Composting is for sissies

I have been reading a book written in 1955; but its message is very timely. It is called "How to have a Green Thumb without an Aching back" by Ruth Stout. It's really hard to find...in fact I bought mine at a yard sale about 15 or 16 years ago for a dime.

In the book, Ruth talks about buying a 55 acre farm with her husband in the early 1930s. She tackles a huge space for a garden and basically wears herself to a frazzle every day trying to keep up.

I have read this book many times and still seem to glean new knowledge from it.

I have clung to my compost pile for years...and it's never really finished, nor have I gotten anything from it...I just keep piling garden and veggie scraps in.

We have some resident Raccoons and they knocked my compost bin flat last night. This is not the first time, nor will it be the last...and strangely enough I just finished Ruth Stout's book again...

So today, instead of dumping the contents of my bowl on top that disaster of a pile, I lifted the straw mulch that covers my garden and poured the contents underneath. Then I tucked the mulch back into place and voila it was perfect.

I am no longer going to make a compost pile. I am going to 'layer compost' on the spot in my garden from now on.

If you lack straw, you can use shredded leaves, or mulch, or even some topsoil. Just scratch the soil enough to have a place to put your compost items and cover with something. Worse comes to worse...tuck under the edges of the Zucchini.

Apparently RS mulched this way for 12 years before she wrote that book...and she seemed pretty happy with it.

Oh and did I mention - she stopped tilling, weeding, fertilizing, and using any pesticides when she started mulching.

The only fertilizer I use is organic (horse poo etc), and no chemicals EVER enter my garden - and we practiced the no till method this year. Our mulch needs to be thicker because I have had a few weeds, but not many!!

So, yeah, composting is for sissies. Do it layer style :)