Gizzard's straw bale planting is quite different from Ruth Stout's heavy mulching method. She used spoiled (old) hay, not straw, as a mulch all over her garden. She wanted old, spoiled hay because the grass and weed seeds in the hay bale would either have sprouted or rotted and wouldn't end up as weeds in her garden. She didn't till. Just pushed the mulch aside to plant. Each year she would add more hay mulch to the garden as the previous years' hay decomposed into the ground. She used this method to cut down on the work she would have to do. Key to her method was using thick "flakes" of hay--easily 6-8 inches thick.
People have reported mixed results with this method. It probably takes some trial and error to get it to work right. And lots and lots of old hay (she would have 100 bales delivered each spring).
Trivia item: Rex Stout, who wrote many, many detective books in the fifties and sixties (I'm guessing) was Ruth Stout's brother.
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--Ruth
Some say the glass half-full. Others say the glass is half-empty. To an engineer, it’s twice as big as it needs to be.
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