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Here is Charles H. Wilber, however fuzzily, on top of the ladder, with a few of his 28' - 0" tomato 'trees' - which yielded about 350 lbs of tomatoes each - all of which is an official Guinness Record (cover, 1987 "Guinness Book of World Records"). And he did it with nothing out of the ordinary - not even fertilizers. Just compost, mulch and consistent watering. That's all. |
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And it's not only tenfold yields of tomatoes that can be grown with Charles' simple methods. He has also grown 17' - 6" okra plants, 18 lb. radishes, 4 lb. pears, 1/2 lb. plums, 150 lb. squash, 105 lb. watermelons, 3.5 lb. tomatoes, 3" peanuts, 18 lb. cucumbers, 17' - 0" sweet corn plants, 20' - 0" peach trees in two years from seed, yielding 32 eight quart baskets of 5" peaches, 14' - 0" persimmon trees in one year from seed, 6' - 0" pecan trees in one year from seed - asf. asf. asf. Charles says that any vegetables, fruit, berries, nuts and flowers will respond just as prolifically to his simple and natural methods.
In practice, most of Charles' tomatoes come from about 8' - 0" tall and very bushy tomato plants yielding about 120 lbs. of tomatoes each.
The first item in his method is a well made compost. He makes his compost under a protective cover to keep out the rain, to prevent the leaking of nutrients, and to allow him to control the moisture to optimum levels. And that's it. Nothing special, other than keeping it under cover. This compost is then liberally applied to the planting holes of his plants, along with a 1/2" layer spread over what will be the mature root zone of his plants. In the case of his tomatoes, this comes to 4 feet in all directions around each tomato plants, or to the drip line of his fruit and nut trees.
The second item is mulch. Charles mulches everything with a 6" to 8" layer of compressed mulch from (purchased) wheat straw bales. Most importantly, his tomato plants are mulched - to 4 feet all around - right after the seedlings have been planted. This allows the roots to expand rapidly and safely under the protective layer of dense mulch in an optimum moist and fertile environment. This mulch also preserves a great deal of moisture, suppresses weeds and makes weeding and cultivating unnecessary, evens out soil temperatures keeping the soil cool in the heat of day, and warm at night - and finally, enriches the soil with its organic mass when it decays.
And when some weeds should eventually appear above the mulch, just shear them and lay them over in place, making a most welcome addition to the mulch.
The third item is controlled drip irrigation from stationary pipes distributed among his vegetable, fruit, nut and flower gardens. This allows optimum use of irrigation water, for optimum moisture levels in the soil. Furthermore, and in my personal experience, water allowed to warm up in the pipes before being used for irrigation results in astonishingly rapid and abundant growth of both leaf and fruit.
And that's it. That's all there is to it. It is clear that truly massive increases in yield can be easily obtained with these few simple and essentially natural methods - and at a great savings in costs. Farmers and market gardeners, as well as home gardeners, can either grow massively increased crops, or obtain the same total yield from massively reduced areas of cultivation.
It is just as clear that all this comes with greatly reduced labour and other costs for - weeding, cultivation, irrigation (water and power), and herbicides (cost, labour, equipment, fuel, insurance).
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All of this is explained in greater detail in his book "How to Grow World Record Tomatoes", Charles H. Wilber, published 1999 by Acres U.S.A. [www.acresusa.com], which publishes the biggest and best monthly organic gardening magazine, plus many great organic gardening books which cannot be found anywhere else. The above pictures were scanned from the cover of his book, hence the poor quality |
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Now then, Charles does not even know about the substantial increase in health, vigour and yield the complete natural spectrum of the 72 trace elements brings (as described in these pages). That this wipes out practically all plant diseases, and makes all fungi-, viri- and bacteriacides unnecessary, for a further massive savings in cost for the poisons, equipment, fuel and application labour.
Charles also does not know yet about the wolf spiders - the natural and permanent 99% effective insect pest control from a single application (also as described in these pages). This now makes all insecticides unnecessary - for a further dramatic reduction of costs for these poisons, equipment, fuel and application labour.
Furthermore, and not yet factored into these methods are the great increases in yield which irrigation with "grey water" would bring. This makes all fertilizers - and their costs, equipment, fuel and application labour - unnecessary, for a another massive reduction of costs.
Meanwhile, and finally, the soil cultivated with the methods described here will get richer, more friable and more fertile season by season and year by year. And best of all, all products grown by these methods will be "super organic" and bestow an all but unassailable health on its consumers (also as described in these pages).
All comments are most welcome, and I'll gladly answer any questions you may have. pweis@shaw.ca
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