#Ruth Stout Method

[practicalsolarpunk]

Hey do you have any tips for making my garden very low maintenance but still productive. I have a large raised bed and a field with very good soil quality but I just don't have the energy to garden all the time. They both get lots of sun.

These tips are mostly focused on reducing the maintenance required in weeding and watering, which are often the two biggest things that gardeners end up doing to maintain gardens. These tips are also fairly general. As always, if you have more specific questions, please feel free to send in another ask with more details!

Mulch is my go-to method to reduce weeding and watering. Putting mulch around your plants helps keep water from evaporating out of the soil and makes it a lot harder for weeds to grow. This doesn't have to be fancy expensive mulch either - lawn clippings or wet newspaper work just fine (and I would argue better than traditional wood chip mulch).

Soaker hoses are a low-effort way to water, especially if your garden is large. Depending on your setup, watering the garden could be as simple as turning on a spigot.

The Ruth Stout method is an entire gardening method that combines mulching and no-dig techniques to grow plants with minimal effort. An overview here.

Grow native plants. They're already adapted to the growing conditions of your area and tend to grow well with little human input. If you're in the US, your local county extension office can help you pick options and possibly source seeds.

Similar to the last point, choose hardy, low-maintenance plants. I'm using vegetable examples here since that's most of what I grow personally: Beans, peppers, greens like lettuce and spinach, summer squashes like zucchini, and many herbs tend to grow perfectly fine if you throw the seeds at dirt and water them occasionally. Potatoes, carrots, onions, and tomatoes either require special soil preparation or tend to need more maintenance and care while growing to deal with pests or disease. Find the overlap between what grows well in your climate and growing season and what doesn't require a lot of maintenance or preparation.

Look into permaculture gardening principles. A running permaculture garden should be fairly low-maintenance, but it can take a lot of energy and effort to get it going, which may not be the best fit for what you need. However, there are a lot of overlapping concepts in permaculture. You may find things you can implement in your garden to reduce how much energy you have to put into it without going full permaculture. One intro here, another here; I'm also a huge fan of Heather Jo Flores and Food Not Lawns as resources.

I hope this helps! Followers, please chime in with any tips you may have.

- Mod J

[petula-xx]

This is the result of a garden experiment I did this year growing potatoes in a Ruth Stout style, no dig garden bed using mainly hay for growing medium.

METHOD:

- Early Autumn (March) I piled hay over poor native soil in a shallow wooden frame and watered in.

- Early Winter (June) Some used potting soil and chook manure pellets were added and then another layer of hay.

- July 31: planted seed potatoes 2kg/ 4.4lb.

- August: more hay piled around growing plants.

- November 1: harvested 5.373kg / 11.8lb of spuds. 12 week turnaround.

OBSERVATIONS/ANALYSIS:

- True Ruth Stout method uses only hay and relies on decomposition to create soil media. I did cheat a bit by adding old soil and some manure pellets. Truth be known, I needed somewhere to dump the old soil and this bed was a convenient place.

- Once established, this was a very low maintenance set up and the plants were very healthy and vigorous. Low cost set up.

- Worms! The bed is already bursting with worms after only 8 months!

- My harvest output versus input was not high, 1:2.5 ratio. However, the quality of the spuds is good. Nice size and very few small tiny taters. Easy harvesting.

MOVING FORWARD

- Compost was added to the bed today after the harvest and a thick layer of hay. Then watered in with seaweed mixture.

- Will follow with another crop within the month and am keen to observe and compare future harvests of other crops in this bed.

[martyschoenleber]

I am working on some garden projects. A hugelkultur mound (German for, “hill garden” or “hill culture”) that I am preparing for planting in the spring. See the pictures on the left and below for stages 1-5.

Hugelkultur requires the digging of a trench and filling it with rotting logs, sticks and other organic matter that will decay over time and provide nutrients to the plants above. My trench was 16 feet long, 3 feet wide and eight to 18 inches deep. Then I covered it up with the dirt I removed, and covered that with some mulch (mostly leaves, grass clippings, and straw) that I had been cultivating for a couple of weeks. Stage four was covering it again with a layer of hay. As fall drops its leaves, I will mulch the leaves and cover the straw again and let the whole mix continue to decompose over the winter.

