I use Ruth Stout (hay) for my entire garden, potatoes, tomatoes, squash, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and more. Is everything perfect, NO but it beats rototilling, fertilizing, and allows for light watering and weeding. I'm in my 3rd year and the Tennessee clay soil is Black now. It takes some patience.
It works best on a good living soil. But the first year not so much. First of all, it works best with hay because it has more nitrogen than straw. Straw decomposes more slowly. And when the soil starts to eat up the mulch, it pumps the nitrogen in the soil to do that. The soil does this for 2 to 6 months (it"s called "faim d'azote" in French and is very well documented). So I think your potatoes lacked nitrogen, people add compost, fresh cut grass, or manure to the mulch to prevent that effect. Of course, after several years, you have a good humus layer, that slowly leaks mineral nitrogen and feeds your plants. I garden on a living soil in the urban garden I volonteer at, and it works for everything, not just potatoes. Not only do you get the same yields as with tilling, but your vegetables taste better, because a living soil gives more sugar to your plants (again, it's been well documented in the past few years). Another advantage : the added sugar means your plants fight off diseases and pests more easily. Farmers using that way testify in case of a wet year, they get a lot less mildew, if any, than their neighboors.
Just found your videos. I've been gardening here in TN for about 20 years and while Ruth Stout died in 1980 at the age of 96, her books are still a goldmine of information. I've been using her method now for at least 19 years. Last year I stupidly did not put down straw bales on my raised beds and am now suffering the consequences of that action because with all the rain we had last year the beds went to hell in a handbasket. I have to yank up all the grassy weeds and, in some cases, small trees! (damned squirrels!) because I didn't do the heavy mulch that I should have. I've planted onions, potatoes etc. and both usually come up through the straw in the spring. The mulch doesn't kill the vegetables, but simply keeps the beds from having weed and grass seeds sprout. During the growing season, it's really good to keep putting mulch down. That's especially important over the winter. I used to use hay bales but had trouble with the number of grass and weed seeds, like crownvetch, coming up. Crownvetch is used by many highway departments to combat erosion, but it is very invasive, the roots are tiny and once established hard to get rid of. Anyhow... Keep experimenting!
We tried this in our yard in California over 30 years ago; pure sand next to the ocean where nothing but ice plant would grow. We DID peek and we'd snap off the bigger ones when they were sizable enough for dinner and left the rest to continue to grow instead of waiting until the end of the season and harvesting them all at once. I think the plants just turned the energy into growing into new potatoes. Overall I think we got more potatoes per plant that way. As for watering the potatoes, we were in a drought and weren't allowed to water our yards/gardens so the extra thick layer of mulch was a life saver for the plants! What was a lot of fun was watching some of the ground birds making their nests amongst our plants!
For the first time this year I set down my potato starts and covered them with 10 inches of wood chips (that I was able to get for free). Added another 6 inches of wood chips in June. Harvested Aug 1st. Results were fantastic.
That's the Back To Eden method 😊 check out the documentary on TH-cam... it's amazing! I turned my raised bed into a back to eden bed and I don't water it at all other than when I choose to liquid feed since it is the 1st year.. my tomato, pepper, lettuce, basil, dill is doing AMAZING!! I will be turning my entire garden into a Back to Eden with a hint of Ruth Stout ( plan on mixing Ruth Stout with Back to Eden on my potato beds for a fall harvest) for the fall and future garden!!
I remember reading one of her books back in the 70s. At the time of writing her garden had been in place 8 years . she’d add “spoiled hay” when she could get it.
Layed a 2 × 20 foot bed on top of raked up winter leaves. 1/2 cup of soil on bottom of sprouting organic potatoe. Planted 17 potatoes after a month started sticking my hand under the leaves ac nabbed a few potatoes. Covered with peat moss after about 6 weeks. Harvested all together about 25 lb. of potatoes. Delighted. No watering no weeding, no tilling. Great.
Pull the rows back together and it will be ready for more straw/hay next spring and ready to plant. I am going to do this in full force next year myself. That was so much easier to pull apart the hay than digging them up from hard soil. Well done! I always loved Ruth Stouts articles way back when and have just never done it but I sure am now!
