After spending our summer building labor-intensive hugelkultur mounds, we decided to try our hands at a MUCH simpler form of permaculture, using the Ruth Stout Method: Simply growing our food in hay!
VIDEO: GGC – 70 – The Ruth Stout Method
After spending our summer building labor-intensive hugelkultur mounds, we decided to try our hands at a MUCH simpler form of permaculture, using the Ruth Stout Method: Simply growing our food in hay!
Great video. I’m definitely going to try it.
Grass seeds from the hay = weeds. We tried this RS method but now prefer raised beds.
Thank you! That was so very helpful!!
Aunt B
How did you keep you hay from blowing off during the winter. I’m in North Central Texas and the wind blows out of the north like nobodies bidness.
I purchased Ruth's book in the mid 70's from Organic Gardening, Rodale Press. I followed her method religiously. Within a couple of years, I had a Giant Worm Bed that would practically grow the vegetables by showing the package to the soil. I still have Her book in my organic gardening library.
Hayyy…..what do you do about hay sprouting grass?
For those interested, here's an FAQ video (about the Ruth Stout method) that we posted last year. It should hopefully help to answer any questions you might have: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ8ueya4HtI
She was the Julia Childs of gardening. Awesome lady! … Just KNOW where your hay is from so you don't get stuck with herbicide residue.
It also means our elderly aren’t invaluable to society
I have always loved gardening but now at 63 retired I'm starting again love finding this cause I want something that requires little work in weeding and digging
Yes, but I thought this method of mulching draws squash bugs.
How do you keep blight or mold away ?
Thanks for that background info .
Crop rotation clearly is not enough to keep depletion at bay .
Ruth sounds like the kind of person with not much time nor want for conversation .
Ruth Stout as also #2 in command with Carrie Nation in Prohibition. Am I right?
Enemy of every mulch gardener: rhizomatous grasses. Like your lawn. It can invade 30 inches or more and come up through everything but black plastic
so I have talked to several farmers that have told me that if you use hay it promotes a lot of weeds because the seeds in the hay germinate. Did you have a weed issue?
We started working on our lot in 2019 and started with a method similar to this one: cardboard + hay, without knowing about Ruth Stout. It proved deceptive on our clay rich soil. After a few months, cardboard was not fully decomposed, the soil was hard with lots of grass roots and hay had not brought enough organic matter, which stayed at the top, not mixing with the original soil. This method probably works: but it needs years to get started, at least on our soil.
After this first experiment, we switched to a more labor intensive method: get rid of the top grass, work the soil with a broadfork (in French: grelinette) to unpack it, bring in compost to add organic matter and get a better soil structure, then mulch it. It takes more time and work, but gives better results.
I am also testing a method used by a guy called Philippe Forrer, who was inspired by Ruth Stout. But Philippe has a more extreme approach using hugelkultur raised beds with lots and lots (and lots) of mulch on it. A kind of Ruth Stout method on steroids. After 15 years of doing it, his garden is a bit messy, but extremely fertile. Potatoes grow there without being planted!
Check this video (English subtitles are available).
https://youtu.be/0jk0h1laL-0
We are currently testing this on only one raised bed as I cannot find enough mulch yet.
Crazy! My husband and I will extend our garden this way. Thank you guys.
Inspiring
See this is why the elderly are smarter than you may think when they talk you should listen
This might seem ignorant or overly ridiculous, but i knew of this method when i was a child, it made scene to me that matter decays and gives life.
"With death comes life"
I knew that hay, sugar cane mulch and corn mulch is very cheap and perfect for this.
And here I am, thinking the 'lazy be"d' I just created was the simplest method out there ! I have a large field of grass so will be collecting 🙂
It's never too late to try new things. I'm graduating community college with my associate degree at 50!
I guess I must be Ruth smart or just Ruth lazy I just figured it out and lazy composting is veggie fertilization which is super lazy but works awesome. Blessings.
What an inspiring woman. You two are absolutely amazing and completely professional in your ability to produce a quality informative video that motivates and inspires someone like me, to get out there and just do. Don’t think, just do. Good on the both of you and best wishes on your endeavors.
I guess the honeymoon is over or they wouldn't have the energy to garden… oh wait…. there is no such thing as a honeymoon anymore.
Great video
Very very good explanation! Thank you