Stage #2:Digging the Pit 16′ x 3′ x 10″

Stage #3: Filling it with Organic Matter

  Stage #4: Hugelkultur mound recovered with dirt

Above, in the background of the Hugelkultur mound you can see some composting material made of grass-clippings, potting soil, and decaying straw. Over the next two weeks, I continued to water and turn, and mix those two piles and then used it to top dress the whole mound. You can see that the dirt is very poor and will need the nutrients of the decaying logs underneath as well as the compost and hay that I am putting on top of the mound in order to have any real harvest in the years to come.

Stage #5: Covered with Mulch

Stage 6: Covered with Hay

Next to the hugelkultur mound on the left is about 18 inches of straw-bedding for a footpath and next to that to the right is the start of the “Ruth Stout Method” (RSM) planting bed (see picture #6). Sometimes called the no-weeding method, the RSM is an “imitate nature”, no till, no weeding, and planting directly into straw or hay-covered ground. Here I have covered the ground first with cardboard to kill the grass underneath, put mulch on top and then covered it with a layer of hay. Next will come compost, leaf and grass clippings, more hay, more class clippings, more hay, etc., until I have a good mass of organic material (and another mound) in which to plant.

Doing all this work has made me lust after a backyard potting table to store tools, pots, garden implements of all kinds, and something that will make it easier to work without bending down so much, maybe a cover for that South Carolina sun overhead. For that project I anticipated using some repurposed pallets and pallet wood. After I had located a free source for the pallets, I talked to a friend with a truck who agreed to help me pick them up. Next I put a post on our local home-owners association Facebook page asking if there was anyone who had a reciprocating saw that I could borrow for about an hour to cut the pallets apart. I offered to replace the saw blade when I was finished and within an hour I had a friendly neighbor who I had not yet met, volunteer the device.

There was five large pallets like the one that remains here. Now the other three have been cut up and had all nails removed, yielding the lumber in the stack on the right.  It was a project I could not have done with out my helpful neighbor’s recipricating saw. Now I am looking for the right design and a cooler day to start the next project.

All that to get to this.

I met a new neighbor because I didn’t spend money I didn’t have. 

I learned a dozen things about my neighbor because I tried to ask a new person for some help.

We had a brief but enjoyable conversation and I now have a whole new set of things to pray for, related to my neighbor and my community.

Without going into detail, I got to start a conversation with my neighbor that raised the spiritual awareness of my community. 

My neighbor now knows that I am a Christian and has new spectacles with which to view not only me but every Christians with whom he comes in contact.

What could you borrow today that would give you an opportunity to get to know a neighbor?

        Borrowing Stuff as a Ministry I am working on some garden projects. A hugelkultur mound (German for, "hill garden" or "hill culture") that I am preparing for planting in the spring.

[thoughtportal]

Five years ago Catholic priest Johannes Schwarz left his parish to "withdraw for a few years" in the Italian Alps (in the shadow of his beloved Monte Viso). He bought an old "rustico" - stone farm building - for 20,000 euros and transformed it into his mountaintop hermitage.

Inspired by the early Christian desert hermits from the "200s and 300s when some people went into the deserts of Egypt and Palestine searching for a more rigorous life", Schwarz found something remote: he has only one full-time neighbor on the entire mountainside and in winter, he often has to snowshoe for a couple hours just to buy food and supplies.

To be as self-sufficient as possible, he makes his own bread and stores plenty of potatoes which he grows using Ruth Stout's "No-Work" gardening method. To grow much of his own fruit and produce, he terraced the steep hillside (using stones from the area) to create micro-climates. "You try to build walls that have southern exposure because they heat up during the day and they give off the warmth and can make a difference of several degrees." (Studies show differences of 27°F/15°C in the ultra-deep Incan terraces). He grows plenty of tomatoes inside his self-built recycled greenhouse.

For heating and cooking, he built a combination rocket stove and masonry heater by creating his own casts and loam coating. His refrigerator, which he transported up the hill on top of his bicycle, is kept in the unheated room, along with his food stores. He uses a tiny 30-year-old 3-kilogram washing machine and built his bathroom out of salvaged materials. To transport the lumber up the hill for his remodel, he got some help from a local farmer.

