Garden Talk: No Work Garden

Well, I've put it off long enuff. Now that the snow has melted and the sun is out,hopefully when the grounds dries out a bit I'm gonna mark out my space, spread my straw 6 inches deep, and get on with my "no work garden". I have several small beds I've already done this way and have decided to do one about 30 X 50. This is to be a "demonstration" garden to inform and encourage visitors to give it a try. If ya'll are interested you should read about a woman named Ruth Stout (can do a search for her) who is acredited w/starting this type of garden nearly 50 yrs ago.
The general premise is you spread hay, straw, leaves or what-have you...it decomposes and adds an ongoing source of plant food/microbial action to the ground. The straw not only smothers out weeds (yey!! no weeding!) but holds in the moisture so it conserves water. By adding more straw on as needed it becomes an on-going cycle, mimicking good ol Ma Earth's technique.
If you have any questions please ask. I'll let everyone know how it goes...wish me luck!

Do you have the till the land first, or just lay this straw right down on the turf?

Also, won't the seeds from the straw sink down and germinate?

How does this method work for sowing seeds in-situ, like melons, squashes, corn, etc.

It sounds great (especially the no-weeding!) and I'd like to test it out on a small area this year.

Shoe, this is kind of along the same lines, I think. (I'd really appreciate comments and input!)

Last fall after we cleaned up the vegetable garden beds, we dug about 6" of soil from each bed (I do a modified square foot raised bed method), put down a 2-3" layer of straw, covered it with the soil and planted crimson clover on top.

I'm toying with the idea of turning the clover in some beds, let it rest, then plant my vegetables, and mulch them with straw (did that last year and it worked wonderfully.)

In the remaining beds, I'd just give the clover a "shave" and plant my tomatoes with as little disturbance to the soil as possible - I figure it can help smother the weeds.

Any do's or don'ts for me?

Hey 'Shoe, I remember reading Ruth Stout about 30 years ago, well, maybe 20. Seems to me she used to put some other "interesting" things in her gardens, too. This is now being touted as Lasagna gardening. I've got one that I put down straw last fall, and then some mulch and some top soil (really just heavy sand if you ask me, but we got a fairly good deal on the load), scattered some wildflower and mixed annual seeds that had been in the fridge for a few years. I was going to put wood chips over the top to hold everything down, but the snow seems to be filling that roll very well. I have to be hones, I've never really noticed the weed free part to this, as my mulch comes from the barnyard, but things do grow like fury.

Y'all want to contact John Yeoman in the UK, at john@villageguild.co.uk.

John is the author of The Lazy Gardener, a book that enjoyed some popularity in England and on the Continent. He then started The Village Guild, which is basically an organization that teaches self-relient living. As part of it he published a newsletter called The Laxy Gardener that is filled with no-work gardening tips. For instance, in the latest issue, he talkes about using a hi-pressure carwash hoses for drilling out weeds. Another article talks about using the cardboard toilet tissue rolls for starting certain plants----including rootcrops.

John's anxious to expand with more North American members (there are only a handful of us now). So you might contact him for membership information. Tell him I sent you.

John is a member here!!!

Yes he is. But I know he doesn't want to post anything about The Village Guild because it would sound too commercial. But it's a great newsletter, full of useful tips, and written in Johns iniminable style. That is to say, funny.

In fact, I don't think I'd ever want to be locked in a room with John and Horseshoe. Talk about laughing! I mean, my pants would never dry! :-)