I tried it this summer with hay, it was amazing, no digging, no weeding. Little watering in comparison to other years. I have old hay that’s been “ fertilized” by the cows on our ranch just pick it up around the feeders. Big vegetables. I have added to it this fall to break down over the winter, protect the soil from the wind and keep the moisture .
yes! i live in norway and do this all the time in my veggie garden with all of my plants. also fertilize with chicken manure pellets and comfrey. i use tarps to cover the mulch in between planting to avoid weeds growing and also keeps the soil moist en ready to plant. love ruth stout!
Good on ya. Great 'taders are worth the effort. I use pulled grass from my yard in my garden with great effect. Water conservation during our 6 month dry season is of critical importance to the garden. Like you, I pile the grass deeply and cover it with burlap which helps with reducing evaporation due to strong trade winds. The grass compost nicely to nourish the soil. Keep planting and stay hot and sweaty.
That 1870's Homestead P.S My Son & I did an experiment & grew our own Scoby from store bought Kombucha it worked surprisingly well! We have spent the entire Summer at Doc appts (mostly imaging & testing) and "growing" health to face the challenges ahead of us. I have been gardening vicariously through you & my other favorite YT'ers! Thank You for taking the time to share!
Your soil is so rich and black! I've watched the YT channel "Back to Reality", which is where I first heard of Ruth Stout. They live in Canada, and put the hay down in the fall. They can often get spoiled hay for free, too. Amazing results.
My very first Ruth Stout experiment was in a neglected, dry patch of hard lawn. All I did was put down my seed potatoes right on top of the nasty, short, scrabbly grass, cover it with thick straw, and walked away for several months until it was harvest time. I didn't even look at it once until harvest. No surprise, my potato harvest was rather small. There were hundreds of potatoes, but they were generally less than three inches big. But was it a success? Heck yeah! This was a NO WORK garden! The space was being wasted anyway, and I put zero planning or effort into making it succeed. So in pounds of harvest per square foot it might be disappointing to some people. But in pounds of harvest per calorie of effort I put into it, it was an outrageous win! And of course, the soil only became better and more able to grow richer crops next time!
I have been doing Ruth Stout method for 40 years. Most times I loved the results!!! Biggest problem is grtting sufficient hay mulch on the cheap! Rick in Pa.
Mulch is awesome! We experimented with some old hay bales this year. Tomatoes and sweet potatoes and beets where what we planted in them. Still have a little bit longer till that's finished. I'm so glad the potatoes worked out for you
Ruth Stout method and Back To Eden appear to be very similar; the only difference being R.S. uses straw/hay as the top covering and BTE uses wood chips. Here in Kentucky, my most easily available resource are leaves. I have an 11' x 24' garden, and I dump about 30 bags of leaves onto my garden, each fall. My leaves .take care of watering, fertilizing, weeding, soil retention, cover crop, etc. all in one.
Glad you enjoyed it. We really changed things up in the garden this year, do if you are researching different methods I've linked our Growing good playlist for you. Happy growing! th-cam.com/play/PLoi3On3ZiLmEpyoW2bzOOD6y2m1RzDCC6.html
works great for potatoes. Best part is ease of harvest (and planting). But I did it one year for sweet potatoes - got beautiful plants, grew, spread, bloomed - when I dug them - nothing underneath! The mice had worked thru the mulch (I used grass clippings) and they ate every scrap of sweet potato! I still love the method though.
We are trying this in the winter this year. I saw a video where someone did it in the winter for early spring potatoes....so that will be our first Ruth Stout experiment. Maybe I will have a few to sell for Easter. 🤗
I'm confused about the 'severe' drought conditions because all the surrounding grass and other vegetation on your property looks very green and lush. I don't see any signs of drought. Regardless, the Ruth Stout system is ingenious! Thank you for sharing this method. Wishing you ongoing success in all your endeavors.
Ok so a bit of an exaggeration when you compare true drought conditions. We just had no rain for 6 weeks, which takes a toll on gardening conditions. We have a very high water table so that helps too
This is my second year of gardening with hay, and I love it!! ... I have no .. zero topsoil on my land, and all my beds are raised .... this is far better!!!
Kathy, do you put the hay on top of your raised beds? I'm thinking of trying that this year but I'm worried the hay is going to blow off in the wind - it gets pretty windy here.
First, congratulations on the harvest, but I weep when you say you have severe drought conditions and yet your grass is so green. You should come to Australia some time and see what drought is. I haven't seen green like that in years. You are really lucky.
@@RainbowtrailchaletsAu I hope you've had some rain lately. We got some. Enough to green the grass but there are still a lot of dirt patches where things just died. Trouble is I don't think we'll be getting any more for a while.
