Ruth Stout method

Have any OGfriends out there experience with hay-mulch gardening? I want to experiment with the Stout method (I've read her books) and would appreciate any tips on do's and dont's as applied to flower and vegetable gardening.

we discussed this some before, put in her name in the search box on the left, and you'll find that thread.

Howdy arne. I started a thread about this some time back. I'm impressed with that garden! Have been keeping records and pics along the way and will eventually give a good update. (Would like to put it all in my journal but still haven't taken the time to learn it well enuff.)
The thread I started became quite long, then got side-tracked, but all in all I believe you'll get some good points there.
http://davesgarden.com/showthread/169444.html

Many thanks, Horseshoe and tiG, for info about the site!
It's a lot to think about.

Arne

please feel free to keep the conversation going, I am still interested in who's done what and what's worked for them.

One of the alerts, I think it was from John Yeoman (surely, a pseudonym), stated that slugs and snails love haymulch and thrive in it. Can vegetables still be protected from these slimy devils using this method? Do you know of any other pitfalls?

well, I know one thing. I trust John. He posts here when he has a chance, so I'll take his word. I'm just a rookie, so I'll get off the floor and let someone else have it.

plszzzztttt...ô¿ô (whoops, sorry...that just slipped out)
I haven't seen one single slug nor snail in my garden. Then again, even in my regular garden I don't see many! I believe I have a good balance in the system and altho I see slugs in the flower beds here and there I notice very little damage by them. I was more concerned w/squash bugs and the like cuz of the hay mulch...they LOVE to hide and breed in a good mulch like that! However, I didn't notice any more than usual so at this point am not the least bit concerned with them.
Back to the slug issue, the same 'attack mode' would apply in a No Work garden as in any other garden...DE, copper strips, "sluggo" (if you go that route), midnite raids, etc.

Coffee grounds, maybe?

If I recall correctly, Ms. Stout insisted that slugs were not a problem in her garden; she attributed it to the continuous mulch making the soil slightly alkaline, and less hospitable to slugs. Can't swear to it yet, as this is only my second year of mulching. But slugs have not yet been a problem around my veggies.

I didn't even know what a slug was until we started getting leaves from a nearby town and using them in garden to mulch and work into the soil. Now we have them all the time! Fortunely slugs are welcome snacks for the ducks. I read in one of Jerry Baker's books that sandpaper around pots or the base of plants will keep slugs away.

I tried hay mulch last year and was very unimpressed. I have a slug problem here and it didn't help at all. It seemed to inhibit tomatoes, celeriac and phaseolus vulgaris

This year for the first time in years I went without mulch - all winter and and all summer (and am getting fit from all the extra weeding!). Result: not only do I have fewer slugs but I have healthier plants in general (not counting the usual tomato blight problema and even that is not as bad as it was last year weith all that mulch).

So, no mulch for me.

Gosh, am I the 'John' you nice folks refer to?

Deep mulch gardening Does Not Work. I'd swear that on a stack of Gideon Bibles - save that I'd probably offend some very wonderful Christians, if I did so... So I won't.

I have tried deep mulch, on several plots - strawberry, tomatoes and french climbing beans - and my molluscs had a picnic.

The only plot that survived was the climbing beans because, once they'd got daylight, they thrust down (almost) everything. That said, some weeds were still a problem. Pull out a giant thistle beside a climbing bean, and you'll simply pull out the bean too - because its roots are intertwined.

Some big weeds, bean shade or not, just won't take Go for an answer...

I've found (belatedly) one solution that works - grow everything in permeable black plastic. Cut holes in it and plonk in your transplant (seeds are far too iffy), and it will suppress virtually all weeds.

Come Autumn, lay an old carpet over it, then you can use the same holes to grow a different species of crop next Spring. And the next.

If the soil was well fertilised in year one, and you're doing your crop rotation rigorously (very important!), it won't need replenishment for three years.

Then you absolutely must take the plastic off. And bang on loads of manure or compost!

And start again with fresh plastic.