He divided the old barn into four small rooms on two floors; the living room/kitchen and pantry on the ground floor and a chapel and bedroom upstairs. His bedroom also serves as an editing studio where he creates videos on philosophy and religion.

He created a wooden-arched indoor chapel where he “celebrates the traditional Latin mass” alongside a wall he painted with Byzantine, romanesque and gothic styles in appreciation of "the symbolism of the ancient art."

[seat-safety-switch]

I was getting pretty tired of the oil industry. It might seem hypocritical that I love cars and yet also hate the way they are fuelled and lubricated, but also it was starting to get to me watching lifted brotrucks blaze past me with foot-high racist invective stickered on the windows. So when my new neighbour Ilyich came to town, I was at first suspicious. Maybe he was going to work on the rigs, I figured, but as soon as I saw the lifted Lada Niva rapidly corroding in his back yard, I knew that I had found myself a kindred spirit.

Over drinks, he eventually opened up to me about his great secret. In his home country, Ilyich had developed a special, rare kind of potato-based fuel. With it, we no longer had to pull fermented dinosaur corpse out of the ground, and instead we could just fill that bitch up with the Ruth Stout method. We immediately cleared a section of permafrost from my backyard, even removing the calcified layer of old exhaust components, in order to immediately begin a potato garden.

That’s basically how all this started. We spent a few months trying to juice the octane level on the potatoes, but that nut was eventually cracked with help from the all-natural, renewable nitromethane Ilyich figured out how to formulate from the nearby dairy farm’s surplus of cow farts. I decided that the best way to advertise our new revolutionary fuel to the masses was to do a few tater-powered pulls at the local dragstrip with my rusty-but-rusty Taurus drag-wagon. It’s a good thing the local Best Buy has such a tolerant return policy for “this blender burned out trying to liquefy thirty pounds of russets.”

Everything went great until Ilyich’s frenemies from back home arrived at the drag strip, their Volgas and Trabants shooting exhaust flames that smelled suspiciously like a bag of Lay’s. It seemed he was not in fact the original creator of this idea, and to make matters worse, russets didn’t have the energy density we’d need to fend off this new batch of Soviets. They had a head start on us in tuning their cars for the starchy combustible, and I was basically intruding on their home turf without an arms treaty.

To his credit, however, Ilyich was willing to help distract the dragstrip’s concession-stand operator while I lifted a bag of super-greasy french fries from the freezer out back.

[inthemindofdac]

Here this couple talk about the ease of maintenance over their various permaculture garden. There really is something to working with nature rather than against it.

Their garden is really interesting as they're using a few different permaculture methods, and how well they do. The hugelkultur is conceptually my favorite for it's water retention, but it's a bit of set up work, also natural resource intensive if you live in an urban environment. If I had logs lying around, I would put in the effort for this method, but I don't.

The Ruth Stout method is my next favorite due to its purely simplistic method of just having a thick mulch. Set it up ahead of time, to allow for the bottom of the mulch to start to break down, and plant in the fresh compost generated by this method.

If starting a garden over a lawn, why not just flip the sod? Continue as Ruth Stout after. Easy raised bed.

That channel has plenty of interesting videos more specific to each permaculture method they employ, it's been quite enjoyable.

I have a pine tree in the back yard and haven't done much with cleaning up the needles in a while, definitely using that for mulch to reclaim my yard from the weeds and maybe starting some heat tolerant vegetables (IDGAF about maintaining a lawn).

[solar34532-blog]

No weed no work potato garden Ruth Stout method

has anyone tried this ruth stout garden method? I have tried it before but not sure if I did it right.

[thatdykepunkslut]

Someone's gotta figure out how to Ruth Stout Method these fuckin porn bots, clearing out the onslaught each morning is starting to feel vaguely puritanical.

opening my followers every day and blocking the pornbots like a humble farmer pulling weeds from the vegetable garden. wiping my brow of sweat at my labours in the sweltering sun

[practicalsolarpunk]

How do u know when manure/kitchen scraps is safe to go from the compost pile/bin 2 spread in the garden 'w'

For kitchen scraps and other non-animal products, they’re safe anytime - there’s even a method of composting (Ruth Stout composting) where you take the things you’re composting and drop them directly in your garden under a layer of mulch. If you want them to be fully broken down before you put them in your garden, it usually takes about a year, but you can eyeball it - when the pile stops looking like a bunch of kitchen scraps and starts looking like a pile of dirt, it’s ready.