This message was edited Friday, Jan 11th 3:30 PM

HAH! I can just see you in your wet britches Brook!!! Oh my, what a site! And sound!
Thanks for the tip, I've heard of John's book but have never purchased/read it. I'll check out his organization tho.
Kathleen, I first read about her in the early 80's! She was one really spunky and feisty lady, I really liked her way of looking at life! By the way folks, I believe she lived to about 90 yrs of age and gardened right to the end. As for the lasagna gardening, yes it is similar. I was going to refer to it in answering Dave's question above. I know what you mean about the barnyard weeds too! It can happen with any mulch I suppose if the compost heap doesn't get hot enuff to kill them.
Hey vols, sounds like ya'll were on a roll there! By the way, when you turned your clover into the beds was the straw decomposed enuff to blend in well? In other words was it still "straw-y" or had it become crumbly and small textured? In your other beds, I've done that "shaving the clover". It helped slow down the weeds but didn't smother them out completely. I have a feeling it helped mainly because the ground wasn't tilled but just planted in as is. To till it would've brought up weed seeds from lower down in the soil and encourage them to germ. (Oftentimes I've tilled the soil, let some weed seeds germ then till again shallowly...it really cuts down on a lot of future weed growth. In the past I've sowed hairy vetch in beds (or long rows 4 ft wide) and set plants (tomatoes) directly in. The vetch does exactly what you are looking for, suppresses weed growth AND provides enuff nitrogen for the tomatoes to live off of.
Dave...if you have some land that was previously tilled (and you do) that will speed up the process of having a good soil base to work with. Those of you who don't then I'd suggest starting with the above mentioned "lasagna method" (more on that in another post if you like. Kathleen, you want to contribute to that?)
As for straw seeds germinating...straw is the part of the hay with no seeds, just the stalks. If you use hay there will be seeds in there and yes, some will tend to germ. However, if they do (or any other weed seeds) then you just throw on some more straw and smother them. (Keeping bales of straw along the edge of your garden makes it handy to do this.) Or, because the soil will be moist and have good tilth it is really nothing to just pull a weed out here and there. Ruth Stout would pull it out and throw it on top of the layer of straw and let the sun kill it and at the same time be contributing to the bulk of the mulch as well as adding a nutrient source . (Many weeds offer lots of nutrition.)
As for sowing seeds, determine where you want your row, pull back the straw/mulch a few days or so b4 you want to plant. This allows the sun access to the soil and will warm it up a bit. Sow your seeds. Many large seeds can easily be pushed into the soil. Smaller seeds can be sprinkled ON the soil, then pull a light layer of straw over them to protect them. They'll germ thru the straw. As your plants get some size then simply pull more straw right up to them. This is easily done either by hand or by using a garden rake to save your back and all that bending over. (As for me, my back tends to moan at me when I don't use long-handled tools as often as I possibly can!) (Can't STAND a moaning back!)

Hope ya'll will give a small section a try and let us know how it works for you.
Getting long-winded here. Sorry! My cue to get outta here!

Shoe, thanks for the info. The straw I used for mulch was starting to break down when we turned it under. Hopefully it is decomposing nicely now, along with the fresher straw we buried under the topsoil.

That's a very good idea about keeping straw nearby to throw on top as needed. I'm planning to devote one bed to potatoes this year (don't laugh, I do things on a small scale compared to some of you guys!) and I plan to use straw around the plants as they grow.

Pulling up weeds when the soil is nice and loose...non-compacted soil was one of the reasons I was attracted to square-foot gardening; even the first year, I saw a huge improvement over my past gardens in the ease of weeding.

Shoe

Admirable stuff.

Your combines must have a more effective method of removing the seed heads than ours because where there is straw here, there's a always a small crop of cereals where the straw gets damp :)

A few Qs if I may, doesn't the decomposing straw/hay take up a lot of the available nitrogen in the first year? Or do you not plant crops which require a fair amount of N for a couple of years?

What crops do you intend to plant for the first couple of years on the no dig area?

Ta

Baa

This is what I have done to a small bed. I cut the grass as short as possible,layed down layers of newspapers,wet it down, cover with soil about 6 inches deep and in a few weeks you can start planting and then mulch on top. The newspaper down below keeps the weeds out. You can prepare the ground in the fall and by spring you have nice soil to plant things in.May have to keep adding layers if you do this in early fall and plan on using in spring.Just use the black and white print paper, none of the flyers or colored paper. Can also use shredded paper and put it down. All fall, you can add your egg shells, potato pealings, coffee grounds and all that other good stuff and just work into the soil. My beds are bordered with land scape timbers so everything stays in it's place.

