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| Jaci Collins, intern director, works on a row of cauliflower. |
Manicured, conventional gardens are completely antithetical to how
plants actually grow. Bare ground with nothing growing between plants
may be deemed more aesthetically pleasing; but results of this
"conventional" gardening method have created a booming business for
chemical companies and garden supply businesses because zapped soil has
high levels of sensitivity to temperature and moisture, and weak
resistance to topical bacterial infections. Think of topsoil as a
garden's skin; and imagine stripping away the top three layers to leave plants with
higher sensitivities to temperature, moisture, and weak immunities to
topical bacterial infections. You would also be forced to apply
excessive moisture and take antibiotics to combat illnesses.
Enter mulch
gardening: a layering method that mimics a forest floor and combines soil
improvement, weed removal, and long-term mulching in one fell swoop.
Also called lasagna gardening or sheet mulching, this process can turn
hard-to-love soil rich and healthy by improving nutrient and water
retention in the dirt, encouraging favorable soil microbial activity and
worms, suppressing weed growth, and improving the well-being of plants
(all while reducing maintenance!).
We're in our third year of mulch gardening at Better Farm, which means we're really in our first year of having extremely developed, thick rows of biologically strong dirt and compost for our plants. Here's some information on how you can get started mulch gardening.
First,
a weed barrier like cardboard is laid down to smother weeds. The
cardboard decomposes after the weeds have all died and turned into
compost. On top of the cardboard you can pile dead leaves, grass
clippings, compost, several-years-old composted manure, and other
biodegradables such as old hay (our personal favorite). Mulch gardening can range from just a
few inches thick to 2 feet or more, depending on how bad your soil is
and how much raw material you have available (it will cook down and
settle quite a bit).
We made two-foot piles last fall, and by spring those had settled and cooked down to about one foot. We sometimes add a fresh layer of cardboard over the top of the rows as everything breaks
down and we see evidence of emerging weeds. The cyclical process goes
on year-round and works so well we don't have to put a single additive
or chemical into the soil.
To say our experience at Better Farm has been a crash-course in everything organic is an
understatement. We've been working uphill since Day One, when we "broke
ground" (and several shovels) in the clay-rich, hard earth that had
homed hay only for at least half a century.
Since that time, we've experimented with several planting, growing,
weeding, fertilizing, and pest-control tactics. And what began as a
small
vermicompost
bin in the kitchen has turned into a huge garden full of layered mulch
rotting beautifully into dark, rich soil that feeds hundreds of plants
every spring, summer, and fall.
Want to learn more? Here's a snippet from an old interview with the
Queen of Mulch herself, talking about how you too can have a green thumb without an aching back.
My no-work gardening method is simply to keep a thick mulch of any
vegetable matter that rots on both my vegetable and flower garden all
year round. As it decays and enriches the soil, I add more. The
labor-saving part of my system is that I never plow, spade, sow a cover
crop, harrow, hoe, cultivate, weed, water or spray. I use just one
fertilizer (cottonseed or soybean meal), and I don't go through that
tortuous business of building a compost pile.
I beg everyone to start with a mulch 8 inches deep; otherwise, weeds
may come through, and it would be a pity to be discouraged at the very
start. But when I am asked how many bales (or tons) of hay are
necessary to cover any given area, I can't answer from my own
experience, for I gardened in this way for years before I had any idea
of writing about it, and therefore didn't keep track of such details.
However, I now have some information on this from Dick Clemence, my
A-Number-One adviser. He says, "I should think of 25 50-pound bales as
about the minimum for 50 feet by 50 feet, or about a half-ton of loose
hay. That should give a fair starting cover, but an equal quantity in
reserve would be desirable." That is a better answer than the one I
have been giving, which is: You need at least twice as much as you
would think.
What Should I Use for Mulch?
Spoiled or regular hay, straw, leaves, pine needles, sawdust, weeds, garbage — any vegetable matter that rots.
Don't Some Leaves Decay Too Slowly?
No, they just remain mulch longer, which cuts down on labor. Don't they
mat down? If so, it doesn't matter because they are between the rows
of growing things and not on top of them. Can one use leaves without
hay? Yes, but a combination of the two is better, I think.
What is spoiled hay? It's hay that for some reason isn't good enough to
feed livestock. It may have, for instance, become moldy — if it was
moist when put in the haymow — but it is just as effective for mulching
as good hay, and a great deal cheaper.
Shouldn't the hay be chopped?
