1. ruth stout was a cousin of mine, and i use her techniques frequently. 2. use straw, not hay. hay contains seeds that will be problematic later. 3. in late fall, mow the yard just after the leaves have fallen, using the mower as a shredder, and spread the grass/leaf mixture directly onto your flowerbeds, piling it over the tenderer bulbs such as cannas, colocasias, and purple jew so they'll be protected and sprout the next winter. the mixture will smother weeds, insulate roots, and break down the next year into wonderful fertilizer. you dont have to rely solely on straw. but ruth was older, and they didnt have mulching lawn mowers like they do now, but the principle is the same.
when i used hay bales i did not bother fluffing it, i just took 6 to 8" thick pads and laid them down, under some i put potatoes and other planted seeds in between the pads, works with very little effort, great for picking potatoes when they are nice and small and clean
My husband and I just put down hay last month. He kept sneezing (and works full time) and I am in heart failure. I keep looking for the easiest gardening methods. We didn't fluff ours either and I wasn't sure how it would work. Thank you for this comment, gives me more hope for success this spring!
This was the first video of yours I watched and I remember being so scared that Todd was going to chop his leg off with that mattock lol Love your channel and how you share as you go!
Weve done this past couple of years every year is better. I love her book her sense of humor and sacasm makes me chuckle. Ive got a couple pics on a video i posted of pictures on a slide show.
@@1870s Great idea. I do put some rabbit manure in too. My soil has alot of clay so its really improved over the years. Her book i believe is called Ruth Stout The No work Garden Book. I remember seeing the book in my moms library as a child and a client gave one to me a couple years ago. Its a good read.
I've tried Ruth Stout once, but it was the year Vermont got flooded badly, so I didn't get anything. I would like to try doing this again next year, if I can be sure my straw is organic. That's such a dealbreaker these days! Ruth was born in 1884, and she died in 1980, so she had a lovely long life. RIP, Ruth!💝
I love Ruth Stout's books, and I've mentioned her method (similar to and forerunner of Paul Gautche's Back To Eden method) in one of my videos too. Wasn't she a CHARACTER?? Into her 80's she was still demonstrating her easy gardening methods. Are you also taking part in her yearly Ruth Stout Naked Gardening Day? I think I'll spare my neighbors and resist. LOL
I think her way worked because she piled the hay so thick it smothered the underneath. Also that she continued to pile it on feeding the microorganisms underneath increasing the tilth of the soil. Over the years it continues to improve never truly being completely disturbed. This is based on the videos I have been able to find and on the many Rondales Organic Gardening Magazines( I gifted my dad the subscriptions many years ago and read them cover to cover many times. LOL actually he passed last year and there were still issues in the bathroom closet by the toilet). I also remember the articles of her. Also, there were a few spare videos of her work on the PBS Victory Garden and Eliot Coleman's shows. I loved the old stuff on PBS tv way back then! Bottom line, once you start this, don't stop but continue to plop those leaves of hay over the ground and the weeds will stop and the earth will sing. I am starting my garden again this year with her method. I am getting a cheap round hay bale and piling it up to start and it will sit until time for the fall stuff and it will be ready for the next spring stuff.
Sue I live in a 10A zone in Portugal and have used this method for years in my 8x4ft raised beds. I use straw and it breaks down over the year. What straw is left at the end of the season is gathered up and I take out a central trench in each of the beds then bury the old straw with chicken pellets and coffee grounds for nitrogen, then seal the bed with the soil I dug out and top it off with another layer of straw mulch. The winter rains get everything rotting well and the following summer it holds sufficient water to give each bed a reservoir which prevents blossom end rot on tomatoes and peppers. I use seep irrigation beneath the straw which prevents evaporation as well as suppressing weeds. It also evens out the bed temperature as we get a 20C difference between day and night. It's practically impossible to grow potatoes during our hot summer but with the Ruth Stout method, and watering at dawn whilst the water is at its coldest, I can keep the soil temperature below the crucial 25C. I also direct compost kitchen scraps beneath the straw throughout the year. They break down in no time.
