that I believe can improve my odds of actually harvesting fresh vegetables, I jump on it.

Aside from protecting from the elements and extending the season, which will be covered in a future article, you can easily multiply your yield by following a precise watering and feeding program called the "Mittleider Method." I was astonished at how well my plants responded to a regulated food and water schedule and we ate and gave away basketfuls of yummy produce.

This carefully managed method of gardening was developed by Dr. Jacob Mittleider, a successful wholesale bedding plant grower in Loma Linda, California. Self-taught in plant and soil chemistry, he became an expert in producing the finest flowers in the area and started shipping all over the country. He later sold the business and for the last 38 years of his life, he and his wife traveled the world - especially in developing countries - sharing his expertise on how to improve food gardening to double, even triple, the yield.

Dr. Mittleider's method is kind of a cross between soil-based gardening and hydroponics. It can be used outdoors or in a greenhouse, in the soil or in raised beds filled with a soil-less medium. The key is to use precisely measured and applied food and water on a regular schedule. It's not as hard as it sounds! Basically you prepare the beds, put in the plants, feed them once a week and water once a day.

Here's how to make the nutrient formula : Buy 25 lbs. of 16-16-16. To the 25 lbs. of fertilizer, add 4 lbs. of Epsom salts and 1 bag of Mittleider Magic Micro Mix. To learn how to apply the weekly feed to your garden, you can go to http://www.growfood.com/learn and download the free e-book chapters regarding fertilizing. There's a ton of other information on this site as well - a good place to start researching this method.

If you're a "show-me" type of person, there are several places you can visit to see the whole system in action. The first is Victoria's Vegetables in Bend. Perhaps you might have purchased some of her tasty tomatoes at one of the local farmer's markets last summer. Her four greenhouses produce record numbers of tomatoes per plant and the size, color, and taste are unrivaled. She has also printed a small reference guide for using the Mittleider formulas.

In addition to her commercial operation, Victoria and husband Wally set apart a portion of their property for a "Donation Garden" where all the produce grown was given to NeighborImpact. Using the Mittleider method, the garden's six 30-foot rows yielded more than 1,000 pounds of fresh vegetables to feed hungry families. Pretty impressive! To view photos of the greenhouse gardens, go to http://www.victoriasvegetables.com.

After a few teachers and other interested community members visited Victoria's last year, they were inspired to use the Mittleider system in the Sisters Middle School greenhouse. That's beginning to happen. With help from the Sisters Garden Club, Rebecca Sokol, the Sisters Science Club, the school district, and community volunteers, the renovation is underway.

"It's amazing what's happening," said Kit Stafford, whose students are already happily planting and growing vegetables. "Our goals are to provide food for the school and community as part of the Food to Table program, give students some basic self-sufficiency skills, and create awareness of the need for good local food that doesn't need to be imported."

Stafford also mentioned that they are working with Maret Pajutee, USFS ecologist, to grow native plants from seed.

The Mittleider Method purports that, "With proper know-how and training, anyone can grow any vegetable in any soil, in any climate with minimal water and effort per unit of produce." That's a pretty big claim! But if you are interested in producing large quantities of food in a small area, minimizing gardening time and effort, conserving water, increasing nutrient density in your plants, etc. etc., you might want to explore this intriguing system.