Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

To me, in this climate, mulch is the other half of no-till. Both work better 
with the other - and with permanent beds and aisles. In a nutshell, mulching 
and not walking on growing beds leaves soil mosture-retentive and loose 
without tilling, and if needed beds can be raised a little for better 
drainage. And since mulch deprives weed seeds of sunlight you don't need to 
hoe or cultivate - and can't anyway with mulch in the way.

I've always tried to listen to organic writers who knew a lot more than I do. 
This works for me and works most places with minor adjustments. In this 
climate mulch does something else too: it keeps soil surface cooler and 
protects shallow roots, and it keeps rain from compacting and crusting the 
soil surface.

Heavy clay soil doesn't percolate well for deep watering, and if waterlogged 
doesn't drain properly for good growth. If these methods don't work well with 
heavy soil then it's likely plain row gardening won't work either. Greensand 
and compost improve heavy soil properties, and also helps sandy soil retain 
moisture and nutrients. I have to use both.

I've never thought much about growing without mulch, and always used spoiled 
hay - tho I'd forgot she recommended spoiled hay. A note: Ruth grew in single 
rows, not intensive beds, and mulching meant covering the entire garden area. 
With permanent beds we can get by with mulching a lot less than the whole 
garden area.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ruth Stout's System
Mulch is her key to easier gardening.
By Ruth Stout  -  February/March 2004
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/2004-02-01/Ruth-Stouts-System.aspx

After you have mulched for a few years, your soil will become so rich from 
rotting vegetable matter that you can plant much more closely than one dares 
to in the old-fashioned way of gardening.

‘Mulch Queen’ Ruth Stout claimed to have smashed saloons with Carry Nation in 
Prohibition-era Kansas and worked au natural in her roadside Connecticut 
garden, but her labor-saving, soil-improving, permanent garden mulching 
technique is what earned herlasting fame. Stout was born in 1884 and lived to 
be 96; by the1950s, she was writing lively gardening books, including How to 
Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back and Gardening Without Work. Both 
are out of print, but Stout's technique remains consistent with the "no-till" 
gardening methods soil experts recommend today (see Building Fertile Soil). 
We thought you might enjoy meeting Stout through this excerpt from Gardening 
Without Work, which was reprinted most recently byThe Lyons Press. — Mother
----------
My no-work gardening method is simply to keep a thick mulch of any vegetable 
matter that rots on both my vegetable and flower garden all year round. As it 
decays and enriches the soil, I add more. The labor-saving part of my system 
is that I never plow, spade, sow a cover crop, harrow, hoe, cultivate, weed, 
water or spray. I use just one fertilizer (cottonseed or soybean meal), and I 
don't go through that tortuous business of building a compost pile.

I beg everyone to start with a mulch 8 inches deep; otherwise, weeds may come 
through, and it would be a pity to be discouraged at the very start. But when 
I am asked how many bales (or tons) of hay are necessary to cover any given 
area, I can't answer from my own experience, for I gardened in this way for 
years before I had any idea of writing about it, and therefore didn't keep 
track of such details.

However, I now have some information on this from Dick Clemence, my 
A-Number-One adviser. He says, "I should think of 25 50-pound bales as about 
the minimum for 50 feet by 50 feet, or about a half-ton of loose hay. That 
should give a fair starting cover, but an equal quantity in reserve would be 
desirable." That is a better answer than the one I have been giving, which 
is: You need at least twice as much as you would think.
What Should I Use for Mulch?

Spoiled or regular hay, straw, leaves, pine needles, sawdust, weeds, garbage 
— any vegetable matter that rots.
Don't Some Leaves Decay Too Slowly?

No, they just remain mulch longer, which cuts down on labor. Don't they mat 
down? If so, it doesn't matter because they are between the rows of growing 
things and not on top of them. Can one use leaves without hay? Yes, but a 
combination of the two is better, I think.

What is spoiled hay? It's hay that for some reason isn't good enough to feed 
livestock. It may have, for instance, become moldy — if it was moist when put 
in the haymow — but it is just as effective for mulching as good hay, and a 
great deal cheaper.

Shouldn't the hay be chopped? Well, I don't have mine chopped and I don't 
have a terrible time — and I'm 76 and no stronger than the average person.

Can you use grass clippings? Yes, but unless you have a huge lawn or have 
neighbors who will collect them for you, they don't go very far.
How Do You Sow Seeds into the Mulch?

You plant exactly as you always have, in the Earth. You pull back the mulch 
and put the seeds in the ground and cover them just as you would if you had 
never heard of mulching.
Isn't It Bad to Mulch with Hay That May Be Full of Weed Seeds?

If the mulch is thick enough, the weeds can't come through it.

One man in a group I addressed was determined not to let me get away with 
claiming that it was all right to throw a lot of hay full of grass seeds on 
one's garden, and the rest of the audience was with him. I was getting 
nowhere and was bordering on desperation, when, finally, I asked him:

"If you were going to make a lawn, would you plant the grass seed and then 
cover it with several inches of hay?" Put that way, he at last realized that 
a lot of hay on top of tiny seeds would keep them from germinating.

However, it's true that you can lay chunks of baled hay between the rows of 
vegetables in your garden and, in a wet season, have a hearty growth of weeds 
right on top of the hay. To kill unwanted weeds all you need do is turn over 
the chunk of hay. Now, this isn't much of a job but some ardent disciples of 
my system are capable of getting indignant with me (in a nice way, of course) 
because they are put to that bother. I have relieved them of all plowing, 
hoeing, cultivating, weeding, watering, spraying and making compost piles; 
how is it that I haven't thought of some way to avoid this turning over of 
those chunks of hay?
How Can You Safely Plant Little Seeds Between 8-inch Walls of Mulch?