@@1870s Sadly no I don't have a channel. The method is very flexible and practically any mulch will work. I tried hay, like Ruth Stout, but it came with so many weed seeds it was a problem, so I buy 'clean' straw and let the bales sit for as long as possible before use. We have sufficient ground that I can buy 40 bales a year which is way too many but by the time I need them they're partly broken down. Good luck.
oh I wish you had used hay...we did straw the 2nd time (the man delivering "thought he knew better" and my hubby wasn't quite as pointed as I would have been :-) ) we discovered there's a complete difference in how each of them breaks down. I now have a source for round "spent hay" bales. I got 4... Try your next bed with old hay - we got "last years" at a very good rate. See the difference. Our straw just never broke down...we ended up putting into a separate area...
Joyce, hay might break down differently, but straw is a very valid mulch material for the Ruth Stout method. Leaves would work as well. Stout herself said so in her books. The point is not primarily to break down the mulch into compost. The point is for the mulch to prevent the growth of weeds, and to retain soil moisture. Soil enrichment has a lot to do with earthworm activity in the early stages of this method, rather than composting of the mulch material. In fact, Stout also said that any material too dry to compost quickly would "just remain wonderful mulch for that much longer!"
Don't be ridiculous. I just know straw works. I don't think it's the only good mulch. I like to help people see the important principles behind mulching so they can use whatever they want, and not be locked in to one thing.
Joyce Judd I didn't know about this straw vs hay thing at all. Lol I had some spolied straw sitting around and a year later I am using it... Yep straw stays unbothered for a longgggggggg time, glad I found you guys now
I did try this our first year out here many years ago, not as deep and not in a sunny location (it was our first year and not much cleared yet). So our results while we got potatoes we didn't get as many as we should have. I do think unless you're using the bales to shelter over wintering crops you probably could leave them loose all winter.
Your right, but we had been using these bales around our chicken run all winter to protect them a bit from snow drifts and high winds. But the garden has priority now so if we get a freak spring winter storm the chickens are just gonna have to deal with it, lol
Where I live, straw bales are ~$20 or more IF you can get them and IF you can get the long pieces instead of scrappy and seedy left overs. Hay is way more $ and seedy too but easier to find. That's a lot of input cost plus transportation cost if you can't haul yourself. I've been reduced to pretty much using whatever prunings and mowed up leaves/grass I have in my yard.
You'll be glad you added the compost. Straw has very little nutrition in it, as the nutritional part of the plant was harvested as grains. You may want to use hay, which is FULL of nutrition down the entire stem of the plant and attracts worms like crazy. Leaves also make a great nutritional addition to a spud bed done in compost/hay method. If you don't get the expected results, it could be due to the use of the straw rather than hay.
Yep, I figured as much now that I have the goats and PIGS coming soon I'll have a better source to continue to grow this bed into a more nutrious growing medium.
I'm trying to source straw for my garden and am concerned about herbicides used by the farmer. Can anyone tell me how they source straw that does not have herbicides? I'm in Chandler, Arizona
I used spent straw bales last year, some already wet....put on nitrogen fertilizer and watered to break them down....lots of mushrooms....grew tomatoes....did well....first experiment with used straw bales.....
I used straw, Ruth Stout uses hay. I stick with straw because hay tends to have alot of seed in it and I didn't want to fight weeds, but hay also has more nutrients than straw.
Regarding the hay versus straw debate; although both will work, ideally you would use hay made from grass that has not started setting seed yet. When grasses set seed, a lot of the fertility nutrients translocate into the seed heads, leaving the stems inferior in composition. Garden soil will enrich faster using quality hay.
For all the hay nazis who insist that straw cannot be a good mulching material for the Ruth Stout method, please know (from one who has tried it) that the increased earthworm activity more than makes up for slower decomposition of the straw itself. And if you cannot accept my word as a mere commentor, try reading "The One Straw Revolution" by Masanobu Fukuoka to learn how he used straw to enrich his rice and barley fields in a method very similar to Ruth Stout's.