Hi,
We am trying the lasagna method on a small scale this year.
We do have a added problem.. CHICKENS.. They belong to the neighbor next door & we don't want to make enemies with them so NO chicken pie *G* Anyway that makes it hard to add scraps to the beds. Right now we have chicken wire over then but will have to remove it when we plant.
If any of you are interested in lasagna beds try this URL.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/gardening/gar173.lasagna.shtml

It explains it better than I can.
Sugar_fl

I read Ruth Stout's book "How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back"..well...it's been at LEAST 30 years ago now. Getting enough straw is my biggest problem...and forget about the "without an aching back" part...I do a modified version ala "lasagna". Every fall I put out layers of newspaper and then cover it with hay. By spring, the paper has pretty much rotted and many of the weed seed and roots have rotted under so much moisture. I plant in rows of beds and simply pull the hay and paper back with my fork and let it dry a bit before digging. Works nicely to soften the soil also. For the permanent paths between the rows I use landscape fabric covered with hay. I don't remove this. After a few years weeds are not a problem because the crop outgrows them and they eventually lose. I don't do commercial farming but only gardening on a small scale. But for larger enterprises, Rodale recommended using cover crops tilled in. For total rejuvenation, he suggests growing only cover crops for 5 years, tilling them in each year. I've never had the opportunity to try it nor know anyone who has, but from experience on a very small scale, I'd bet the soil would be in beautiful condition after 5 years. He also says to rotate from field to field, letting some rest under the cover crop for awhile. Well, that's all I can remember from yea so many years ago.

Problem with all these various techniques isn't that they don't work----they do. It's just that they are impractical for most home gardeners.

Take resting under a cover crop, for instance. Just which part of that 20 x 20 foot garden are you going to let go fallow?

Gathering enough materials to do sheet composting (or lasagna gardening, or whatever you want to call it) can also be difficult. In fact, suburban gardeners with small patches often can do better at this, because they live in neat lawn heaven and can often get their neighbors to provide grass clippings. And leaves in the fall. Those of us who live in the country are pretty much confined to what our own land produces. Otherwise we have to buy it. Or scrounge it. And, with a large garden, there's never enough material to do the job fully.

Brook, that is exactly the drawback that I've found. I drive by those piles of leaves in town and drool! But, everyone says, you have all that wonderful manure! Yeah, but dairy cows who are getting lots of protein to produce lots of milk are, shall we delicately say, a bit loose. I do "harvest" the slightly composted stuff under where the heifers have their big round bales in the late fall, but there again, we're dealing with weed seeds. And Baa, I'm not so sure that combines here are any better than there - we always seem to have the odd oat patch wherever the straw is.
I have been using the layer of newspaper, but even as wet as we usually are, it takes a couple of years to really break down. I don't know how the straw is going to work, as I've just got this one new patch. We had to buy the straw from a neighbor as we chop our oats for silage rather than harvest them for seed. So far, my best suggestion for weed free flower beds is letting the johnny-jump-ups fill in all the free space. I've never had a weed free vegetable garden!

Been lurking but can't imagine what a weed free garden is like. Here in the country,wind seldom quits,thus seeds come in continually' Plus have the devil(bermuda grass everywhere) it's a waste of my time trying to remove or kill. I have resorted to using bisqueen(sp)and covering with stones(small)and some xeriscaping' Container gardening now for me and worked well last year' Then again,maybe I should start a "Weed Farm",lol'''