Well, I don't have mine chopped and I don't have a terrible time — and I'm 76 and no stronger than the average person.
Can you use grass clippings?
Yes, but unless you have a huge lawn or neighbors who will collect them for you, they don't go very far.
How Do You Sow Seeds into the Mulch?
You plant exactly as you always have, in the Earth. You pull back the
mulch and put the seeds in the ground and cover them just as you would
if you had never heard of mulching.
How Do You Sow Seeds into the Mulch?
You plant exactly as you always have, in the Earth. You pull back the
mulch and put the seeds in the ground and cover them just as you would
if you had never heard of mulching.
How Often Do You Put on Mulch?
Whenever
you see a spot that needs it. If weeds begin to peep through
anywhere, just toss an armful of hay on them. What time of year do you
start to mulch? The answer is now, whatever the date may be,
or at least begin to gather your material. At the very least give the
matter constructive thought at one; make plans. If you are intending
to use leaves, you will unfortunately have to wait until they fall,
but you can be prepared to make use of them the moment they drop.
Should you spread manure and plow it under before you mulch? Yes, if
your soil isn't very rich; otherwise, mulch alone will answer the
purpose.
How Far Apart Are the Rows?
Exactly the same distance as if you weren't mulching — that is, when
you begin to use my method. However, after you have mulched for a few
years, your soil will become so rich from rotting vegetable matter that
you can plant much more closely than one dares to in the
old-fashioned way of gardening.
How Long Does the Mulch Last?
That depends on the kind you use. Try always to have some in reserve, so that it can replenished as needed.
Now for the Million Dollar Question: Where Do You Get Mulch?
That's difficult to answer but I can say this: If enough people in any
community demand it, I believe that someone will be eager to supply
it. At least that's what happened within a distance of 100 miles or so
of us in Connecticut, and within a year after my book came out,
anyone in that radius could get all the spoiled hay they wanted at 65
cents a bale.
If
you belong to a garden club, why can't you all get together and
create a demand for spoiled hay? If you don't belong to a group, you
probably at least know quite a few people who garden and who would be
pleased to join the project.
Use all the leaves you can find. Clip your cornstalks into footlength
pieces and use them. Utilize your garbage, tops of perennials, any and
all vegetable matter that rots. In many localities, the utility
companies grind up the branches they cut off when they clear the wires;
and often they are glad to dump them near your garden, with no
charge. But hurry up before they find out that there is a big demand
for them and they decide to make a fast buck. These wood chips make a
splendid mulch; I suggest you just ignore anyone who tells you they
are too acidic.
Recently, a man reproached me for making spoiled hay so popular that he
can no longer get it for nothing. The important fact, however, is
that it has become available and is relatively cheap. The other day a
neighbor said to me, "Doesn't it make you feel good to see the piles
of hay in so many yards when you drive around?" It does make me feel
fine.
Now and then I am asked (usually by an irritated expert) why I think I
invented mulching. Well, naturally, I don't think so; God invented it
simply by deciding to have the leaves fall off the trees once a year. I
don't even think that I'm the first, or only person, who thought up
my particular variety of year-round mulching, but apparently I'm the
first to make a big noise about it — writing, talking, demonstrating.
And since in the process of spreading this great news, I have run
across many thousands who never heard of the method, and a few hundred
who think it is insane and can't possibly work, and only two people who
had already tried it, is it surprising that I have carelessly fallen
into the bad habit of sounding as though I thought I originated it?
But why should we care who invented it? Dick Clemence works hard
trying to get people to call it the "Stout System," which is good
because it should have some sort of a short name for people to use when
they refer to it, instead of having to tell the whole story each
time. I suppose it does more or less give me a feeling of importance
when I come across an article mentioning the Stout System, yet I am
cheated out of the full value of that sensation because I've never been
able really to identify the whole thing with that little girl who was
certainly going to be great and famous some day. What a disgusted
look she would have given anyone who would have offered her the title
of Renowned Mulcher!
And it borders on the unenthralling to have the conversation at social
gatherings turn to slugs and cabbageworms the minute I show up. And if
some professor of psychology, giving an association-of-ideas test to a
bunch of gardeners, should say "moldy hay" or "garbage," I'm afraid
that some of them would come out with "Ruth Stout." Would anyone like
that?
If you want to learn more about the Stout System, you can locate
copies of Ruth Stout's books through a used bookseller. You also can
order the VHS or DVD video Ruth Stout's Garden
from Gardenworks.