I use 1,600 pound bales of hay, I got 7 of them for free from a neighboring ranch, I feed all my live stock alfalfa so I mix the manure in with the grass hay! I will be getting another 10 1,600 pound bales this year and I'm on good terms with the neighboring ranch so I'm just going to get as much as I can until I'm knee high in rich soil lol
Thank you for the informative video. I am very interested in the Ruth Stout method of potato growing but have just discovered it. Is there any way you might suggest that I'll still be able to use the method even though I wasn't able to prep the ground this past fall? (We live in Zone 4 - MN, so there's snow on the ground now.)
Speaking of woodpeckers--We have some red-headed ones and they crack me up. I hear them in the morning and late evenings. They try to poke their holes in the top of the telephone pole. I guess they don't have much luck, but they keep trying.
Thats how a proper bloke breaks up a bale... No messing about trying to do it by hand, just get the biggest pick axe in the shed and give the bale a good hiding.. :)
hi.. compost should be under the mulch. and I didn't read Ruth Stout book, but you need to use hay instead of straw. hay is well balanced with carbon/azote, but straw is almost only carbon. and vegetables need a good balance of both, to grow well.
Why the title of the video was experiment. I addressed both things during the video, why I was using straw and not hay and why I top dressed with compost. My results video is up if you want to see how it worked
Hay, straw, cardboard, it's all good, and if you can add some seaweed, rock dust, biochar, manure, old leaves, king stropharia mushroom spawn, and huggle style branches underneath even better. But whatever you can get your hands on.
1. ruth stout was a cousin of mine, and i use her techniques frequently.
2. use straw, not hay. hay contains seeds that will be problematic later.
3. in late fall, mow the yard just after the leaves have fallen, using the mower as a shredder, and spread the grass/leaf mixture directly onto your flowerbeds, piling it over the tenderer bulbs such as cannas, colocasias, and purple jew so they'll be protected and sprout the next winter. the mixture will smother weeds, insulate roots, and break down the next year into wonderful fertilizer.
you dont have to rely solely on straw. but ruth was older, and they didnt have mulching lawn mowers like they do now, but the principle is the same.
when i used hay bales i did not bother fluffing it, i just took 6 to 8" thick pads and laid them down, under some i put potatoes and other planted seeds in between the pads, works with very little effort, great for picking potatoes when they are nice and small and clean
My husband and I just put down hay last month. He kept sneezing (and works full time) and I am in heart failure. I keep looking for the easiest gardening methods. We didn't fluff ours either and I wasn't sure how it would work. Thank you for this comment, gives me more hope for success this spring!
No one wants small potatoes though !!
Nice job!
This was the first video of yours I watched and I remember being so scared that Todd was going to chop his leg off with that mattock lol Love your channel and how you share as you go!
Weve done this past couple of years every year is better. I love her book her sense of humor and sacasm makes me chuckle. Ive got a couple pics on a video i posted of pictures on a slide show.
That's what I'm hoping for, I figured by the time I retire my systems should be at their prime!
@@1870s Great idea. I do put some rabbit manure in too. My soil has alot of clay so its really improved over the years. Her book i believe is called Ruth Stout The No work Garden Book. I remember seeing the book in my moms library as a child and a client gave one to me a couple years ago. Its a good read.
I've tried Ruth Stout once, but it was the year Vermont got flooded badly, so I didn't get anything. I would like to try doing this again next year, if I can be sure my straw is organic. That's such a dealbreaker these days! Ruth was born in 1884, and she died in 1980, so she had a lovely long life. RIP, Ruth!💝
Felicidades desde Hidalgo México...2 años despues.
Excelente trabajo 😘
I use straw also over compost. It's working great and so easy.
I use a pitchfork to break my bales up it works really good.
Who is Ruth stout?? This is fascinating. I think my great grandparents grew potatoes this way back in Ireland
Oh I think y’all did great can’t wait to see your garden grow!!!