Great 3 part videos. I've become a Ruth Stout fan, love her spunky attitude and her outlook on life. Ive got to try this on my channel, keep up the good work.
You might get a small amount of blow off from the wind. My best recommendation would be to lay down before a good rain. The moisture really helps keep it down
Omg !!! Love Love Love!!!! I’m trying a new experiment too!! Can’t wait ‘ you did really well and look how beautiful that straw is breaking down!!! Amazing ! ❤️🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔
you harvested your potatoes early. I usually wait till the top turn yellow and die back? You would have had a larger harvest. What potatoes did you grow? Indeterminate or determinate? Im assuming they were indeterminate because when you harvested them they were all on the lower level of soil in your bed. you can get more potatoes per square foot out of an indeterminate variety because they grow in layers. thank you for sharing! this is awesome! Im thrilled to see how moist your soil is! That was one of my biggest concerns...how I was gonna water everything through all those layers of straw! Not being snarky, or a know it all. just excited to see your results!!!
Fantastic . Aggressive mulching . Like being in a sand box with a bunch of toys . Mulch , Mulch , Mulch , Harvest , Harvest and Harvest . Food Forest Permaculture .
Every time at 2:28 or so, I see you put aside that first plant with a big ol' single-serving-sized potato dangling from its roots, and I wince. I hope you spotted it later and didn't waste it!
When I grow my potatoes I do it in 5 gallon buckets its way easy to harvest and you can do it same as in the ground but I have a bad back so I dump a bucket in a old fiberglass wash sink then I just reset the bucket and add a bit of compost
Great video. thanks for sharing. Compliments to the film crew. I'm told the crop will store better if you rinse some of the dirt but don't wash them completely.
We experimented with birdhouse gourds and jack be little pumpkins on a cattle panel trellis this year. They did amazing! I planted too many thinking about half would die. Nope, all survived and just about flattened my cattle panel a week ago! Haha! So next year I’ll plant less plants per cattle panel and I think we will plant our sugar pie pumpkins, cucumbers, and maybe even our small melons on cattle panel hoop trellises.
This looks amazing! I have a couple questions though... Firstly, how much did you water? Did you water at all or didn't need to? Secondly... Any pests? We have lots of groundhogs, moles, voles and other nuisances that like to burrow...
Only watered during July and early August because we had NO rain. The point of it is not needing to water, I think I certainly could have watered less but I have a whole garden watering system. after I got into the beds to harvest they we're super moist. We have those same pest but they didn't bother my garden. I know slugs can be an issue, so if you have them keep an eye out for them.
Currently living in between Alma and Ithaca. Looking to relocate due to divorce but hopefully still have enough land to homestead with. Love this lifestyle.
Very VERY cool!!! Congratulations! Now I'm inspired and will be doing it this year. Thank you so much! Love your channel and so glad I found you :) Subscribed!
For storage of potatos, I am considering making chunyo which the Natives here in Perú have produced for centuries. Basically the potatos are frozen and compresswd to feeze dry them. The wikipedia entry for chuño has a pretty thorough description at least on the Spanish-language site.
Ruth was a feisty lady and she was right about mulching. In her videos tho she talks about always gardening naked. True story. Maybe that was the real secret to success.
I'm not sure unfortunately we don't keep track of the music we use in videos unless we have to give credit. We have a subscription to a large source on Epidemic Sound
Where at in Michigan are you?? I'm in the north up by MtPleasant it has rained here for 4 days straight and been so cold this year I still barley have my garden in. Was wondering if you think this way of planting will help keep my plants from dying of the cold?? Loved your 3 part video on this TYVM for sharing.
We are down in Monroe county. I'm actually struggling with this method this year from all the rain this spring. I have several updates on garden this year you may want to check out before deciding if it will work for you.
Watched your video from 2018 in 2022!! I watched your video about strawBALE gardening too. I'm definetely doing the strawBALE next year. Wondering if you are still liking the Ruth Stout method in 2022? I'm planning on doing a small section in my garden the RS way next year. It's a place where nothing but weeds grow there so I have already covered it with about 10 inches of bark mulch and going to put straw on top of it and try potatoes. Not much wasted there if it doesnt work I guess. So how do you compare the 2 styles? Thanks so much. Love your and Todd's videos especially the whats for dinner ones.
