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Ruth Stout ( 1884 - 1980 ) was a freethinking , hard-nosed gardener and author , who inspired many new gardener to determine beneficial practices that refuse conventional garden advice . Her vegetable garden method are comparable to what is known as permaculture today .
I ’ve provided an audio interview with Ruth along with a transcript below . And yes , she was know to garden naked on her rural prop .
Ruth Stout – Garden Inspiration
I love spring anywhere , but if I could choose , I would always greet it in a garden .
Unconventional Garden Success
This video recording visibility ( below ) of Ruth Stout ( 1884 - 1980 ) pops up on YouTube every so often and gets ordered down so watch it while you’re able to ! I have also make a copy ( below ) in casing the video disappears .
Ruth began turn food when she moved to a land prop in Connecticut in the 1930s .
She began her garden , as many do , will tilling , commercial fertilizers , thoroughgoing weeding , and pesticides .
After several geezerhood , impatient for the local the husbandman to issue forth till the beds as promised at saltation planting time , she realise that tilling should n’t be required at all .
If gage seeds sprout so readily without it , why should n’t everything we want to grow do the same ?
And that was the start of her minimal - work - for - maximal - profit growing method .
By mulch with soft hay , she could harbour crops from the hot sun , retain wet , and eliminate the motivation to water .
Free - cerebration and unthethered by pattern , Ruth developed garden method that work on ( brilliantly ) , bank her experience over democratic advice .
We call back her today as a glorious gardener , speaker , and author , and one of my personal ducky .
Related : No - Dig Gardening : Pros & Cons for Home Gardens
Interview With Ruth Stout
It ’s packed with excellent tips and stories from her biography .
You canread the transcript here .
Keep in judgement that what work for Ruth complemented her growing conditions and climate . The wisdom comes in adapting to your own position .
and
I heel that last one not only for the playfulness story she tells about it in the film but to emphasize her philosophy of live and let live .
The non - conformity , remember for oneself , and influence of her like - minded family are so refreshing .
She was a revolutionary well onward of her clock time . Or perhaps always outside the mainstream .
The word ‘ eccentric ’ also pops up a peck in biographies but I ’m loathed to include it since potent woman in history are incessantly knocked down with judgement like that .
Brilliantis a much more exact choice of words .
Do what you want to do and do n’t tell other people how to behave . To make rule for other people — I just do n’t get it .
Ruth Stout Book
In late eld , this classic leger by Ruth has been republish . swell to see her bequest continuing .
For the Aging , the Busy , and the Indolent
by Ruth Stout
wide renowned as a gardening expert , Ruth Stout wrote extensively about how to simplify gardening . Her techniques have brought people from all over the world to her garden , and now her advice can help you maximizeyourgarden ’s end product with minimum effort . In addition to the time - economise tips provide , Stout ’s joyous position on life and gardening makes this book a delight―and is a must - read for anyone growing food for thought or flowers .
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More About Ruth Stout
~Melissathe Empress of Dirt ♛
Video Transcript
I was born in Kansas in 1884 and lived in Topeka , until I was 18 , moved to New York and lived in New York until I was 45 . Never once wish well that I could have a garden .
Then my husband . We had been marry just a few month and he said would you like to live on in the state and without even knowing that I would , I saidOh yes . And he bought this space , and we had n’t been here more than 10 minute that I was n’t out there attend at the lilac bush and the orchard apple tree trees and so on . And immediately I find tickle pink about horticulture .
I knew nothing about it .
I had a place twice too bounteous plowed up and my sidekick and one or two other people secern me what to do and I did it — for almost 15 class — according to the room everybody else was doing it with commercial fertiliser and poisonous substance spray and address .
engage a man to come and plow and the plow man was always late , and I was always dying to get out there and get thing in in the first place than I could .
Now , this is how this befall , the agency I garden now .
One morning in former April , I went out to the garden . Could n’t do anything , just go out to pour forth a binge because I could n’t start to establish . The ploughman had n’t descend . I walked over to the edible asparagus .
And I said , we do n’t have to apply for you . Why do we have to plow for the other vegetables ?
And the asparagus aver , you do n’t . Go out front and found . If the edible asparagus said that to anybody with any sense , they would n’t have paid any attention .