Yes, there are organic alternatives - like laying thick wet newspaper as a mulch (preferably soaked in wallpaper paste, which contains its own helpful fungicide, or flour & water to make papier mache). They do work. But you have to renew them every year.

Deep mulch or plastic?

Give me plastic any day! (And with a quarter-acre of crops growing outside right now, under both plastic and a variety of different types of mulch, I've tested both - ad nauseum.)

John Yeoman










This message was edited Wednesday, Aug 21st 6:02 PM

John's right!

Mulches seem to be sancrosanct to organic gardeners but they must be either martyrs (spend all their time collecting slugs, wiping of funghi, etc), can waste all their crops (throw away the lettuces yet again, because the slugs have eaten most of them) or be very lucky (no pests)!

Bare soil and lots of weeding or black plastic is the best I've found too and, like John, I've tried various types of mulch and none of them worked as well as bare soil or permeable black plastic. It also has an added benefit - if, like many people in Europe this year, you get blight on your potato leaves, the plastic keeps most ofthe fungus spores off the potatoes.

What most annoys me about organic gardeners is the way they cheerfully throw away a damaged crop - have they never been hungry or short of money? I'm a more-or-less organic gardener, I grow vegetables to eat and want as few chemicals as possible in them but, rather an application of bordeaux mixture (and black plastic mulch) than no potatoes or tomatoes.

I must be doing something right then. Hmmm...haven't seen one single slug in my mulched garden. I don't think it's cuz the straw keeps them out anymore than I witness the straw bringing them in tho. (I do see it is a haven for those wunnerful stink bugs tho! And unfortunately this garden is right where I had an outburst of them last yr.)

I love the way so many of us say "this works", "that doesn't---period!" I can almost hear them slam down the gavel! However, as has been said, and proven, many times over "what works for one person may not work for another". It appears mulch gardens fall into that category.

I like the way John has experimented with the mulch. I don't think I'd "deep mulch" a strawberry bed tho, simply because they are such a low-growing plant. And mulching tomatoes definitely works, however all too often some folks tend to put down the mulch too soon in the year. (If you mulch too early you keep the sun from heating up the soil...and tomatoes hate cold feet!) As for "pulling out a giant thistle beside a climbing bean"...well, if you've waited so long to weed that the thistle is that big then of course its roots will be inter-twined; and that would happen whether you are growing in a mulched bed or not, even black plastic.

I've used black plastic. I still had certain weeds, mostly grasses coming up thru it (like that pesky Bermuda grass, and nutgrass). Permeable means if something can go thru it then it doesn't matter which end it starts at, either the top or the bottom. Here in the South it will really heat up the soil too hot tho. I've covered it b4 with a mulch on top but for me, with a two acre garden I couldn't justify the extra work and $$. I even tried the red plastic in order to witness "fantastic results". Sheesh, don't get me started on that topic! And then there was the "living mulch"; planting tomatoes in hairy vetch worked extremely well, a project well worth repeating. I think people with small backyard gardens and/or raised beds oughtta give different techniques a try tho and see what works for them. Give black plastic an honest effort or try the "perpetual mulch/straw mulch" to see what works for you in your area, as well as how pleasant you feel while working either system. And take into consideration your climate/micro-climates and altitude, as well as the plants you'll be growing. (I'm more and more leaning towards trying the newspaper in wall paper paste next spring; to me that sounds like an excellent idea. Thanks John!) Once you learn a few basics, gardening is free-form; there are very few "this won't work, so there!"s involved.
gerddi, sorry someone has convinced you into lumping all organic gardeners in one basket and that you feel so negative to a person(s) becuz of the style of gardening they choose. I can only speak for myself and hereby declare I don't "cheerfully" throw anything away, and very VERY seldom do so. I also don't pick slugs, wipe off funghi, etc. Perhaps I'm lucky, altho I don't believe in luck (love to believe in Hope tho!). Also, my garden has been worked nearly 20 years now and, even tho it is still not the most friable soil, I imagine I have a great balance of activity going on there, both microbial activity as well as above-ground activity. I certainly have my share of bugs, and when they get out of hand I spray them, but that has nothing to do with being organic.
It sounds like you were once "hungry and short of money" and I'm sure you didn't throw food away. I grew up that way, for many years, and didn't throw food away either. (And we were organic growers, we just didn't know it at the time!)