Rachel, did you rototill the ground below the straw to have the ground easier for the potatoes to grow in? Or was it just regular hard ground? Thank you Linda from Ct
One of the problems is you're using straw instead of hay. Straw doesn't break down the way hay does and therefore doesn't fertilize as well. Also, with potatoes, you need to 'hill' them. Start shallow then as each plant comes out the top cover them again. They'll keep growing up and produce more potatoes that way.
Use hay, not straw. Specifically hay with significant alfalfa in it. Straw has little in the way of nutrients to add to soil, hay will continually improve the soil productivity.
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I use Ruth Stout (hay) for my entire garden, potatoes, tomatoes, squash, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and more. Is everything perfect, NO but it beats rototilling, fertilizing, and allows for light watering and weeding. I'm in my 3rd year and the Tennessee clay soil is Black now. It takes some patience.
The smaller baby potatoes boiled and drenched in butter with were a favorite for Sunday dinner at mom's house
Love the baby potatoes!
You can't go wrong with ANYTHING drenched in butter! Lol.
I'll do it too. I'm living in Portugal and the summers are long, hot and dry. Saving water is allways a good idea here.
It works best on a good living soil. But the first year not so much. First of all, it works best with hay because it has more nitrogen than straw. Straw decomposes more slowly. And when the soil starts to eat up the mulch, it pumps the nitrogen in the soil to do that. The soil does this for 2 to 6 months (it"s called "faim d'azote" in French and is very well documented). So I think your potatoes lacked nitrogen, people add compost, fresh cut grass, or manure to the mulch to prevent that effect. Of course, after several years, you have a good humus layer, that slowly leaks mineral nitrogen and feeds your plants. I garden on a living soil in the urban garden I volonteer at, and it works for everything, not just potatoes. Not only do you get the same yields as with tilling, but your vegetables taste better, because a living soil gives more sugar to your plants (again, it's been well documented in the past few years). Another advantage : the added sugar means your plants fight off diseases and pests more easily. Farmers using that way testify in case of a wet year, they get a lot less mildew, if any, than their neighboors.
Do you worry about Grazon in the hay?
L
oh my you just had a hummingbird fly right in front of you ... Love it
Just found your videos. I've been gardening here in TN for about 20 years and while Ruth Stout died in 1980 at the age of 96, her books are still a goldmine of information. I've been using her method now for at least 19 years. Last year I stupidly did not put down straw bales on my raised beds and am now suffering the consequences of that action because with all the rain we had last year the beds went to hell in a handbasket. I have to yank up all the grassy weeds and, in some cases, small trees! (damned squirrels!) because I didn't do the heavy mulch that I should have.
I've planted onions, potatoes etc. and both usually come up through the straw in the spring. The mulch doesn't kill the vegetables, but simply keeps the beds from having weed and grass seeds sprout. During the growing season, it's really good to keep putting mulch down. That's especially important over the winter.
I used to use hay bales but had trouble with the number of grass and weed seeds, like crownvetch, coming up. Crownvetch is used by many highway departments to combat erosion, but it is very invasive, the roots are tiny and once established hard to get rid of.
Anyhow... Keep experimenting!
This year I'm gonna grow potatoes again, corn, tomatoes and sunflowers in my Ruth Stout beds. Glad to have you over to our channel
It works great too with brown pine needles for covering...
Each year your soil will get better and your harvest will improve each year , keep at it, nice spuds yummy .
We tried this in our yard in California over 30 years ago; pure sand next to the ocean where nothing but ice plant would grow. We DID peek and we'd snap off the bigger ones when they were sizable enough for dinner and left the rest to continue to grow instead of waiting until the end of the season and harvesting them all at once. I think the plants just turned the energy into growing into new potatoes. Overall I think we got more potatoes per plant that way.
As for watering the potatoes, we were in a drought and weren't allowed to water our yards/gardens so the extra thick layer of mulch was a life saver for the plants!
What was a lot of fun was watching some of the ground birds making their nests amongst our plants!
Great success story
I am sure the free "fertilizer" the birds gave your garden helped too. 😁
good story
For the first time this year I set down my potato starts and covered them with 10 inches of wood chips (that I was able to get for free). Added another 6 inches of wood chips in June. Harvested Aug 1st. Results were fantastic.
Awesome!
How do you prepare the ground you place the potato 🥔 on please? Awesome 👏🙏
Were they fresh wood chips? ( not composted?)
