I have always appreciated the Ruth Stout method of gardening. My old garden bible, the 1961 Rodale hardcover HOW TO GROW VEGETABLES AND FRUITS BY THE ORGANIC METHOD, introduced me to Ruth Stout and her method of mulching to eliminate extra work in the garden. It also highlights other gardeners' experience with growing potatoes in heavy mulch.
Confession. The green garden bible isn't really my book. I lifted (I mean borrowed) it from my parents 15 or more years ago and never got around to returning it. Actually, after that many years together, I would assume I am now common law owner of that book. Sorry Mom and Dad. I hope you haven't missed it too awfully much.
Anyway, you should have this gardening encyclopedia. It covers everything you need to know, and the old-fashioned advice is full of common sense and practicality. But it is not this book to which I am referring.
Christy Gabbard, with VT Earthworks, offered up many of her personal garden library books to the Academy students to borrow. I chose the brightly colored recent edition of her book: GARDENING WITHOUT WORK For the Aging, the Busy and the Indolent, by Ruth Stout. Originally published in 1961, this very readable tome puts forth her nationally know method of gardening, with practical application and clarification to questions put forth by other gardeners and scientists questioning the validity of this method. Perhaps some readers might find her conversational style annoying.
Not me! (as you might guess!)
I am thoroughly inspired by this book. She fleshes out some practical points that will help me in our gardening this year. She has an impressive chapter on conservation, and on organic method. All of her points are made with a sparkle in her eye and more than a few winks and chuckles. I laughed out loud as I quickly read every chapter. How often does one laugh out loud throughout a gardening book? She is just as willing to poke fun at herself as she is the scientists who come to disprove her technique and the followers showing up unannounced for the garden tour. Too bad this was not my copy. Otherwise I would be able to quickly find all my favorite quotes because it would be marked up from front to back.
Please read this book. Hurry! I hope you will be as inspired as I was. I am requiring the children to read this for school this winter. I think they will enjoy it. You probably will, too.
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8 comments:
I will definitely put that one on my list! Right now I am getting ready to read "It's a Long Road to a Tomato, Tales of an Organic Farmer Who Quit the Big City for the (Not So) Simple Life." That and about ten others that are in my stack...
So, that is where that book is. I had thought of it not too long ago thinking with our tiny little garden in granite gravel here in Texas that she might have some insight on ways to make it better. Figured it was still in a box out in the barn. Glad to know it is in use. I read that a lot many years ago.
Ruth Stout was my guru way back when I started gardening in earnest. I still use many of her ideas. My new favorite tool is a lawn sweeper I use to collect grass clippings. I love to mulch! much better than weeding!
Mulch. What does that mean exactly? How can I get out of weeding?
Mulch means to lay down organic matter, could be leaves, waste hay, kitchen waste, newspapers, etc, on your garden bed, tucking it up to your seedlings. If planting seeds, you pull the mulch back to leave room for the seeds to come up, then when they are big enough, you tuck the mulch back in. Need to put down 8 inches of hay to suppress weeds. This really does work. If weeds come up, you just put another handful of hay on top of them and it kills them. Last year we had no extra hay and it was shocking the difference. If you can find a source of old moldy hay, you have garden gold on your hands. After using deep mulch for just one season we noticed a shocking increase in earthworm activity and soil moisture. You could probably find some of Stout's articles online and get the details of her method without reading her book, but the book is so entertaining, I have to recommend it! She does address the multitude of questions and criticisms people have sent her way over the years.
Ah huh. Okay. I have plenty of moldy hay. That's my big pet peeve--the moldy hay I buy and can't feed to my horses or else they will get colic so I give it to my neighbors for their cows. I could keep some for the garden. Much better than weeding. I am so tired of weeding and I'm an anal neat freak so I weed like crazy! One little weed, ut oh, I gotta get it! lol
You can't use that stuff for the flower beds though, right? Wouldn't be pretty. Any ideas for that?
You can mulch your flower beds. Use any old mulch on the bottom and something attractive, ground leaves, grass clipping, on top. I often use newspapers as mulch with something, usually grass clippings, on top to hold the paper down in our strong winds.
Okay, I'm going to try it.
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