Thanks folks, all great comments here! Some of them enlightening, some dis-heartening, but all of them welcome.
Love ya!

Horseshoe

Don't get me wrong - I was just venting my spleen!

I'm not anti-organic, far from it, I just hate to see waste and refusing to use a spray because it would be unorganic is not for me. I think of the poor and hungry people in places like Africa and it bothers me that we are so wasteful here in the richer part of the world.

Like you, I've improved my garden soil no end, simply by applying home-produced compost and a straw/cowmuck mix for the greedy plants (potatoes andpumpkins). I don't use any non-organic fertilizers and use sprays only in emergencies. My garden is surrounded by slug-infested fields so organic mulches are not for me and if I kill or remove the slugs in my garden others move in to take their place. Slug rings and judicious use of pellets to protect my seedlings is the only way.

However, I had a "gardening friend" who stopped speaking to me because I applied slug pellets to save my seedlings! There seems to be a sackcloth and ashes mentality in organic gardening (as in all other walks of life) that I do not subscribe to - I'm a believer in moderation; use the benefits of science when you need to and be as organic and environmentally-friendly as possible the rest of the time.

Mulches: I'm trying no mulches this year (apart from black plastic for the potatoes) for the first time; my slug problem is much relieved but the weeds!!!!

If only we could buy ferrous slug pellets here in Switzerland - then I would return to certain mulches but, until then, it will be bare soil and lots of weeding (keeps me fit!).

Wow! I'm going to join in this lively discussion too. I'm in an area where we are experiencing a severe drought this year. It is also a year when I wanted to increase my garden space and produce more than I have in years past. I started 6 years ago with a small plot tilled into the ground. With the soil composition we have here being heavy clay, amemndment was paramount. After several years of amending with poor results, I built raised beds and started over with a better soil mix. The results were immediate - next years crop was ample for the amount of plants put in. And for the time - the bed space was adequate. This year my gardening has taken a broader experience - so the need for new beds have come to reality along with the drought. With 3 new beds newly tilled into areas previously unused for this purpose, I am now faced with both amending the soil and also water conservation. Having just finished reading a book on Ruth Stout - I decided to give this method a try. Rather than surface planting, I have made the traditional rows - although not tall as I normally would. I planted the rows with the middle, and sides with seeds - spaced so that thinning will not be much of an issue. Once planted, I came along the sides of the rows and also between the rows with a couple layers of newspaper and then covered this with straw heavily. The tops of the rows have a light cover of straw over them, with more straw available once the plants have declared themselves and established. I have also spaced so that I use gallon milk jugs with holes in them to water slowly up to 4 or 5 plants adjacent to them. Once stakes etc have been placed, then the whole garden gets a good soaking once or twice a week, and the rest is done by filling the jugs. Temperatures have averaged 95 degrees for the past month and heat indexes of up to and over 105 degrees. Water normally evaporates quickly with red clay and high temps. I have healthy plants, and mmoist loose soil, with no sign of pests. Indeed I have sprayed only once this year in the vegetables for a wave of japanese beetles. I have seen no evidence of slugs or other pests than the beetles. There has been no weeding needed, even tho the areas were prone to weeds prior to tilling. So far, my experience with this method is quite favorable, and I can see no reason why it would not continue to be a positive method to use. I can continue with the year round mulching and plant as described by Stout next spring. For myself, I'm not afraid to try a new method or two as an experiment. Indeed most of my garden, other than seeds I've started myself, is made up of plants that were not desirable for marketing - ie - they were too leggy, or missing one leaf, not a popular variety - etc. My yields this year have been steady and a wonderful learning experience. In my case, I cannot see a detriment to straw mulching.