Thanks Sandy, me too
I love Ruth Stout's books, and I've mentioned her method (similar to and forerunner of Paul Gautche's Back To Eden method) in one of my videos too. Wasn't she a CHARACTER?? Into her 80's she was still demonstrating her easy gardening methods. Are you also taking part in her yearly Ruth Stout Naked Gardening Day? I think I'll spare my neighbors and resist. LOL
Oh yeah I think I'll forego my own personal embarrassment! I do love her though, wish there were more documentaries of her work and thoughts
I think her way worked because she piled the hay so thick it smothered the underneath. Also that she continued to pile it on feeding the microorganisms underneath increasing the tilth of the soil. Over the years it continues to improve never truly being completely disturbed. This is based on the videos I have been able to find and on the many Rondales Organic Gardening Magazines( I gifted my dad the subscriptions many years ago and read them cover to cover many times. LOL actually he passed last year and there were still issues in the bathroom closet by the toilet). I also remember the articles of her. Also, there were a few spare videos of her work on the PBS Victory Garden and Eliot Coleman's shows. I loved the old stuff on PBS tv way back then! Bottom line, once you start this, don't stop but continue to plop those leaves of hay over the ground and the weeds will stop and the earth will sing. I am starting my garden again this year with her method. I am getting a cheap round hay bale and piling it up to start and it will sit until time for the fall stuff and it will be ready for the next spring stuff.
I will definitely keep it going, thanks for the awesome comment so many good references to check out
Bandana gam. Ha you mentioned Tim aka forerunner. His gardens are pretty awesome.
Sue
I live in a 10A zone in Portugal and have used this method for years in my 8x4ft raised beds. I use straw and it breaks down over the year. What straw is left at the end of the season is gathered up and I take out a central trench in each of the beds then bury the old straw with chicken pellets and coffee grounds for nitrogen, then seal the bed with the soil I dug out and top it off with another layer of straw mulch. The winter rains get everything rotting well and the following summer it holds sufficient water to give each bed a reservoir which prevents blossom end rot on tomatoes and peppers. I use seep irrigation beneath the straw which prevents evaporation as well as suppressing weeds. It also evens out the bed temperature as we get a 20C difference between day and night. It's practically impossible to grow potatoes during our hot summer but with the Ruth Stout method, and watering at dawn whilst the water is at its coldest, I can keep the soil temperature below the crucial 25C. I also direct compost kitchen scraps beneath the straw throughout the year. They break down in no time.
Sounds like you have a super process! Do you have a channel? I'd love to see videos on your process!
@@1870s
Sadly no I don't have a channel. The method is very flexible and practically any mulch will work. I tried hay, like Ruth Stout, but it came with so many weed seeds it was a problem, so I buy 'clean' straw and let the bales sit for as long as possible before use. We have sufficient ground that I can buy 40 bales a year which is way too many but by the time I need them they're partly broken down. Good luck.
oh I wish you had used hay...we did straw the 2nd time (the man delivering "thought he knew better" and my hubby wasn't quite as pointed as I would have been :-) ) we discovered there's a complete difference in how each of them breaks down. I now have a source for round "spent hay" bales. I got 4... Try your next bed with old hay - we got "last years" at a very good rate. See the difference. Our straw just never broke down...we ended up putting into a separate area...
I do think I have a source just down the road, I'll certainly see if I can get some. Thank you for your experienced advice it truly is appreciated!
Joyce, hay might break down differently, but straw is a very valid mulch material for the Ruth Stout method. Leaves would work as well. Stout herself said so in her books. The point is not primarily to break down the mulch into compost. The point is for the mulch to prevent the growth of weeds, and to retain soil moisture. Soil enrichment has a lot to do with earthworm activity in the early stages of this method, rather than composting of the mulch material. In fact, Stout also said that any material too dry to compost quickly would "just remain wonderful mulch for that much longer!"
Marialla your a straw nazi
Don't be ridiculous. I just know straw works. I don't think it's the only good mulch. I like to help people see the important principles behind mulching so they can use whatever they want, and not be locked in to one thing.