Howdy Baa...I have to agree with Kathleen, our combines are no more efficient than ya'lls. We'll always have some sort of weed popping up somewhere (if not from the ground then from bird droppings and/or wind bringing them in). The idea with the deep mulch is to keep the seeds from making it thru and turning into full blown nuisances and thereby begatting more nuisances. I admit, that mulch has to be a good thickness to accomplish this. And a ready supply needs to be on hand for when weeds do pop up...throw on another handful and smother it, or pull it out.
Brook has brought up a valuable point...the source of this mulch. I've been fortunate on several occasions with free stuff. Because I live "in between" the town and the country I've been able to have the city deliver me those huge truckloads of fall leaves from time to time. (Here where we live they have to try to recycle them first before they are allowed to take them to the dump...many folks have piles of leaves sitting in their side yards because of this law.) Also, the straw/spoiled hay I now have for this project was given to me in exchange for cleaning out the mans barn...I must've gotten over 100 bales! I must admit, THAT is the reason for finally getting on with this project, the free supplies.
In the past I've done smaller plots like this but now I've lost the inclination to go gather leaves, fork them onto a trailer, unload them, etc. I would certainly find out if ya'lls community has a program like I mentioned above for delivering leaves to you. (And don't forget, some folks bag their leaves and leave them by the curb for pick-up...you can always grab those too!) Should you choose to try a small spot, I've so far thrown 2 and a half bales on a 100 sq ft area...I'll probably add 2 more bales to it as it flattens down. If you have to buy straw, then 5 bales at $2 each = $10. To me a small price to pay for a yrs worth of cutting back on weeding, conserving water, contributing to the life in the soil, etc. (Please note tho, I would NOT be so willing should I have to pay to do five more plots like that! I'm a miser.)
As far as leaving a piece of land fallow...I understand the reasoning supposedly behind it (a resting period) but don't quite agree with it. The idea of a resting period seems to stem from the days when folks overworked the ground and then moved on to another piece that didn't have the nutrition taken out of it. Nowadays with proper rotation I don't see the need for a resting period. We all know some plants are heavy feeders, some light feeders. Other plants put in nutrition (legumes), some plants pull nutrition up from deep down in the ground by way of their extensive root systems. The majority of plants contribute to the soil (and the life in the soil) by leaving behind their topgrowth, thereby adding not just mulch but also contributing plant bulk to help aerate the soil and, again, encourage earthworm/bacteria life. So by taking this into consideration then simply use a proper rotation cycle. That will meet your needs as well as Ma Natures.
Baa (sorry, getting longwinded again)...as for the straw stealing N from the ground...anything fresh and decomposing will use available N while it is in that stage. If you turn the matter into the soil, then plant in it, yes..your plants will suffer because the decomposing matter is not willing to share! However, matter placed ON the ground, not IN it, will not take N from the roots of your plants. The plants roots are seeking nutrition from way below the ground level. (And of course, oftentimes when people set out a plant they usually put some food in the planting hole anyway, or side-dress around it.)

Hope I was able to answer questions properly...let me know if I just put you in the dark. And also realize I'm not an expert on ANYTHING (and it's important to me to not come off as one) but just an avid grower with a few points to make based on MY experiences and the results I've had.

Hey, Shoe:

Two buck for a bale of straw? I'm moving to your house! Straw here, this fall, ranged from 350 to almost five bucks, depending on who you bought it from.

So, the math here would be, at minimum, 5 x $3.50=$17.50/100 square feet. To cover my 18 x 80 garden at that rate would cost more than $2,500. Now, add in the fact that I don't use straw off the bale, but run it through the chipper first, and the costs increase even more. It takes fuel to operate that chipper.

All in all, hardly cost effective, even for a small patch like mine.

My new best friend (she's a horse breeder) provides me all the mixed manure/bedding I want, just for hauling it away. She uses wood chips rather than straw, which means I have the best of all worlds: mixed green and brown effects and no weed seeds.

I lay down a layer of that, 4-6 inches thick, in the fall. In the early spring I lightly till it in. That becomes my planting layer. Whatever I can gather after that as mulch---paper, grass clippings, wood chips, etc.---is used to form another layer. So far it's working.

This message was edited Saturday, Jan 12th 2:19 PM

Brook, if your source ever gives out, you can come down this way with a pickup and get straw for $2 a bale here, too.