Swoznick

You are very lucky. Your hot climate would deter molluscs and other moisture-loving pests. It's not so easy for those of us in zone 8, especially Britain, where damp is endemic. (Except when we have a heatwave, as now.)

Methinks, deep mulch is fine for those with arid conditions - but arguable for those where rot, mould and molluscs rule the plot year round!

John

Well, I don't think I could say that Swoznick's climate is hot enough to burn off the humidity (and the humidity-loving critters). The entire southeastern section of the U.S. (and really most of the midwest and great plains) suffers from very high humidity - at least during the growing season.

Those of us in the South (even here where we sit on the 6b/7a zone fence) are "blessed" with year-round humidity. And do we ever have the snails and slugs to prove it!

gerddi, have you tried the iron phosphate slug pellets? I found some this year, and they seem to work about as well as the more traditional slug baits. Which is to say they have to be frequently reapplied especially with our sudden downpours. But they are an organic alternative (just trying to get you and your "gardening friend" on speaking terms again :)

go-vols

Believe it or not, I can't buy iron phosphate slug pellets here . They're made in Germany and I wrote to the manufacturer to ask if I could buy direct and they said no because they couldn't export them to Switzerland. So the Swiss allow the metaldehyde pellets (which are poisonous and damage the nenvironment) but not the organic ones - and one of the problems with joining the EU is because they say would have to lower their environmental standards!!

Slug pellets?

Fret not.

Just put them in a sealed margarine tub, with several large holes at the base. Then birds, hedgehogs and the like can't get in to eat the dead molluscs, and suffer thereby.

That's how to use slug pellets organically, isn't it?

John

John

That would only work if the slug pellets attracted the slugs - and they find my young lettuces more attractive!

Thanks for your confirmation letter BTW. It survived cheese, slurry, floods and the Swiss post off ice and arrived here today. The smell outside (slurry spraying) was so bad that I didn't notice any cheesey smells!

I agree Vols, we're in a region known for the expression "it ain't the heat, it's the humidity"! So if the humidity has nothing to do with deep mulch and its end results (or its on-going results ala Ruth Stout), then it may be that John and gerddi are simply in an area where slugs/snails exercise the cockroach syndrome...if you see one, there are 50 more hiding that you don't see.

It sounds like not so much a mulch problem they need to deal with as it is a slug problem. We gotta help them folks!

Horshoe

You're right - it's a slug problem and the mulch gives them superb hiding and breeding areas, which is why John and I are somewhat sceptical!

If you can come up with a cheap, effective mulch that plants like and slugs hate - I'm all ears!

Coffee grounds!

The UK press were full of this breakthrough idea a few months back and Gerddi has since commented on it, I think. It seems the caffeine in used coffee grounds (or tea leaves) kills molluscs.

As Starbucks give away their coffee grounds to friendly gardeners, this seemed a wondrous solution.

But... I tried it. I set down ten snails in a basin and surrounded them with a rampart of damp coffee grounds. And every one crawled over it unscathed. (I recovered them, still apparently alive, under the basin next day.)

Did I use the wrong coffee - or the wrong snails?

This deserves scientific experiment, folks!

Suppose every reader of this forum tried it (not forgetting wet tea leaves too) and reported back here.

Gosh, we'd need a new thread!

John

HAH. At this rate we'll need a Slug Forum, John! (Just kidding dave! Stay calm!)

I haven't heard about the coffee grounds. Hmmm, I'm sure DE (Diatomaceous Earth) but I'm also sure that would be VERY expensive. Some folks use it around individual plants, but with watering and/or rainfall it tends to get pushed away. Crushed oyster shells are fairly inexpensive here in USA ($6/50 bag). I would think the coarseness of them would deter the slugs. Maybe it could be laid down a half-inch all over your garden (bare in mind that is not a two acre one like mine) and then set your plants out. Or maybe dig a 3 inch wide trench and fill it in with oyster shells for a permanent slug barrier. Who knows?

Hey guys - what about going to your local pub and asking for their stale beer - put it in a pan and surround it with rock salt. I have heard that slugs love beer - and will drink theirselves to death - but the rock salt would be a clincher for them....

