Are you involved with an organization, village, church, school who wants to grow fresh organic produce and vegetables??

I have contacted you before about a farm in Vietnam to provide food
and some income for a small hamlet in coastal Vietnam.

I feel the mittleider method will far outproduce other methods. And
seems to be by far the most feasible,

There is a certain stubbornness involved with gardening throughout the
world and it is no better and maybe worse in agricultural dependent
societies.

After asking about thoroughly No one here can agree on what can grow
in this environment, Given it is very warm sunny and has adequate
rainfall.

Along with using the Mittleider method and if necessary constructing
some shade cloth above beds or Rows, I am of the opinion ANYTHING can
grow here. My questions involve Dr M's Initial work in New guinea and
his introduction of 16 vegetables and Fruits when previously they grew
around 4. Can you give me more details on What those varieties were?
There is a handful of staples of course but I would be interested in
what they grew in guinea.

I am also Curious as to how this method can be applied to an Orchard,
I will be starting one of those as well with a pretty simple but
varied Varieties of trees.

I am also curious about getting large orders of Fertilizers to Vietnam
(there are a few fertilizer companies here and they would be the first
choice), I would like some input on what best ratios to purchase and
maybe dress with pre-plant or some other venuer as well as how to use
manure.

Some Vietnamese I am sure regardless of what we are doing will want to
do the method with Manure. And possibly large "cover crops" can be
used with manure for grazing and feeding livestock?

I have decided to go ahead and do this as well as keep animals to
provide income and Food.

Chad:

Chad & Group:

I believe everything will grow there also. And production will be
MUCH higher using balanced natural mineral nutrients than with manure.

The following vegetables would be grown by Jacob almost everywhere he
went, in addition to local varieties already being grown:

beans, beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, chard,
corn, cucumbers, lettuce, melons, onions, peas, peppers, potatoes,
radishes, spinach, squash, tomatoes, and turnips.

That's more than 18, and doesn't include sweet potatoes that were
being grown in Papua New Guinea, so we'll both have to guess which
ones they didn't grow there.

The method works well with trees also, insofar as improving growth and
yields, but they aren't grown in raised beds or anything like that.
The main thing to do is fertilize - once per year with Pre-Plant and
three times per year with Weekly Feed - and eliminate weeds, which
compete for plant nutrients.

I recommend you find large successful farmers and/or greenhouse
growers, and pick their brains regarding their fertilizer sources.
You do everything you can to find the the main ingredients including:
calcium (lime), nitrogen (ammonium nitrate or urea), phosphorus
(DAP - di-ammonium phosphate if possible), potassium (potassium
chloride - or some other combination) , magnesium (Epsom Salt -
magnesium sulfate - or other).

And look also for the micro-nutrients including:
boron (borax, solubor, or other)
copper (copper sulfate is most common)
iron (iron sulfate or a chelated compound)
manganese (manganese sulfate usually)
molybdenum (sodium molybdate usually)
zinc (zinc sulfate usually)

If any of the micros are not available in the country we may be able
to help you find a way to ship them in.

You don't need the 100% water-soluble materials that the greenhouse
growers usually use. Those are quite a bit more expensive and may
actually not be as good for growing in the dirt as the slower-release
less expensive materials.

As soon as you are able to determine what's available in the major
ingredients tell me what the choices are, along with the percentages
of each nutrient and the costs, and I will help you determine which
ones to use and how much to buy of each.

Let's get the mineral fertilizers figured out first, and later we can
discuss the use of manures if necessary.

Jim Kennard