We lived in a very rural bush community in central Canada for about 20 or so years where it was mostly trees and very little good arable soil. The forest was mixed with lot of coniferous trees and almost pure sand over bedrock. The shallow soil held little to no moisture at all. The climate in central Canada is considered to be “cold” with an average of 161 frost free growing days. Yep - that’s only 4 months. Except for a few tough crops that can withstand the frost, most harvesting usually ends when the temperature drops to the freezing point.
I love to grow things and we wanted to have our own food as much as possible. So we built some raised beds and various container beds for our gardens. These worked out well enough. However, it was a lot of work keeping the weeds to a minimum and making sure everything got enough water during the dry periods.
When I discovered the Ruth Stout method, I was intrigued. It was definitely not the way my parents and grandparents gardened. Just put your seeds on top of the soil, and put hay/mulch in a deep layer on top of them. This new-to-me method looked like it would solve issues such as weeds and moisture retention too. Sounds simple, right?
I decided to try it for my potatoes and garlic. Following the method, I put my seed potatoes and garlic cloves on top of the ground instead of burying them. A friend gave us some of his old spoiled hay bales and we laid this hay about a foot deep over the beds. That was it - super easy for planting.
During the summer, we watched the potato plants push up through the hay, fill out and bloom just lovely. And the garlic had no problem poking up through the hay. We harvested plenty of delicious scapes from those garlic plants. We had to water a bit during August when there was no rain for about 3 weeks, but otherwise the hay kept the soil moist. By late fall, we checked the potatoes and they were doing great. In fact, the hay covering the plants provided insulation keeping them protected past the early frost days.
When we finally harvested, it was impressively easy. We just lifted up the hay which had composted considerably by then. There were our beautiful potatoes, loads of them just resting on the surface soil. It was the same for our garlic which grew quite large. Both the potatoes and garlic were pest free and did very well in the composting hay. After harvesting, we just left the hay on the bed to continue decomposing and feeding the soil.
Eventually, we used this method for tomatoes and a few other crops. It most definitely keeps almost all of the weeds out, and any that sprout just pull out easily. Very little work, harvesting is simple. And the composting hay/mulch keeps feeding the soil. It most certainly was and still is my favourite method of gardening, whether on raised beds or not.
No doubt many of you have used the Ruth Stout method or other similar no-work or no-till gardening techniques. And I know it is not the best method for all crops or for all conditions. It is one of a multitude of approaches and practices that help make gardening easier, more enjoyable and potentially more productive. I would love to hear about your experiences with these methods of making gardening easy.
I love to grow things and we wanted to have our own food as much as possible. So we built some raised beds and various container beds for our gardens. These worked out well enough. However, it was a lot of work keeping the weeds to a minimum and making sure everything got enough water during the dry periods.
When I discovered the Ruth Stout method, I was intrigued. It was definitely not the way my parents and grandparents gardened. Just put your seeds on top of the soil, and put hay/mulch in a deep layer on top of them. This new-to-me method looked like it would solve issues such as weeds and moisture retention too. Sounds simple, right?
I decided to try it for my potatoes and garlic. Following the method, I put my seed potatoes and garlic cloves on top of the ground instead of burying them. A friend gave us some of his old spoiled hay bales and we laid this hay about a foot deep over the beds. That was it - super easy for planting.
During the summer, we watched the potato plants push up through the hay, fill out and bloom just lovely. And the garlic had no problem poking up through the hay. We harvested plenty of delicious scapes from those garlic plants. We had to water a bit during August when there was no rain for about 3 weeks, but otherwise the hay kept the soil moist. By late fall, we checked the potatoes and they were doing great. In fact, the hay covering the plants provided insulation keeping them protected past the early frost days.
When we finally harvested, it was impressively easy. We just lifted up the hay which had composted considerably by then. There were our beautiful potatoes, loads of them just resting on the surface soil. It was the same for our garlic which grew quite large. Both the potatoes and garlic were pest free and did very well in the composting hay. After harvesting, we just left the hay on the bed to continue decomposing and feeding the soil.
Eventually, we used this method for tomatoes and a few other crops. It most definitely keeps almost all of the weeds out, and any that sprout just pull out easily. Very little work, harvesting is simple. And the composting hay/mulch keeps feeding the soil. It most certainly was and still is my favourite method of gardening, whether on raised beds or not.
No doubt many of you have used the Ruth Stout method or other similar no-work or no-till gardening techniques. And I know it is not the best method for all crops or for all conditions. It is one of a multitude of approaches and practices that help make gardening easier, more enjoyable and potentially more productive. I would love to hear about your experiences with these methods of making gardening easy.