That's the Back To Eden method 😊 check out the documentary on TH-cam... it's amazing! I turned my raised bed into a back to eden bed and I don't water it at all other than when I choose to liquid feed since it is the 1st year.. my tomato, pepper, lettuce, basil, dill is doing AMAZING!! I will be turning my entire garden into a Back to Eden with a hint of Ruth Stout ( plan on mixing Ruth Stout with Back to Eden on my potato beds for a fall harvest) for the fall and future garden!!
Ruth Stout. Oughta call her Saint Ruth of the Stout Bed. That woman was a remarkable person. Look her up!
I've watched all the videos about her, she is a hoot
Wow the whites or yellows are pretty darn awesome
I love all the water saving gardening. We are in arizona so all this is so amazing
I remember reading one of her books back in the 70s. At the time of writing her garden had been in place 8 years . she’d add “spoiled hay” when she could get it.
Layed a 2 × 20 foot bed on top of raked up winter leaves. 1/2 cup of soil on bottom of sprouting organic potatoe. Planted 17 potatoes after a month started sticking my hand under the leaves ac nabbed a few potatoes. Covered with peat moss after about 6 weeks. Harvested all together about 25 lb. of potatoes. Delighted. No watering no weeding, no tilling. Great.
Hey, I just heard you say you're in Michigan! Me, too. I plan to try this technique using leaf mulch.
Pull the rows back together and it will be ready for more straw/hay next spring and ready to plant. I am going to do this in full force next year myself. That was so much easier to pull apart the hay than digging them up from hard soil. Well done! I always loved Ruth Stouts articles way back when and have just never done it but I sure am now!
I followed Ruth stout in the 70's using mulch around my flowers! I never pulled any weeds because there were no weeds, it worked so well!
this is the only video out there that seems to have a acceptably deep layer of straw
I tried it this summer with hay, it was amazing, no digging, no weeding. Little watering in comparison to other years. I have old hay that’s been “ fertilized” by the cows on our ranch just pick it up around the feeders. Big vegetables. I have added to it this fall to break down over the winter, protect the soil from the wind and keep the moisture .
Looks so awesome! I love mulch and plan on some Ruth Stout beds again next year. 💚
I always plant beans between my lines of patatos it brings them nitrogene!
That's good to know!
I do that with my corn.
yes! i live in norway and do this all the time in my veggie garden with all of my plants. also fertilize with chicken manure pellets and comfrey. i use tarps to cover the mulch in between planting to avoid weeds growing and also keeps the soil moist en ready to plant. love ruth stout!
We love it too - so much so we're expanding the Ruth Stout bed area 4-5 X's this year.
Still playing catch-up with your videos. Love your potato duck. Your such a joy to watch😁
Trying this year. Planted May 9 can't wait. Thanks
Good on ya. Great 'taders are worth the effort. I use pulled grass from my yard in my garden with great effect. Water conservation during our 6 month dry season is of critical importance to the garden. Like you, I pile the grass deeply and cover it with burlap which helps with reducing evaporation due to strong trade winds. The grass compost nicely to nourish the soil. Keep planting and stay hot and sweaty.
Thank you, you just gave me confidence I needed to start my potatoes here in Illinois ❤️🌱
AWESOME! Harvesting Potatoes is like Christmas morning for me! Ruth Stout method ROCKS!
It does!!
That 1870's Homestead P.S My Son & I did an experiment & grew our own Scoby from store bought Kombucha it worked surprisingly well! We have spent the entire Summer at Doc appts (mostly imaging & testing) and "growing" health to face the challenges ahead of us. I have been gardening vicariously through you & my other favorite YT'ers! Thank You for taking the time to share!
Your soil is so rich and black! I've watched the YT channel "Back to Reality", which is where I first heard of Ruth Stout. They live in Canada, and put the hay down in the fall. They can often get spoiled hay for free, too. Amazing results.
My very first Ruth Stout experiment was in a neglected, dry patch of hard lawn. All I did was put down my seed potatoes right on top of the nasty, short, scrabbly grass, cover it with thick straw, and walked away for several months until it was harvest time. I didn't even look at it once until harvest. No surprise, my potato harvest was rather small. There were hundreds of potatoes, but they were generally less than three inches big. But was it a success? Heck yeah! This was a NO WORK garden! The space was being wasted anyway, and I put zero planning or effort into making it succeed. So in pounds of harvest per square foot it might be disappointing to some people. But in pounds of harvest per calorie of effort I put into it, it was an outrageous win! And of course, the soil only became better and more able to grow richer crops next time!
