Adding Tomatoes, Peppers, and Onions to Your Milpa Mix

0:00 So we often get asked, can there be things I can add to this? Because I love tomatoes, I love peppers, I love onions, but you don't have.

0:08 That in your melvin mix well the reason that we don't have that in there is those there's a really tiny seeds and they just really struggle coming up.

0:15 From a direct seeding method like this and as they're coming up as seedlings they're not nearly as competitive with some of the faster.

0:22 Growing things so we really don't see those work very well. Planted as part of this so what we encourage people to do.

0:30 Is plant your milpa mix however you're going to do that, get that in the ground and then take your tomatoes or your peppers or your onion sets. It's great to.

0:39 Have it out there amongst the milpa. You're just going to have to plant that as a separate step so you know take your tomato seedlings, your peppers, your

0:47 Onions, whatever you want, put them wherever you want to put them where it's going to be easy for you to get in and out of your plot so that you're not.

1:01 You're reducing the competition. You don't want a big squash plant just taking over your tomatoes and your peppers. You may have to do a little.

1:08 Pruning a little thinning but it's going to be good for those plants that you're specifically planting—the tomatoes, peppers, onions, whatever.

1:16 They may be it's going to be good for them to be growing in a diverse community. You're just going to have to help them get started.

1:22 By doing some hand transplanting and some hand work, and until we kind of figure out a better way to do that, that's what we recommend. And again, you're not going to do it across the whole area necessarily, just do it in an area where you can really manage it well to begin with.