Horseshoe...

Sir, I'll have you know my garden is a full 1/4 acre! It grows to 1/2 acre in Winter floods, then shrinks back to 1/4 acre in Summer. This confuses the local planning officers...

But yes, DE (otherwise known as Fullers Earth in the UK) might work.

Personally, I just bang in the slug pellets (surrounded by margarine tubs, as previously noted) - and flecked with frothy yeasty Adnams Beer!

That attracts molluscs.

Alas, you folk on the other side of the pond can't use this idea.

You drink lager. (Whoever invented Budweiser was having a joke on the human race.) Cold, nutrient-free, yeastless - and unattractive to all sapient life. You have never soaked up a full pint of warm yeasty Adnams, while watching cricket, so you can't appreciate why a mollusc - also slow in its ways - loves real beer too.

Failing that, use yeast-frothed sugar solution in your beer traps... It works!

Yours, off to have an Adnams...

John

Hehehe...JOhn, your garden either must wear stretch pants (in order to grow and shrink accordingly) or you must have it well trained!!! Love it!
As for this region, I can't handle Budweezer anymore than the molluscs can! (Also haven't seen great results w/beer bait, but that may be cuz of my neighbor, Bert. I came out one Sunday morning and all my beer baits were bone dry. I eventually stumbled across Bert, laid out flat on his back in the gardens, his tongue in a beer bait trough exercising capillary action while slugs crawled all over him.)

Now as for cricket? Hmmm,...I'm familiar w/cricket. My Granny used to put me in charge of them in the kitchen. It was my job to pull their little legs off while she battered and fried them, kinda like we do okra. I never understood why my job was so important 'til I witnessed that each time she took the lid off most of them would jump outta the pan.
(Later on in life, when I gained some culinary experience, I learned to only pull one leg off! That way when they went to jumping it put them into a sideways spin and they were "self-flipping"...much easier to see that they got evenly browned.)

If I ever come over that way we better exchange tips, tricks, home-remedies, and brew.

Ho, Horseshoe!

You ain't seen nothing, till you've seen my wife's ways with mountain oysters.

She practises on me, you see.

Yours, squeaking in a subdued treble voice

John

I've deep mulched my gardens ala Ruth Stout for years when I lived down in the Hudson Valley in New York. Never had a serious slug problem. Just started a new garden up here in the mountains and part of the garden is deep mulched and part is still bare to lightly mulched. There have been a lot of snails and some slugs equally distributed around the garden so I can't say mulching is good, bad or indifferent as far as these critters go. We have some large (to me, anyway) slugs that I've almost tripped over in the yard or on my cliffside trail. I've only spotted one of these giants in the garden so far and he was wandering about on an unmulched bed. Anecdotal evidence to be sure, but what in this thread isn't?

Black plastic does little towards building up the health of my soil. Deep mulching provides too many other benefits to abandon because of some slugs.

Wayne, slugging it out in the Adirondacks

Just noticed that I replied to a three year old thread. Found it while searching for something else and didn't notice the dates.

Anyway, Ruth Stout is still one of my gardening heros and I'm always glad to resurrect a thread in her honor.

Wayne

Howdy Wayne, and a bigtime hearty WELCOME TO DG!

It's great to resurrect old threads, lots of good info for people to read that didn't see it the first time around. 'Smatter of fact, this topic was recently approached in another thread somewhere so perhaps this one coming to the top will be able to add to the info/questions that arose.

My "no work" garden is still doing mighty fine. The only serious weeding I need to do comes from the horse nettle that pops up; no other weeds will make it! And, to this day, I still have no troubles with slugs/snails. Yay!

I like to mulch and I had slugs terribly. Hostas chewed down to the bone. I barely controlled the situation with "Sluggo" (an iron tablet product). Then, one year, nature exchanges my slugs for fireflies. Apparently, firefly larvae eat slugs. So those with slugs, do you have fireflies in the summer? Is there a correlation or was I just lucky?

whoa, that is almost as big as a banana slug! It's miller time LOL