We're going to expand the Ruth Stout bed next year, into even more areas. It's worked so well.
@@1870s Please remember to record the process for everyone to see it, this is very interesting. Thank you.
Marialla that is awesome!
I have been doing Ruth Stout method for 40 years. Most times I loved the results!!! Biggest problem is grtting sufficient hay mulch on the cheap! Rick in Pa.
Awesome! 40yrs if experience is incredible, I'm on year 2, lol
Is straw just as good as hay?
sharon riley Hi I live in the 80 miles south east of London England.
the missed spud at 2:28 made my heart skip a beat....lol, poor potato. hopefully it was found. beautiful harvest!
Mulch is awesome! We experimented with some old hay bales this year. Tomatoes and sweet potatoes and beets where what we planted in them. Still have a little bit longer till that's finished. I'm so glad the potatoes worked out for you
I'm inspired.. I will be doing this in the Fall. Thank you for all your videos.
You are welcome, we are still learning ourselves what works for us. All the best in your gardening success
Congrats on your Potatoe Harvest!
Ruth Stout method and Back To Eden appear to be very similar; the only difference being R.S. uses straw/hay as the top covering and BTE uses wood chips. Here in Kentucky, my most easily available resource are leaves. I have an 11' x 24' garden, and I dump about 30 bags of leaves onto my garden, each fall. My leaves .take care of watering, fertilizing, weeding, soil retention, cover crop, etc. all in one.
We do the same every fall, the leaves mixed with grass clippings makes for wonderful amendments!
@@1870s Yes they do. Keep on going with the videos! I enjoyed my first one.
@c fedyszyn oh those maple seedlings, at least they are easy to pull!
@c fedyszyn I get tree seedlings too. But, the good thing is that my soil is so soft now, that I can pull the saplings, straight out of the ground.
Great series. Well done and clearly explained.
Glad you enjoyed it. We really changed things up in the garden this year, do if you are researching different methods I've linked our Growing good playlist for you. Happy growing!
th-cam.com/play/PLoi3On3ZiLmEpyoW2bzOOD6y2m1RzDCC6.html
Outstanding video
works great for potatoes. Best part is ease of harvest (and planting). But I did it one year for sweet potatoes - got beautiful plants, grew, spread, bloomed - when I dug them - nothing underneath! The mice had worked thru the mulch (I used grass clippings) and they ate every scrap of sweet potato! I still love the method though.
I grew sweet potatoes in southern ALABAMA. When they were ready an Armadillo dug them up and took a bite out of each potato!
We are trying this in the winter this year. I saw a video where someone did it in the winter for early spring potatoes....so that will be our first Ruth Stout experiment. Maybe I will have a few to sell for Easter. 🤗
I'm confused about the 'severe' drought conditions because all the surrounding grass and other vegetation on your property looks very green and lush. I don't see any signs of drought. Regardless, the Ruth Stout system is ingenious! Thank you for sharing this method. Wishing you ongoing success in all your endeavors.
Ok so a bit of an exaggeration when you compare true drought conditions. We just had no rain for 6 weeks, which takes a toll on gardening conditions. We have a very high water table so that helps too
I need to grow some potatoes, probably next year though.
Thanks for sharing!
Your welcome!
This is my second year of gardening with hay, and I love it!! ... I have no .. zero topsoil on my land, and all my beds are raised .... this is far better!!!
Kathy, do you put the hay on top of your raised beds? I'm thinking of trying that this year but I'm worried the hay is going to blow off in the wind - it gets pretty windy here.
Nice harvest! The duck potato. 😀
It was the highlight!
the soil looks Fantastic!
First, congratulations on the harvest, but I weep when you say you have severe drought conditions and yet your grass is so green. You should come to Australia some time and see what drought is. I haven't seen green like that in years. You are really lucky.
I was thinking exactly the same thing; I live in Australia’s South West.
@@RainbowtrailchaletsAu I hope you've had some rain lately. We got some. Enough to green the grass but there are still a lot of dirt patches where things just died. Trouble is I don't think we'll be getting any more for a while.
Kennebec potatoes always grow best for us, too. Thanks for sharing your results!
Your welcome
Great harvest!