It sounds like you've got a pretty good thing going there. I lucked out - my neighbor has cows and bunnies. He doesn't use the rabbit manure for his gardens, so I can help myself to as much as I care to use (which is pretty much everything they produce.) And the cow manure is mine for the taking, too - but of course it's a bit harder to gather up, LOL.

Last fall we went to my MIL's and bagged her leaves (she lives in town); and brought them down to supplement what our own trees produced. After that experience, I see the value in a gas-powered leaf shredder, because it would have dramatically reduced the bulk of what we hauled away; and would have helped reduce my own leaves to more manageable piles, and easier to break down. (Maybe Santa will bring me one of those early next year...)

Shoe

Thanks, I get what you mean, still a little confuzzled about the N available to plant root bit. Do you mean that as the plants grow the roots will penetrate the bottom soil layer which isn't affected by the N take up of the above layers? Since the plant will be relatively small until the roots reach that far, they shouldn't need all that much N anyway.

I totally agree on the fallow period not being required. If your rotations are good then there should be no need for fallow areas. Monocultures and having to plant certain crops in times past made the fallow period necessary.

Kathleen I know what you mean about dairy cattle manure (never stand behind a coughing cow LOL). Sheep dung is also good material to use if you can get it. Fleece is sometimes used to mulch plants here but because of the rules regarding the sale of sheep fleece here its hard to get hold of. (its good for hanging basket liners too)

Hehehe, we once had a Japanese exchange student stay with us for a short time. she was very prim and proper, shy. The girls worked very hard to get her to loosen up, as it was a short stay. The second night she was here, she went to the barn with dd#2. About 1/2 and hour later, I heard them coming into the trailer (this was before we bought the farm) laughing their heads off, and I thought, oh good, she's finally having a good time. I went to the back door and there she stood, soaking wet - it was the middle of a cold February - and I said, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU??? her reply, between giggles and guffaws was, I found WRONG END of cow!

HAH!... I've been at that end before also Kathleen!
Baa, the plants are planted IN the soil, not in the mulch. (The mulch is just around the plants.) I didn't mean to imply that you set your plants out in the mulch itself instead of in the ground. Sorry. And yes, since the plants are growing IN the ground then their roots are bringing in nutrients from the ground below the top level of the ground...the top level of the ground is where the mulch is.
Brook, I'm offering you the same deal as Vols...come on down! $3.50 is what garden centers around here sell straw for but I wouldn't pay it...like I said, I'm a miser and tend to look for deals from farmers and such (deals meaning "freebies"!) By the way, if you did pay that price my figures come closer to $265 for your 1440 sq feet, not $2500. (If you use 5 bales per 100 sq ft, then you'd use 75 bales/1500...or am I thinking right? Math is not my strong point.) Also I would never think of running it thru a chipper first. That is something I'd do if I wanted to hurry compost along, small particles of course decompose faster. In this application you don't want to speed up the decomposition.
You're very fortunate to have a good source of "stable sweepings"! I used to bring in trailer loads of it...you've gotta gold mine there! (Shhh...don't tell your neighbors. I used to get it free then the folks found out they could SELL it!) As for no weed seeds in your supply, you're doubly fortunate! Horses are well-known for not being able to break down many grains/seeds. I used to get "sweepins" from a thorobred farm and it was primo stuff! When it was no longer available I went to another horse farm, got some of theirs and along with it came millions of weeds! After figuring it all out I noticed the first place I used to get the goods from had a perfectly well-kept pasture. The second farm I got it from had a very unkempt pasture, chock full of dandelions, henbit, chickweed, and thistle! Apparently the horses grazed on a bit of grass and lots of weeds (and I'm sure feed supplements as well). Trust me, once you get thistle in your garden, NO FUN! To sum it up folks, get a good look at the pastures when you go looking for manure.

i am not endorcing the book. am recommending this url for everyone to have an idea what & how lasagna gardening is all about. http://205.147.231.111/uof/lasagnagardening/heck.html hope it help... mavie

ROTFL Kathleen!

