It's Time: Planting the Garden with Help from Ruth Stout

It's here! My hyacinths started coming up before the 3 feet snow plop in March (after the one in February), that snowed us all in for...um, all winter. Layers of snow ice sat on top of the eager bulbs for weeks, but it didn't matter. The snow has finally melted and the tulips are pushing through.

In the stores, like at Lowe's and Home Depot and our neighborhood greenhouse Sunny Garden Greenhouse on Rt 9D, the vegi seeds are stocked! This is the year where I pay attention to my mulch, and finish the book one of my neighbors lent to me, Ruth Stout's The No Work Garden. Before reading the book, I'd noticed that the soil under the rotted leaves in the very back of my yard was luxurious. It was so rich. So last Fall, I spread all of our leaves on our garden plot before the snow came.

Last year's garden became too much to weed. But Ruth Stout's method really did put an end to my weeding last year when I finally got a bushel of hay and lay it down. Not only that, but when my friend nestled his compost and hay around my forever-wilting basil, I never watered it again. And it grew 3x in size.

So, I'm excited. Are you? What are you doing different this year?