Im trying this method in my garden this year. I cant wait until harvest time. Im so excited
I hope you have great success!
You got an Olaf potatoe! That one is my fav!
Great 3 part videos. I've become a Ruth Stout fan, love her spunky attitude and her outlook on life. Ive got to try this on my channel, keep up the good work.
She is great
Very impressive. Even more so because I know how dry the summer has been up here.
You can't believe the amount of earthworms I saw in there! Can't wait to see what else I can grow in there.
I thought wind would blow straw all around. Glad to see this. I bought some bales for erosion control.
You might get a small amount of blow off from the wind. My best recommendation would be to lay down before a good rain. The moisture really helps keep it down
@@1870s Sounds good. Thanks.
You can grow sweet potatoes in hay too. Have a great day
Omg !!! Love Love Love!!!! I’m trying a new experiment too!! Can’t wait ‘ you did really well and look how beautiful that straw is breaking down!!! Amazing ! ❤️🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔
good job.
Those are some good lookin' taters! The soil does look really moist. Our plants haven't started to die off yet.
Can't wait to see your results!
we call them 'lazy beds' and use eel grass or seaweed when on the coat.
you harvested your potatoes early. I usually wait till the top turn yellow and die back? You would have had a larger harvest. What potatoes did you grow? Indeterminate or determinate? Im assuming they were indeterminate because when you harvested them they were all on the lower level of soil in your bed. you can get more potatoes per square foot out of an indeterminate variety because they grow in layers. thank you for sharing! this is awesome! Im thrilled to see how moist your soil is! That was one of my biggest concerns...how I was gonna water everything through all those layers of straw! Not being snarky, or a know it all. just excited to see your results!!!
Fantastic . Aggressive mulching . Like being in a sand box with a bunch of toys . Mulch , Mulch , Mulch , Harvest , Harvest and Harvest . Food Forest Permaculture .
Started my first try at this and my plants are doing great,hoping they produce great results
Awesome! What did you plant?
Love it!
Every time at 2:28 or so, I see you put aside that first plant with a big ol' single-serving-sized potato dangling from its roots, and I wince. I hope you spotted it later and didn't waste it!
Oh I hope I did too
you can put leaves and it will help with the volume and they are free!
Great success. nice that you used straw as I have LOTS of that, so good to know. Congrats.
When I grow my potatoes I do it in 5 gallon buckets its way easy to harvest and you can do it same as in the ground but I have a bad back so I dump a bucket in a old fiberglass wash sink then I just reset the bucket and add a bit of compost
Great harvest! Your soil underneath the straw looks so rich. Blessings...
I could believe it!
what she didn't tell you is that she has been adding goat manure. straw is just low mineral compost , you cannot grow shit with it by itself
Great video. thanks for sharing. Compliments to the film crew. I'm told the crop will store better if you rinse some of the dirt but don't wash them completely.
Thanks, I usually rub the chunky dirt off on the grass, but these came out really clean
Wonderful results. Great job.
We experimented with birdhouse gourds and jack be little pumpkins on a cattle panel trellis this year. They did amazing! I planted too many thinking about half would die. Nope, all survived and just about flattened my cattle panel a week ago! Haha! So next year I’ll plant less plants per cattle panel and I think we will plant our sugar pie pumpkins, cucumbers, and maybe even our small melons on cattle panel hoop trellises.
Sounds amazing!
I am soooo happy for ya!! ♥️♥️♥️
I don’t know where you are gardening but in my Zone 7 garden I would plant a winter crop in that rich soil.
This looks amazing! I have a couple questions though... Firstly, how much did you water? Did you water at all or didn't need to? Secondly... Any pests? We have lots of groundhogs, moles, voles and other nuisances that like to burrow...
Only watered during July and early August because we had NO rain. The point of it is not needing to water, I think I certainly could have watered less but I have a whole garden watering system. after I got into the beds to harvest they we're super moist. We have those same pest but they didn't bother my garden. I know slugs can be an issue, so if you have them keep an eye out for them.
You can harvest potatos through the growing season and use them as "new potatos". I did this in Idaho...
Yes you can 😊
Very very interesting.
Thank you.
I like the idea, but I find get more potatoes growing straight into the ground. I will give it a go though. Appreciate your video, thank you.
Love this, would love to know more about this method. Michigan Homesteader here as well. Always looking for new methods to try
This link has all three parts of the video series, in one list: th-cam.com/play/PLoi3On3ZiLmGQmqOSlZeI6PXqBYgit6GL.html
Where in Michigan are you located?
