Ruth Stout gardening - not potatoes?

[mzgarden]

Wondering if anyone has experiences to share with Ruth Stout type gardening (deep straw mulch) for something other than potatoes.

I've read some of her books and watched videos of her but when it comes to watching videos on others using her methods, it seems like it's always potatoes.  Wondering about things like tomatoes, peppers, bush beans, etc grown using deep straw as mulch.

[feather]

mzgarden, we used deep straw mulch for a few years. (we are now using landscape fabric, and still will till straw and manure into the garden on alternate years--for lift and nutrients)

On the years we used straw, we planted the tomatoes/peppers/everything, then mounded straw around all the plants and in the walkways. It was a very tidy garden. The straw held in the moisture too.

[mzgarden]

feather, excellent. Thank you.

[coppice]

Only when I was gardening on a very cold plot did a thick mulch impede things. So if you aint gardening in Montana, or Essex county VT, then getcher Ruth Stout on.

[mzgarden]

coppice,

[mogal]

I'm another fan of Ruth Stout's deep mulch growing. I try to mulch the whole garden where I can't do understory cover crop planting (clover or other legume after corn is just over knee high).

[Maura]

In my Ruth Stout book, which is pretty old, she used other things besides straw. Instead of a compost pile, she put the compost items in the garden.

What we have done is cover the garden area with newspapers and hose them down. We did this in late summer or autumn to kill the grass. Then, the compost goes on mixed with soil, then straw. Works well.

[solargeek]

We use the method for everything except for where I'm going to direct seed. Once those plants have sprouted, I then keep covering them with deep straw. It's a wonderful method.

For the potatoes I have had incredible crops but I too put down a layer of straw then throw my potatoes on there, cover them with straw and just put a couple shovels full of dirt on a 4 x 12 bed .

[Maura]

I've done a sort of Ruth Stout. My DD wanted me to dig into sod and plant her tomato plants. Yea, right. I got a couple of boxes from her garage, laid them on the grass and filled with potting soil. Put a tomato plant in each one. Worked great.

[bowdonkey]

I can't use it here, too many slugs.

[mogal]

Slugs? Blech. EEEWWW. Yuck.

I don't have first hand experience with ducks but to those who do, are they really effective in cleaning up slugs?

[ceresone]

The biggest thing to remember on Ruth, and I have all her books, it that she started by munuring her garden heavily for years and plowing it under before she went to the mulching method, thusly the rotting just kept up her fertility. She believed in mulch for everything.. To plant seeds, she pulled the mulch back until plants were big enough to push the mulch back. And any stew, etc that grew, she just turned over.

[ceresone]

Looks like I should proofread, don't think she grew stew, but maybe. Should have been SEEDS

[mogal]

Well, if she grew potatoes, carrots, beans, tomatoes, onions, garlic--that might become stew. Funny, ceresone.

[feather]

Talking about mulching. We HEAVILY mulched the blackberries over winter, with bales and bales of straw, then covered and wrapped with landscape fabric. All the landscape fabric is coming off and we've got a big mess of straw to move to the gardens from the blackberry trellis. It's a messy job!

[feather]

Our potatoes are heavily mulched over the mounds of dirt. We're figuring they'll need more in a few weeks to make sure they don't get hit by the sun and green up. We use old straw, that we bought the year before for winter mulching the black berries.

Our strawberries also get mulched in straw in the fall, then we move it off the plants in the spring.

Up until we started to use landscape fabric, we mulched garden in straw. We learned that 2-3 inches will compact down with rain and walking on it, then we had to weed more. So we started mulching 4-5-6 inches thick and less weeds. Here's a picture by mid summer of our earlier garden which didn't have a thick enough mulch and that mistake meant more weeds. You might be able to see the weeds in the onions in the foreground.


Garlic will grow through 6-8 inches of straw mulch, but not much anything else. The mulch is put in the pathways, thick, then pushed up against the plants once they are growing, and that worked better for us.