Joyce Judd I didn't know about this straw vs hay thing at all. Lol I had some spolied straw sitting around and a year later I am using it... Yep straw stays unbothered for a longgggggggg time, glad I found you guys now
I did try this our first year out here many years ago, not as deep and not in a sunny location (it was our first year and not much cleared yet). So our results while we got potatoes we didn't get as many as we should have. I do think unless you're using the bales to shelter over wintering crops you probably could leave them loose all winter.
Your right, but we had been using these bales around our chicken run all winter to protect them a bit from snow drifts and high winds. But the garden has priority now so if we get a freak spring winter storm the chickens are just gonna have to deal with it, lol
Marvelous. Both Jim and I, went...Whoa...That is great. We are doing that. Thank you. Can't wait to see it grow and can't wait to do it.
I put a link in the description of the video to an old interview with Ruth, it's a great watch if you have time
Do you plant the starts in the earth or just deep into the hay/straw?
Hi, did you find you had any wheat or anything similar sprouting up in the area afterwards? I'm wondering if there were seeds in the hay bails?
I just planted my potatoes in straw for first time too, most of our snow is gone. Hope this works!
Me too
Enjoyed the video, thanks for linking to her video too. very interesting
Your welcome, I'm a bit late getting potatoes in the ground but will do this weekend!
Ruth Stout born 1884 died in1980 she lived 104yrs and didn't start her no work gardening at 45..
Where I live, straw bales are ~$20 or more IF you can get them and IF you can get the long pieces instead of scrappy and seedy left overs. Hay is way more $ and seedy too but easier to find. That's a lot of input cost plus transportation cost if you can't haul yourself. I've been reduced to pretty much using whatever prunings and mowed up leaves/grass I have in my yard.
I'm 4 minutes in and keep hoping you are going to cover the raised beds with it as well. They look so bare and cold.:-)
I just use hay in my raised beds. The bed serves as an edge.
🧡💛🧡💜💙 look at the hubby ready to lend a hand!
Just read ruth stouts book and hoping to do this too.
I need to get her books, do you have one to recommend?
@@1870s"Gardening Without Work: For the Aging, the Busy, and the Indolent". Just started reading it, but it gets great reviews.
Looks great so far. Blessings...
Thank you Renee
You'll be glad you added the compost. Straw has very little nutrition in it, as the nutritional part of the plant was harvested as grains. You may want to use hay, which is FULL of nutrition down the entire stem of the plant and attracts worms like crazy. Leaves also make a great nutritional addition to a spud bed done in compost/hay method. If you don't get the expected results, it could be due to the use of the straw rather than hay.
Yep, I figured as much now that I have the goats and PIGS coming soon I'll have a better source to continue to grow this bed into a more nutrious growing medium.
I'm trying to source straw for my garden and am concerned about herbicides used by the farmer. Can anyone tell me how they source straw that does not have herbicides?
I'm in Chandler, Arizona
Please let us all know how it turned out. And thankyou for sharing this wonderful idea! ........................Ken & Beverly.
Mr. Ken 6.5-06 longrange grdhog eliminator Miller will do, they are coming up so I'll get out there and film something real quick
Is it straw or hay?
I used spent straw bales last year, some already wet....put on nitrogen fertilizer and watered to break them down....lots of mushrooms....grew tomatoes....did well....first experiment with used straw bales.....
Sounds great I'm gonna try tomatoes in it this year
You changed what you said twice so is ut straw or hay? Whats the difference n why is ??? Used instead of the other?
I used straw, Ruth Stout uses hay. I stick with straw because hay tends to have alot of seed in it and I didn't want to fight weeds, but hay also has more nutrients than straw.
I thank i May try this how is the winter sowing going I am behind on videos husband is ill and I work a lot
My broccoli and cauliflower is coming up, we showed some pics on one of our last live streams, but nothing else is coming up.
How do you keep the straw or hey from sprouting the seed heads in it?
If something sprouts, I flip it over. The spring rains help it all to "rot" a little bit.
Can I use Timothy hay?
I did not understand where and how he sowed the potatoes. I saw the whole video, but where are the potatoes for planting?