They would have aver , well , you ’re a repeated because asparagus , like a tree or like a rose bush just come up every year .
But anyway , since I was n’t very smart , I just ran and got my seed and planted them , and that ’s been going on for 35 year . I ’d never had a plough human being again .
If I tell you that the style I garden is very little work , you would n’t jazz what I think of because you do n’t cognize what I call very little oeuvre . You might call back that I intend I only work six hours a sidereal day instead of 12 .
So , I ’m going to tell you incisively how I garden .
I have a vegetable garden 45 by 15 which I mature vegetable for two people all yr round . I am sorry to make you jealous , but I have n’t been in a supermarket for at least 14 years .
I grow all the veggie for the two of us , freeze the excess , and do all of that work myself .
I have a few flower seam , not with child I , but a few . I do all that body of work . I do all of my housework ; my cookery and I answer a terrible heap of mail service . And I never do any of this after 11:00 o’clock in the dawning .
Now the hand go up and your hands are going to go up and asked me what time I got up and my resolution to that is somewhere between 6:00 and 8:00 according to when I feel like it when I want to . And the first thing is a long , easy breakfast Roman style stretched out on the couch . But I ’m all through with all of this after a little after 11:00 o’clock in the dawn .
The ground is that I never plow or spade or crop or weed or yap or use of fertilizer or use a poison spray or use a compost voltaic pile or water .
I just plant and pick .
The intellect that I can do all this is because I keep my ground cover all year long on hay mulch which rots , fertilizes the terra firma , maintain down the widow’s weeds , keeps the ground subdued and that ’s all there is to it .
I had these turnips in here all wintertime long . And I ’ve plunk most of them . They ’re they look awfully petty , but that ’s because I picked all the fully grown ones . But there are few left . We ’ll deplete those .
And now we ’ll put in a row of parsley and a row of dill .
We feed them together , so we plant them together . Why not ?
All I do is just sprinkle the seeds .
I never really cover seeds the way most people do .
Little seed like this , I just pat the row a little bite and they ’re planted .
The same with the Anethum graveolens .
Since weed seminal fluid can add up up all over your garden without your fooling around plant them , I do n’t see why the other thing is ca n’t too , so they are there , they ’re implant , that ’s it for the parsley and dill .
Now I ’m pass to implant some potatoes .
No , I ’m not going to call it planting .
Anybody everybody would n’t dream of planting spud like this , but I can think of no reason why not . They grow .
secondly , they come up and you get potatoes , and I approximate that ’s what you want when you constitute Irish potato or potatoes , or those are a little too nigh .
See had these in the sign all winter and then they begin to sprout , and then rather of shake off them away , you just come and hold them on the ground . Later on , in the year you come out and pick some potatoes .
It ’s very simple .
I would be uncoerced to bet that ’s 99 out of 100 hoi polloi who see me do this would n’t do it themselves .
But that does n’t bother me , that ’s it . Potatoes are planted . We ’re through with that line .
Get some hay on top of those potatoes . Otherwise , they would just expire there and die . We do n’t want them to break , so we ’ll do this .
Second , this keep say you see it . Most people would thin out those potatoes up with just one sprout in each small-arm of potato , but you do n’t have to .
I do n’t do anything I do n’t require to do unless I have to , and I do n’t have to . So , there we are .
I ’m covering these white potato vine because if I did n’t the sun would just bake them .
And they would give out . I just keep the sun off them , and they will grow right through the hay . You ca n’t do this with a hard hay , or they could n’t get through .
I ’m never put any hay on top of seeds , the hay around the garden is for two things . The primary thing is to fecundate your soil , but the other thing that the hay does is keep your ground moist and all of the over 35 years that I have set this way I have never had to water once .
As our plant all my seed now , I take just a little cotton wool source repast and spatter it right with the seeds just in case it does rain down too much , cotton plant seed meal supplies the nitrogen that plant life have got to have .
My father had a 40 - acre farm , but he was Superintendent of schooltime . He was n’t a farmer really . However , he sold a few thing like strawberries and so on .
I was always top as a picker because I had live powerful there , and I knew where the best ones were .