Shoe, thanks I got ya now :)

just a note about the difference between hay and straw,hay is grasses and stuff that just grows out in feilds,many plants all mixed together and dried,straw is the remains of seed type crops,barley,wheat etc... the seed heads are taken for processing ,threshed I think they call it,and the remains,which contain very little seed,is straw.

Shoe,

You're almost right. I didn't move the decimal point enough places, and figured on 144 groups of 100, when there actually are 14.4 such groups. If we call it 15 groups, then we get 75 bales, at 3.50=$262.50. Or only 10% of my original figures.

Affordible? Maybe. But as long as I have my horse-stable leavings, an unnecessary expense.

I also don't understand your objection to running straw through a chipper? Faster decompostition just doesn't wash. I use straw for my garlic and other fall-planted alliums, putting down a 4 inch layer of chipped straw. It remains in place until early spring, when the leaves are well above it, then moved off to the side. It does _not_ decompose, particularly, until I till it in, after harvesting in July. Nine months on the surface without decomposing isn't particulalrly fast.

I find chipped straw much more convenient to work with, expecially when I have to plant through it. It moves out of the way easier, and doesn't tangle up. When direct sowing (as opposed to transplanting) that's the only way I can do it. Whole straw just forms a tangled mass that winds up being all or nothing at all when it comes to shifting it around.

That's been my experience, anyway.

This message was edited Sunday, Jan 13th 8:31 AM

Shoe & Go-Vols, don't be surprised if I show up with a flatbed trailer, let alone a pick-me-up truck.

$3.50 is what the farm supply places were charging. Actually, the best price I found was $3.54. The garden centers got up to five bucks.

Unfortunately, there is no local straw here. This is purely tobacco country, and all straw is imported---thus the higher prices. Believe me, I'd do a deal with a farmer if I could.

For suburban scroungers there's another source of material, besides leaves and grass clippings. After Halloween, volunteer to haul off those lawn displays made of straw, corn stalks, etc. Most people will almost pay you to do that, and gladly let you have this "trash." Whenever I can get it, that so-called trash becomes mulch and compost in my gardens.

I bet you have a good lookin garden Brook, and I believe you are in tune with how to operate it. You've found your system and it works...that is what others need to find also, eh?
As for the shredding straw, just a personal preference on my part (really didn't mean to start a controversial discussion here). Using straw, leaves, or any type of mulch in a fall garden will not break down quickly, and will surely last till spring (I would expect it to). The cool winter temps will slow down the decomposition of it just as it slows down the making of compost. However, in the warmer months I've witnessed very quick decomposition (in the South and Deep South we've always had to constantly incorporate plant matter into the soil, it just tends to heat up and break down very fast). What I wanted to point out was that the bigger the particles, the slower the decomposing...if you're using the particles as mulch, NOT as a base for your soil, as you are, then you don't want it to break down fast.
Vols, I think we should double-team Brook!...you send a load from your direction, I'll send a load from mine. He'll have so much straw he could build a house out of it!

The little piggy was wrong. Straw bale houses are very durable and secure. And well insulated.

So yeah, you guys send it on. :-)

HAH! Yes they are! In the past I've even thought of attempting to make a small one-room straw house just for the fun of it, or experience. I bet you've done an article on this somewhere, haven't you Brook?

Actually, Shoe, I haven't. There aren't that many markets for articles about alternative housing; and most of them don't pay much---or anything at all.

Seems to me that the smartest alternative right now would be rammed earth. In addition to all its benefits, there are several million recalled tires out there right now. Many of them could be put to good use.

Another tire-recyling trick is to use them as culverting. All it takes is a strapping machine, and a modicum of cement. If you can find a source of the tires, building such culverts is virtually free.

Sorry, I just have to tell this story. The reference to the three little pigs made me think of it.