Regarding the hay versus straw debate; although both will work, ideally you would use hay made from grass that has not started setting seed yet. When grasses set seed, a lot of the fertility nutrients translocate into the seed heads, leaving the stems inferior in composition. Garden soil will enrich faster using quality hay.
always someone who wants to do it "faster".. straw is great
For all the hay nazis who insist that straw cannot be a good mulching material for the Ruth Stout method, please know (from one who has tried it) that the increased earthworm activity more than makes up for slower decomposition of the straw itself. And if you cannot accept my word as a mere commentor, try reading "The One Straw Revolution" by Masanobu Fukuoka to learn how he used straw to enrich his rice and barley fields in a method very similar to Ruth Stout's.
Marialla I’m a hay nazi
Too bad for you.
Hay or straw? I hate it when people use both terms. They are vastly different. Are you using hay or straw?
We've actually used both. But in general we prefer straw. Less of a chance for weeds
I use 1,600 pound bales of hay, I got 7 of them for free from a neighboring ranch, I feed all my live stock alfalfa so I mix the manure in with the grass hay! I will be getting another 10 1,600 pound bales this year and I'm on good terms with the neighboring ranch so I'm just going to get as much as I can until I'm knee high in rich soil lol
It’s so sad that we can no longer find farmers who make small bales of hay.
If you ever baled small square bales you'd know why. A lot of work, a lot
Love this video!
Glad you enjoyed it, there is a whole series on it in our playlist.
is it hay or straw, keep hearing u call it both. very interested in trying this, but need accurate info. thank you
Ruth Stout used old hay, I used straw, hay tends to have more seed in it
@@1870s thank you
wow! This is great info!
Very interesting! I want to try this!
I'm hopeful it will work
Thank you for the informative video. I am very interested in the Ruth Stout method of potato growing but have just discovered it. Is there any way you might suggest that I'll still be able to use the method even though I wasn't able to prep the ground this past fall? (We live in Zone 4 - MN, so there's snow on the ground now.)
Oh yes! Last year I prepped my beds in late winter.
Speaking of woodpeckers--We have some red-headed ones and they crack me up. I hear them in the morning and late evenings. They try to poke their holes in the top of the telephone pole. I guess they don't have much luck, but they keep trying.
Nice work...
Thanks!
Wish I had learned about this method years ago.
It's so great make sure to check out the results video
Thats how a proper bloke breaks up a bale... No messing about trying to do it by hand, just get the biggest pick axe in the shed and give the bale a good hiding.. :)
They sat outside all winter in the rain / snow. And still partially frozen "blocks" when we broke them up 😬
hi.. compost should be under the mulch. and I didn't read Ruth Stout book, but you need to use hay instead of straw. hay is well balanced with carbon/azote, but straw is almost only carbon. and vegetables need a good balance of both, to grow well.
Why the title of the video was experiment. I addressed both things during the video, why I was using straw and not hay and why I top dressed with compost. My results video is up if you want to see how it worked
Good vid
Should of done that in the fall !
Of course. It gets better every years. Had to start somewhere 😄
Familha legal.
La única en español por aquí soy yo? Traducción por favor!
Estaría bueno, a menos que no quieran que sepamos lo que dicen porque lo guardan en secreto...jajaja
Ola . Meu nome Henrique. Brasil . Rio de Janeiro- City Araruama RJ. Show 😎👍
In spanish please!!
I'm sorry I don't speak Spanish
Dude with that pick axe is scaring Mike Myers!!
darn.. I thought the Ruth Stout method was with Hay not Straw...
She did use hay, I just didn't have access to any old hay, but I do now with my goats!!
Hay, straw, cardboard, it's all good, and if you can add some seaweed, rock dust, biochar, manure, old leaves, king stropharia mushroom spawn, and huggle style branches underneath even better.
But whatever you can get your hands on.
You two are so romantic!
I don't that Ruth hilled her potatoes with hay or soil. Maybe we both should go back to the source again.
She absolutely hilled her potatoes with hay
Keep clear of that fella with the mattock....he's a danger!
Lol
Look up on TH-cam back to reality
Already subscribe to them - great channel!
Do you plant the starts in the earth or just deep into the hay/straw?
Just at soil level