My mother was a mortal who never told her nine small fry what to do and what not to do . She order I just pay care to my inner voice and since I would n’t think of doing anything with somebody else , tells me how on Earth could I be so unfair as to go around telling anybody else what to do ?
Ye follow thy inner voice , and I ’ll follow mine .
My Father of the Church was not as obtrusive that room as my female parent , but he also did not interfere . My father said to me , once Ruth , it ’s unspoiled to think for yourself , but just once in a foresightful time , could n’t you think like other hoi polloi , and I asked him like who and he alter the discipline .
My mother never , never , never berate , but she had tricks she could protect herself . For illustration , she loved to record , but , in those days , you could n’t go to your bedroom and read in the wintertime because you did n’t heat your bedroom , of course of instruction , and the only place she could say in the wintertime would be in the living room , which was affectionate .
With nine children , do n’t separate me that you could n’t sit there and read for a few hours and not have some of the children come in and break you , you see , but she had her little trick .
She ’d sit down to read , and she ’d have a base in a very insensate water right there by her side , but with a face cloth in it .
But , and if any of us would come in to ask her something , she would just say , oh , come here , I come nigher , costly , I did n’t hear what she say .
Oh honey , your face is dirty . Do you mean we ’d go near her with that catchment basin of piss there ? No indeed .
What I feel I know for certain is do what you want to do and do n’t recite other people how to behave . To make rules for other masses . I just do n’t get it .
For instance , when I helped , Carrie Nation ruin the saloons . That was a big affair they should n’t do , they say .
Well , now when I take a drink as they forgive me Carrie Nation , I ’ve got to have a little drink .
Yes , I help her smash saloons . Carrie Nation was a woman who lived in Kansas . And in Kansas it was against the law to sell John Barleycorn .
And she went around to places and came to Topeka , where we populate . She would get a group of masses together , mostly women , and they would go to a drug store or someplace which was illegally selling liquor . By the way , I was 16 year onetime . It was in 1900 and this crowd of woman assemble at the Statehouse and then walk down the street , and of trend , the police officer knew Carrie Nation was in town , so their kind of followers and Carrie Nation went up to this drug depot , which she had found out was betray liquor illegal .
And she smash one of the large pane in front and I went and smashed the other one . And the officer add up up and arrested Carrie Nation and break my heart they did n’t halt me . I had to go home and go to Sunday school .
There ’s nothing dull about gardening I can tell you that . You get down the racoon coop well , for raccoon . That outside fencing does n’t do any trade good . They just get over that and then eat your corn . They do n’t consume anything else but corn and I got so desperate trying to protect my Zea mays that my crony built that cage for me .
I do n’t live whether I tell apart you how I end up one of my articles about the raccoons . I finished the article by saying now , of course , the raccoon ca n’t get my corn , but they ’re so smart that when they reckon out how to go in there and start the threshold and go and eat my corn , I ’m just run to go back to the sign , get on the couch , drink two daiquiri instead of one , and block it all .
Really , what did you give him a key ?
That ’s right , did n’t I ?
Here you ’ll see a little row of lettuce , and here ’s a dustup of carrot . It is n’t acting quite normal . That was normal , huh ?
Now the Sweet Spanish Onions are doing very nicely and pepper minuscule potato . Well , it just add up up and will let us last out there . Why not ? And what ’s that ? Another potato ? Just let it alone .
What the devil is ? This ? That ’s a smoke out with it .
It ’s fantastic what you’re able to do , growing your own affair , it really is . And my rhubarb is just , well , I say to everybody if you want a rhubarb ascendent , please tell me because I ’ve got to get disembarrass of some of it . It spreads and grows .
Now I do n’t sleep together how many people are concerned in soybeans , but they are full of protein as I guess we sleep together , but almost nobody grows soybeans because if you go and buy soy in a market , they do n’t try very safe , but if you grow .
Your own soy they are perfectly delicious .
I ’ve had 7000 masses from every state and Canada descend and see at the garden . I keep a Christian Bible where they save their names , you see .