[mogal]

Apr 8, 2019 14:46:31 GMT ceresone said:

The biggest thing to remember on Ruth, and I have all her books, it that she started by munuring her garden heavily for years and plowing it under before she went to the mulching method, thusly the rotting just kept up her fertility. She believed in mulch for everything.. To plant seeds, she pulled the mulch back until plants were big enough to push the mulch back. And any stew, etc that grew, she just turned over.

Ceresone, if you ever decide to sell your Ruth Stout books or have no one to whom you'd like to give them, may I have first right of refusal please?  I made the mistake of LOANING my copy to a woman who informed me that she considered it a gift and she would not be returning it.  Long story.

[mzgarden]

mogal, sad face on your loss of the book. People are strange. I too continue to look for Ruth Stout books, but would probably not loan them to anyone, after hearing your experience.

[feather]

Although probably not as good as her books, there is a facebook group of her followers, 2600 people talking about her methods here: www.facebook.com/groups/ruthstout/

[ceresone]

Sometimes, you San just read too many of her books. Like I said, I have all of them, The gardening books I love, the one on her personal life gives you a entirely different perspective.

[midtnmama]

Apr 8, 2019 11:40:50 GMT mogal said:

Slugs? Blech. EEEWWW. Yuck.

I don't have first hand experience with ducks but to those who do, are they really effective in cleaning up slugs?

Can't answer that question, but slugs do not like coffee grounds or eggshells. I've been trying to use boards to attract slugs at night. Flip and kill the next day (or give to chickens).

I soak the harvest in water and carefully look for slugs before cooking/eating. No biggee. You can't see the chemicals used on commercially farmed produce but....BIGGER YUCK!

[mzgarden]

So our experiment is somewhat successful. The garden area has a lot fewer weeds. Some still come through but are generally easier to pull up including roots. The hay breaks down faster than I expected. Started with 8 inches deep and in some places, dirt keeps showing up, so we're recovering patches fairly often. Surprisingly this is our absolute worst year with tomatoes. Not sure if it's the deep mulch or something else. The Amish Paste and Marion tomatoes are still less than a foot tall - even with drip irrigation and Miracle Gro. Potatoes, Peas, Onions, Lettuce, Peppers and Cucumbers are doing great and the bush beans are coming along. We'll have to see next year how it goes with more of the hay having composted and hopefully improved the soil.

[feather]

mzgarden, why is this a bad year for tomatoes for you?
Our mulch method, yes it does go down fast, falling apart and going from 8 inches to 4 inches in just a month.
Our tomatoes are small but we are wisconsin, and we just got them in so that is expected for us.

[mzgarden]

feather, not sure why the tomato plants are small. Plenty of water, fertilizer and sunshine. No signs of disease - just not growing much.

[solargeek]

Jun 25, 2020 1:17:59 GMT mzgarden said:

feather, not sure why the tomato plants are small. Plenty of water, fertilizer and sunshine. No signs of disease - just not growing much.

We found that unless you take the straw away at least 4 inches all the way around the tomato plant when it is little, did the Ruth Stout method keeps the soil too cold. They simply do not thrive. They eventually grow as the straw disintegrates, but that's too late for them to recover and really produce. So my advice would be to pull it away probably 6 inches now because you want to be getting some sun to heat up the soil.

[allenw]

I kinda of did the last time I grew a garden. I dropped a round bale of hay and tore it up along letting the chickens dig in it most of the winter before planting in it. I would do it again, but with a full time job and farming it gets pushed back and not done.

[snoozy]

Apr 8, 2019 11:40:50 GMT mogal said:

Slugs? Blech. EEEWWW. Yuck.

I don't have first hand experience with ducks but to those who do, are they really effective in cleaning up slugs?

Ducks are absolutely effective against slugs. In fact, I think it is hardly possible to have a garden in the Pafici Northwest without ducks to keep the slugs at bay.

However, despite what you may read here and there, you cannot let ducks forage actually IN your garden. They like their greens, and they tromple all over your plants. So have ducks penned in your garden plot for a while before you plant anything, then fence them out and have then patrol the perimeter on the outside.