Currently living in between Alma and Ithaca. Looking to relocate due to divorce but hopefully still have enough land to homestead with. Love this lifestyle.
How cool I will have to try this and share your video to my gardening class God Bless💕
Thanks for sharing the results! Another great video. Lone you and your channel. With love from BanDana Gramma!
Thanks we love you back
Nice
the whites where nice also the reds, I’m sure there’s more hiding in there.
The yellow jackets where im from would love that 😫 snakes and spiders too. Really only mind the yellow jackets though.
good looking potatoes!
Best I've ever grown!
The result is good, I will try to plant sweet potatoes
I wish you all the success!
Thanks for the video, thumbs up.
Thank you
Very VERY cool!!! Congratulations! Now I'm inspired and will be doing it this year. Thank you so much! Love your channel and so glad I found you :) Subscribed!
Oh I can't wait to hear how it works for you
For storage of potatos, I am considering making chunyo which the Natives here in Perú have produced for centuries. Basically the potatos are frozen and compresswd to feeze dry them. The wikipedia entry for chuño has a pretty thorough description at least on the Spanish-language site.
Sounds interesting
I'm going to try this method
Good luck! Please do stop back by and share your experience with us.
Ruth was a feisty lady and she was right about mulching. In her videos tho she talks about always gardening naked. True story. Maybe that was the real secret to success.
She was and she did
Good thing they didn’t have TH-cam back then
Very nice!! Do u have a video on exactly how you planted them.
Yes there is a whole series
Very cool have used this and other methods and they work!! Good job :)
I loved it so much I expanded the garden space, using this method, times 4. What did you successfully grow using Ruth Stout?
Everything!! My garlic turned out great :) We also added swales and wood chips in the walkways!@@1870s
Who put together that beautiful C# backing track from 2:56 to 4:20. I love playing along with it. Well done.
I'm not sure unfortunately we don't keep track of the music we use in videos unless we have to give credit. We have a subscription to a large source on Epidemic Sound
@@1870s Great little clip.
Just a note about hay. I love the stuff, but you have to be very careful with herbicide residual. It will kill you vegetables.
We get it from a local organic farm down the street. But your right if it had been sprayed that would be really bad news
The mulching was great but you should have gotten 100# of potatoes off that area. Did you use certified seed?
Where at in Michigan are you?? I'm in the north up by MtPleasant it has rained here for 4 days straight and been so cold this year I still barley have my garden in. Was wondering if you think this way of planting will help keep my plants from dying of the cold?? Loved your 3 part video on this TYVM for sharing.
We are down in Monroe county. I'm actually struggling with this method this year from all the rain this spring. I have several updates on garden this year you may want to check out before deciding if it will work for you.
Watched your video from 2018 in 2022!! I watched your video about strawBALE gardening too. I'm definetely doing the strawBALE next year. Wondering if you are still liking the Ruth Stout method in 2022? I'm planning on doing a small section in my garden the RS way next year. It's a place where nothing but weeds grow there so I have already covered it with about 10 inches of bark mulch and going to put straw on top of it and try potatoes. Not much wasted there if it doesnt work I guess. So how do you compare the 2 styles? Thanks so much. Love your and Todd's videos especially the whats for dinner ones.
Love it
Awesome haul! 💙
Rachel, did you rototill the ground below the straw to have the ground easier for the potatoes to grow in? Or was it just regular hard ground?
Thank you
Linda from Ct
No just laid down the straw back in the winter
New subbie. Came from Quail Hollow. Hope to see more of your videos.
So Happy to have you here! What are you most interested in? We also have a Facebook and Instagram page if your interested.
One of the problems is you're using straw instead of hay. Straw doesn't break down the way hay does and therefore doesn't fertilize as well. Also, with potatoes, you need to 'hill' them. Start shallow then as each plant comes out the top cover them again. They'll keep growing up and produce more potatoes that way.
Please watch part 1 and part 2 of this series, I addressed not using hay and I did hill them.
I just ordered a few pounds of seed potatoes to get in the ground asap
Fantastic! Happy Gardening
Do sweet potatoes next..... You'll go crazy
Use hay, not straw. Specifically hay with significant alfalfa in it. Straw has little in the way of nutrients to add to soil, hay will continually improve the soil productivity.