When my DD was almost 3, I told her a bedtime story about the three little pigs. Apparently I tell the ending differently than DH (in my version, the wolf falls down the chimney into a boiling cauldron and becomes wolf stew.)

Well, that led us into a very long discussion of whether it's okay to eat other animals. We had to talk about the Circle of Life (if you've seen Lion King, you know the song), the first few chapters of Genesis, going fishing with Grampa, etc.

Who would've ever guessed a toddler would get so worked up about wolf stew? (And yes, she was that way then and still is now. As the saying goes, I'm definitely paying for my raising with this one.)

Hmmmmmm, G-V.

Did I ever give you my recipe for Elephant Stew? It's really great for a crowd.

LOL, Brook. Ummm, if it's anything like Stone Soup, I think we'll stick with that, because it's easy to do a vegeterian version of stone soup.

Just to give you a glimpse into this child's mind, during that conversation, she pointed out that if cows and pigs and chickens live on farms and it's okay to eat them, then what about PEOPLE who live on farms...well, you get the picture. She's showing signs of being a fairly good debater, and keeps us on our toes.

Go-Vols,

Having raised one like that, I don't envy you. If I hadn't stopped it, he'd have been reading when he was three. Scary, to say the least.

Wait until she asks you where your lap goes when you stand up.

BTW, Stone Soup _is_ vegetarian. What kind of poor folks have meat to be throwing around to strangers?

Vols

No its not ok to eat people who live on farms! We have pitch forks and we aren't afraid to use them ;) I don't live on a farm so I presume I'm safe.

You could always point out the problems of eating the same species not being a good thing due to diseases passing on to the eater.

It's good to know there are youngsters out there prepared to use thier minds.

Baa, honestly we had to delve into the reasons it's not okay to eat your own species during that discussion. Do you know what it's like to discuss cannibalism with a three year old??? Sheesh! Hehehe, I didn't tell her that farmers know which is the business end of a pitchfork, but maybe I should have. It might have been easier.

Brook, stone soup traditionally has a soup BONE in it. But not in our version, because we are NOT going back there. No way, no how.

Shoe, I'm so sorry, I've hijacked your thread. Can we get back to Ruth Stout and no-till gardening again? It's definitely safer terrain than where I've led us....

Hi folks! I am the infamous John Yeoman, introduced earlier in the Forum by Brook. (Thanks for plugging my newsletter, The Lazy Gardener, Brook. I'd never have had the self-promoting audacity, myself. Was it $50 we agreed:))Thanks too, to everyone who contacted me as a result of his post.

To throw in my two cents' worth (well, it's now more like two Euros worth in Europe - so fast is the rate dropping)... I find one drawback of any thick mulch is snails and slugs. They love mulch. A horridly non-organic solution (but it works) is to scatter crushed mothballs ie. camphor through the mulch.

But I don't know what it does for the birds...

I've had success with shredded cardboard. My local paper mill has long sold shredded newspaper as litter for horses, but it had never occurred to them that gardeners might like shredded cardboard. It rots down in around 4 months and, provided you don't dig it in during that time, shouldn't rob any nitrogen from the soil.

Lasagna gardening? My first reaction was that Dr Shewell Cooper advocated it in the UK in the 1930s. Scott Nearing pioneered it a decade later. Ruth Stout popularised it - and the lasagna book threw in just one extra feature: a preliminary layer of newspaper under the mulch.

Ain't nothing new in the garden, I reckon.

Yours, ever dibbering
JOHN YEOMAN
The Village Guild

Fifty dollars, John? What kind of piker do you take me for? :-)

Folks, as you may have caught a glimmer of, they call him Quirky John---partly because his name is John. His newsletter is even worse; quirky and funny and out in left field, somewhere. But, like his post, full of solid, useful information. I love the thing.

By the way, I'm offering a fresh Euro to any non-Brit who can tell me what "dibbering" means. I _can't_ mean what I think! ;-)

Is John telling the world about dibbering? No secret is safe is it LOL