“One of the things I’d like to do is to show people how to start “positive” epidemics of their own.
The virtue of an epidemic, after all, is that just a little input is enough to get it started, and
it can spread very, very quickly.” ~ Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point
Growing a Sustainable Garden – The “Vital Few” or the “Trivial Many”? Which are you: one of the “Vital Few” or the “Trivial Many”?
I submit that your knowledge of the Mittleider Method of sustainable gardening makes you one of the “vital few.” With that knowledge, comes both opportunity and responsibility.
In his book, The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell describes how the few can make a tremendous positive difference for everyone else, which he compares to an epidemic, or that point before which not much seems to be happening, and after which effects begin to explode.
We Need to Start An Epidemic … And You Can Help!
Family gardening can, and should, become as common and important again as the family car.
Why?
Because your garden can FEED you — even when:
• Your car won’t run because there’s no gasoline (or you can’t afford to buy it) …
• There’s no food to buy in the stores … or
• There’s no money (or not enough) to buy food – for whatever reason.
This is the context, or the overriding reason why the message YOU carry is so vital for everyone.
Gardening should be sustainable, using true, proven principles and the best methods and techniques, so it will yield the “most bang for the buck,” and be worthwhile and enjoyable for the long term.
The Mittleider Method will feed your family! It will give you “the garden you’d want if your life depended on it.” And it very well may.
Today truly effective family vegetable gardening is done by only about 1% of the people who may soon desperately need it.
The best growing principles, methods and procedures are the closely guarded secrets of the large field and hydroponic growers. Meanwhile, the large majority of gardening families are back in the 19th century mentality, using only manure and compost, scared into believing that ANY use of “chemicals” will threaten their health, or even their lives.
What makes the Mittleider Method so unique – and so vitally important – is that it teaches the best principles, procedures, and techniques used by large commercial and hydroponic growers, but adapted to the small family garden. It works in any soil, and in almost any climate. The procedures are easy to learn; simple and straightforward.
In addition, the Mittleider Method eliminates the problems so often associated with large-scale commercial food production, such as overuse of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, high cost, and lack of freshness and flavor.
Now here’s our opportunity … and my challenge to you!
Great changes have always been initiated by just a few people who knew what they wanted, were focused, and were willing to share their knowledge with everyone they could influence.
I challenge every person reading this article to be among the “vital few” who help people around you improve their lives while preparing for the uncertainties of the future.
How?
First, by learning how to grow your own food using the best system available as demonstrated and taught by The Food For Everyone Foundation, and then by promoting, teaching, and demonstrating what you’ve learned about sustainable gardening, and getting others to do the same.
Choose a group of people with whom you have a genuine, social relationship. Your church group, email list, gardening club, voting district, family, or neighborhood association are all good places to start.
Show them your own garden. Tell them of your own success. Loan them a book or CD. Offer to teach a seminar. Point out the benefits of learning and doing it NOW, before their need is urgent and it’s too late to learn or prepare.
Show and Tell!
Share articles, tips and advice from the Food for Everyone Foundation Website. Share important posts from the archives of the MittleiderGardeningMethod@yahoo.groups.com and encourage people to subscribe. And invite friends to add Mittleider Gardening to their Friends on Facebook.
Even if you do nothing more than persuade them to buy a can of vegetable seeds and a couple bags of fertilizer, you’ve done tremendous good. A triple-sealed #10 can of 22 heirloom vegetable varieties that can be stored for many years can be purchased at the Foundation website or at www.mvseeds.com.
Do something NOW! Make your voice heard, and your influence felt. You CAN make a difference for good in the world around you.
It’s time to spread an epidemic … (Not bird flu. The gardening “bug!”)
We can do it. Malcolm Gladwell says we can do it. And remember: “out of small things proceedeth that which is great.”
Thanks for your interest in gardening, your willingness to do it right, and your courage to share.
By Jim Kenard
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Jim Kennard is the President of Food For Everyone Foundation (501)(c)(3) Charitable Foundation. Mission – “Teach the world to grow food one family at a time” with the world-renowned Mittleider Method.