I ’ll tell you the right way now , my husband has been dead for 15 years and live alone like this . I do n’t know what on Earth I would do if I did n’t have this garden thing to write about , to help citizenry with , to talk to gardening order . I do n’t have it off how I could sense that I was doing anything that made it necessary for me to stay alive .
I do n’t lecture or Garden Club . I sing mayhap for five minutes and then it ’s open to questions . It ’s not a talk , it ’s a conversation .
I do n’t think I could have gone through a twelvemonth after yr get up . Yap yap yap yap yap .
Yep , you know attempt to say the same one-time thing over and over .
They ask what I file . I say whatever you give your most highly give speaker . That fathom conceited , but it is because I base out that they give the eminent amount to hoi polloi who tell you how to put flowers in a vase . And I ’ve set about something more important to tell you than that .
[ input about flower arranging being an artistry in Japan . ]
It would never never come to me to separate any other grow human being how to put some flowers in the vase .
Oh , it ’s so good .
I ’ll bet you ’re dreadfully good Captain James Cook , are you ?
This is so expert . These are awfully good . This is delicious .
Well , I ’m invited out to lunch .
I never consume a snack of breakfast , so I ’m invite out to dinner . I never eat a sting of tiffin .
I wish to be nice and athirst .
Who would care more wine ?
Not too much , give thanks you , that ’s all right .
Not too much , thank you , that ’s .
But then of course of action .
And now I cerebrate we ’re all going to get a little high on this wine .
I ’m a little high .
Did I tell you that I was 45 years old when I found out that masses actually acquit the way somebody else told them to like Emily post ? When Fred distinguish me that Emily post written a whole book about it or I could n’t wait to read out .
I get under one’s skin hold of that book of account right aside and here I record this book do this do this do this do this . Do n’t do this .
And I could n’t believe it .
Behaving properly for heaven ’s rice beer .
This woman down the road is very deep and ask for me to a formal dinner party , you know . RSVP and where and so and so . What do they call a black tie or something like that ? I pen her back . I liked her , but I say I ’m no-good I ca n’t come to your political party because if I did , I would embarrass you . I would n’t know how to comport . I would n’t have a go at it what to wear . I would do all the wrong things and you would be upset , and I call up that would fetch up me with her .
And the next day , somebody pink on the door and here is one of her handmaid with a keen big lot of beautiful flowers from her . So at least it did n’t make her huffy .
Since I ’ve been there a few times since , but not to a formal party , for heaven ’s sake . I could n’t go to a formal company .
I eff my husband very very much . I really mean it when I say that I ’m certain that he is the only adult male in the world who could have stood staying married to me because I always was out of rules of order .
I mean , the things I did , I would go down there to garden and the second I develop down there I would take off all my clothes and garden naked , I ’ve always loved the air on my soundbox .
I never said a word about it to Fred . It never occurred to me to remark it to him .
And I came back every eve around 5:00 o’clock and put my wearing apparel on before I derive back . And one sidereal day I came back at 6 and Fred was out in the barn doing his stuff — he made all these wooden thing , and so on . And soon after I got in , he come in and he sound out , oh , you worked longer today , did n’t you ?
I tell , but how did you make out I was just curious how he happened to know . He said it was comfortable . As a rule , as the motorcar go along the road after five o’clock , they just go on , but up until 5:00 o’clock they kind of go very slowly and look down for your garden ( gag ) .
So , I knew that you did n’t come up until six drive up until six they still bar .
I just am by nature at optimist . The pleasant idea comes instead of the cheerless one .
I could n’t admire anybody any more than I admired my grandfather . He always roll in the hay exactly the good thing to do and to say with everybody . I do n’t mean correct thing . Of course , I entail at the helpful thing .
My oldest chum had a dog that he was crazy about , and the frankfurter die . My two oldest brothers were out where I could see them from the windowpane , burying the dog , and the weeping were roam down my cheeks because I was sorry for my crony , and my granddad came in the room and he saw what was conk out on .
And he articulate , oh come here , Ruth , I want to show you something . He took me over to the other side of the elbow room and he say , here ’s the rose bush that you plant yourself and look , it has a heyday on it . you may go out and cull a bloom off your own rose bush .
I start up out and he put his arm around me , he say , thee was looking out of the wrong windowpane , dear .
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