One can't, of course, but almost before one gets through spreading it, the 
mulch begins to settle and soon becomes a 2- or 3-inch compact mass rather 
than an 8-inch fluffy one. It will no doubt be walked on, and rain may come; 
in any case, it will settle. As a matter of fact you won't need 8 inches to 
start if you use solid chunks of baled hay.
Many People Want to Know Why I Don't Use Manure and What I Have Against It

I have nothing at all against it; in fact, I have a somewhat exaggerated 
respect for it. But I no longer need it; the ever-rotting mulch takes its 
place.

I sort of complained, in my first book, that no one ever wrote an ode to 
manure, and through the years since then at least a half-dozen people have 
sent me poems they composed about manure piles.

I have been asked over and over if such things as sawdust and oak leaves 
should be avoided, the idea being that they make the soil too acidic. I use 
sawdust, primarily around raspberries, with excellent results. We have no oak 
trees, therefore I can't answer that question from experience, but I 
certainly wouldn't hesitate to use them; then, if it turned out that they 
were making the soil acidic, I would add some wood ashes or lime. I've had 
reports from a great many gardeners who have used both sawdust and oak leaves 
over their entire garden and have found them satisfactory.

How Often Do You Put on Mulch?

Whenever you see a spot that needs it. If weeds begin to peep through 
anywhere, just toss an armful of hay on them. What time of year do you start 
to mulch? The answer is now, whatever the date may be, or at least begin to 
gather your material. At the very least give the matter constructive thought 
at one; make plans. If you are intending to use leaves, you will 
unfortunately have to wait until they fall, but you can be prepared to make 
use of them the moment they drop. Should you spread manure and plow it under 
before you mulch? Yes, if your soil isn't very rich; otherwise, mulch alone 
will answer the purpose.
How Far Apart Are the Rows?

Exactly the same distance as if you weren't mulching — that is, when you 
begin to use my method. However, after you have mulched for a few years, your 
soil will become so rich from rotting vegetable matter that you can plant 
much more closely than one dares to in the old-fashioned way of gardening.
How Long Does the Mulch Last?

That depends on the kind you use. Try always to have some in reserve, so that 
it can replenished as needed.
Now for the Million Dollar Question: Where Do You Get Mulch?

That's difficult to answer but I can say this: If enough people in any 
community demand it, I believe that someone will be eager to supply it. At 
least that's what happened within a distance of 100 miles or so of us in 
Connecticut, and within a year after my book came out, anyone in that radius 
could get all the spoiled hay they wanted at 65 cents a bale.

If you belong to a garden club, why can't you all get together and create a 
demand for spoiled hay? If you don't belong to a group, you probably at least 
know quite a few people who garden and who would be pleased to join the 
project.

Use all the leaves you can find. Clip your cornstalks into footlength pieces 
and use them. Utilize your garbage, tops of perennials, any and all vegetable 
matter that rots. In many localities, the utility companies grind up the 
branches they cut off when they clear the wires; and often they are glad to 
dump them near your garden, with no charge. But hurry up before they find out 
that there is a big demand for them and they decide to make a fast buck. 
These wood chips make a splendid mulch; I suggest you just ignore anyone who 
tells you they are too acidic.

Recently, a man reproached me for making spoiled hay so popular that he can 
no longer get it for nothing. The important fact, however, is that it has 
become available and is relatively cheap. The other day a neighbor said to 
me, "Doesn't it make you feel good to see the piles of hay in so many yards 
when you drive around?" It does make me feel fine.

Now and then I am asked (usually by an irritated expert) why I think I 
invented mulching. Well, naturally, I don't think so; God invented it simply 
by deciding to have the leaves fall off the trees once a year. I don't even 
think that I'm the first, or only person, who thought up my particular 
variety of year-round mulching, but apparently I'm the first to make a big 
noise about it — writing, talking, demonstrating.

And since in the process of spreading this great news, I have run across many 
thousands who never heard of the method, and a few hundred who think it is 
insane and can't possibly work, and only two people who had already tried it, 
is it surprising that I have carelessly fallen into the bad habit of sounding 
as though I thought I originated it?

But why should we care who invented it? Dick Clemence works hard trying to 
get people to call it the "Stout System," which is good because it should 
have some sort of a short name for people to use when they refer to it, 
instead of having to tell the whole story each time. I suppose it does more 
or less give me a feeling of importance when I come across an article 
mentioning the Stout System, yet I am cheated out of the full value of that 
sensation because I've never been able really to identify the whole thing 
with that little girl who was certainly going to be great and famous some 
day. What a disgusted look she would have given anyone who would have offered 
her the title of Renowned Mulcher!

And it borders on the unenthralling to have the conversation at social 
gatherings turn to slugs and cabbageworms the minute I show up. And if some 
professor of psychology, giving an association-of-ideas test to a bunch of 
gardeners, should say "moldy hay" or "garbage," I'm afraid that some of them 
would come out with "Ruth Stout." Would anyone like that?

If you want to learn more about the Stout System, you can locate copies of 
Ruth Stout's books through a used bookseller. You also can order the VHS or 
DVD video Ruth Stout's Garden from Gardenworks. http://www.gardenworks.cc/