When we moved into our new house in 2001 the first priority was to put in a garden. We weren’t totally organic at the time, but moving in that direction. Our gardening style was what we learned growing up; plow the plot, disc, plant in rows, hoe the rows and till in between. The soil was basically clay and rocks, so solid that the carrots couldn’t grow to full length. Eight years of heavy composting the same 45’ x 75’ plot changed that and the soil is now a fertile producer. But, the work is back breaking and we are getting on.

Things began to change a couple of years ago when we were in a drought and my husband, worrying about the well, didn’t want me to water. Also, about that time my sister-in-law lent me a book she found in a second hand shop. The book was the No-Work Garden Book by Ruth Stout. Ruth is gone now and her books are out of print, but she was quite a gal. Born in 1884 she claims to have smashed saloons with Carry Nation during prohibition. That was in Kansas before moving to New York. It’s reported that later in life, when they lived in Connecticut, her husband claimed to enjoy the quietness of having less traffic in front of their house during the winter non-gardening season. It seems that Ruth often worked in her garden au natural. I’m not buying into the idea of gardening in the nude, but her other methods, popular in the 1950’s, were actually a precursor to the no-dig method soil experts are recommending today. It seems that all that plowing and tilling is disturbing helpful microbes that live in the soil. Upsetting the microbes, killing them even, means you need more pesticides and fertilizers to do the work they would normally do.

Ruth’s system is one of heavy mulching. During a drought, when you’re not allowed to water, that seemed like a good thing to try. She wrote several books about how gardening didn’t have to be hard and you could almost do it from your couch . She didn’t have a compost pile, but instead dropped any vegetable matter not edible back on the garden. Weeds were covered with thick layers of old hay. Many no-dig- gardeners today prefer straw because there is no danger of reseeding, but straw is expensive here and hay adds more nutrients back into the soil. Ruth advocated hay, but it needs to be old and other wise unusable so it won’t reseed so readily.

Then my daughter moved in with her own ideas. She was excited about “raised bed,” “square foot,” and “vertical” gardening. A lot of pieces were falling into place. The decision this year not to plow or till meant that we could fence in the garden and create paths and beds. Last fall we covered our garden plot with 6-8 inches of hay and compost and this spring we started laying out an arrangement that would be visually pleasing and encourage companion planting (another article). As the numerous Sassafras and Locus trees on our property die or fade badly we’re cutting them down and using the trunks to line the beds. Branches build tepees to support beans, gourds and vining vegetables. Tomatoes, peas, beans and even cucumbers grow on the fencing. The paths between the beds are covered with cardboard and topped with our dwindling supply of old hay. The old hay is also dropped on weeds growing between plants to smother them.

If Ruth were alive today I would love to talk to her. I haven’t found the “gardening from your couch” idea to be very realistic, and even with her method gardening is still a lot of work. Not all weeding is eliminated, but it certainly is a lot less. Now that the beds are in we can get the garden started earlier next year and not be so dependent on a good day to plow first. Not tilling between rows is much easier on my husband’s back and not hoeing works just fine for me. Over the years the hay mulching composts and enriches the soil, so the compost that we never have enough of goes farther. All in all, I think I’m going to like this.