Can you really have a productive garden without plowing, hoeing, weeding, cultivating, and all the other bothersome rituals that most gardeners suffer through every growing season? "Sure," says Ruth Stout, a prolific author and writer at 80 years young. The reason that Ruth can throw away her spade and hoe and do her gardening from a couch is a year-round mulch covering, 6 to 8 inches thick, that covers her garden like a blanket. Thousands of curious gardeners have visited her Redding, Connecticut garden, including university scientists and horticulture experts. The experts have been dazzled by the technique used by the queen of mulch! But the results of 41 years of gardening experience can't be denied. The Ruth Stout No-Work Gardening Book gives Ruth's unique advice on growing techniques and tells how she has escaped the bugaboos that haunt most gardeners. Her poison-free method of combating slugs and other insects, her scheme for growing tasty vegetables all year, her method of foiling both drought and frost -- these and many other growing secrets are revealed -- secrets that have brought this perky organic gardener season after season of growing pleasure. If you're tired of being a slave to your garden, yet still want to enjoy it without the bother of sprays, weeding, hoeing or other toilsome garden chores, The Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Books has the information you need. It's completely tested gardening method, perfected during more than 40 years experience and reported in the pages of Organic Gardening magazine, eliminates gardening strain and toil, and does it organically with no dangerous chemical fertilizers or toxic sprays. Take it easy. Put nature to work in your garden.

While everyone loves eating fresh garden produce, not everyone has the time and energy to create a productive garden. But what if growing delicious crops required hardly any effort? What if you could have succulent strawberries, perfect peas, and terrific tomatoes without needing to touch a spade, hoe, or plow—without needing to worry about irrigating, spraying, sowing a cover crop, weeding, cultivating, or building a compost pile? If that sounds good, the Stout System is the answer for you Ruth Stout has shown tens of thousands of gardeners how to greatly reduce their gardening workload. Let Ruth (and within a few chapters, she will feel like a friend ) show you how you can rejuvenate the soil and make your fruits, vegetables, and flowers thrive with low-maintenance mulch gardening. Widely renowned as a gardening expert (and sister of the famed mystery writer Rex Stout), 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 maximize "your" garden's output with minimal effort. In addition to the time-saving tips provided, Stout's joyous perspective on life and gardening makes this book a delight and is a must-read for anyone growing food or flowers."

Ruth Stout's classic How to Have a Green Thumb is a welcoming and trusted advisor for any gardener seeking a natural, bountiful harvest.

Explains how to use a system of layered mulch materials, including newspaper, leaves, and grass clippings, to provide a nutrient-rich base for healthy gardens and robust flowers, herbs, vegetables, and fruits

Cultivate Your Life Like a Garden Simple-living advocate Ruth Stout, author of Gardening Without Work and How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back, believed that life just doesn't have to be so hard! In If You Would Be Happy, she once again helps you find the sense amid all the nonsense that life offers, and find simplicity amid the rough and tumble of life. She says: "It is happiness, not perfection, we're concerned with here, and they're not necessarily even related." "Our activities are successful insofar as they are giving us real satisfaction." "Any experience, trivial or important, is likely to give us more pleasure if we are interested, unhurried, and are looking for the best the situation has to offer. It also helps if we expect something good, for in that case we don't overlook it if it's there in front of us." "We must forever keep in mind that it is our inside feelings we are aiming to change; we are really going to become a serene and pleasant person, not merely give the appearance of one."

Shares methods of growing vegetables, flowers, and fruits vertically with tips on choosing a site, composting, and controlling weeds, pests, and disease.

Provides information about how to use straw bales as planting containers for vegetable gardening.

This extensively revised and expanded edition broadens the reach and depth of the permaculture approach for urban and suburban gardeners. The text's message is that working with nature, not against it, results in more beautiful, abundant, and forgiving gardens.

A lush, productive vegetable, herb, and flower garden doesn’t have to require endless hours of time and unlimited energy. No-dig gardening methods let you keep the rototiller in the shed and focus on what you like best—planting and harvesting! With the step-by-step instructions in The Complete Guide to No-Dig Gardening, you’ll discover how to build healthy, easy-to-plant garden soil by adding layers of organic matter using one of several different no-dig techniques. Whether you garden in a small, urban backyard or on several acres in the country, this simple approach lets you grow more food and blooms than ever before, and leave the gas-guzzling tiller behind forever. Plus, when you don't disturb the soil, weed seeds stay buried deep where they can't germinate and carbon is kept sequestered in the ground. No-dig gardening techniques also lead to reduced watering needs and a healthy population of beneficial soil microbes that help feed your plants by breaking down organic matter and releasing nutrients. In addition to extolling the endless benefits of no-dig growing, author and veggie-growing expert Charlie Nardozzi hands you the tools you need to: Create a new no-dig garden from scratch Transition an existing garden to the no-dig method Build the most productive, nutrient-rich soil possible Recycle yard waste by building a Hugelkultur planting mound Discover more about some great variations of no-dig gardening, including raised beds and containers Bring your no-dig garden indoors for a continuous harvest Welcome oodles of fresh, homegrown veggies, herbs, and flowers into your life—with no back-breaking work required!