For manure and other animal products, it depends on what type of compsting you’re doing. If you’re doing hot composting, where you balance nitrogen, carbon, moisture, and oxygen ratios so the chemical reactions “cook” the compost, takes six months to a year. There’s some good step-by-step instructions here. (Note: If you’re using manure from carnivores or omnivores - dogs, cats, etc. - hot composting is the only option to make it safe for growing anything edible.) If you’re cold compoasting - just throwing everything in a pile and letting it rot - let it sit for a least a year, and two years is better.

Hope that helps!

- Mod J

[petula-xx]

Garden goodies!

Rain spoiled hay bales: $4 each. The wood and wire items I got for free off people’s hard rubbish collection piles.

Plenty of raised beds and netting hoops to be made here.

I’m actually going to use some of this to start a couple of small Ruth Stout garden beds. Any method that promises to be cheap, organic, eco friendly, efficient and easy has got to be worth giving a try.

[turtlesandfrogs]

@mysteriouslyjellyfish yes in fact I do! I'm making a post because of how much typing I was doing.

Books:

If you read Masanobu Fukuoka's 'One Straw Revolution' and Ruth Stout's 'No-work Garden Book' you'll get the practicalities before we had science to back it up, and then you can read 'The Complete Guide to Restoring Your Soil' by Dale Strictler & 'Teaming with Fungi' by Jeff Lowenfels to get a lot of the updated and science backed info. I also got a lot out of 'Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond. Also 'Finding the Mother Tree' by Suzanne Simard, though it's got a lot of personal story in there with the facts. But it's so cool about the way trees use mycorrhizal networks!

Free, online resources from reputable sources include:

- info about insectary plants, which provide habitat for beneficial insects: http://oregonipm.ippc.orst.edu/insectaryplant_manual_draft2_hi_qual%5B1%5D.pdf and https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/sites/catalog/files/project/pdf/pnw550.pdf

- info about mycorrhizae and how to support them: https://pubs.extension.wsu.edu/a-gardeners-primer-to-mycorrhizae-understanding-how-they-work-and-learning-how-to-protect-them-home-garden-series

- info about arborist wood chips and how to use them in the garden:

https://pubs.extension.wsu.edu/using-arborist-wood-chips-as-a-landscape-mulch-home-garden-series

- More info about soil microbes and how they interact with plants, very cool, do read: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1360138517301991

- a primer on cover crops: https://pubs.extension.wsu.edu/methods-for-successful-cover-crop-management-in-your-home-garden-home-garden-series

- a table with the mycorrhizal partners or lack thereof of all the plant families: https://mycorrhizae.com/mycorrhizal-status-of-plant-families-and-genera/

I would also suggest you try to figure out what pre-colonization/pre-European contact plant practices existed in your area and see how they're ablicable to your setting. This is a broad topic, with lots of specifics, which is why I'm not listing them all.

One of the things I think about a lot is productivity comparisons between conventional and unconventional agriculture. Mostly because that's the first question you get asked when you talk about anything that's outside the norm*, but, on what metric are we measuring? Per acre? Per hour worked? Per cost of input? Are we measuring yields of product or dollars earned?

This question also, to me, rings of fear. Fear of food shortages, which are really a problem of greed & distribution, not the world's capacity to grow food. If we were really worried about calories though, I think we'd at least switch to pastured animals instead of sending so much corn and soy to livestock (for any non-farmers out there, you do not get nearly the calories out of a chicken or pig that you put in- you get much less**). Or we would put more effort into making cities great places to live so we stopped turning farmland into suburbia. Or we would be much more concerned with how to prevent erosion & loss of arable land. But we don't, and we're not.

I also think of the complexity of non- conventional farming, and how instead of it being a return to the past, it actually relies on new information and methods***.

Take the plot of land that I'm working to make into a market garden. It's soil is, from a farmer's perspective, crap. It's gravely, sandy, very little organic matter. If I were to farm it conventionally, I'd basically have till to open the soil and kill weeds, and then provide all of the plant nutrients through fertilizers, which would cause the plants to kick out their symbiotic fungi, leaving them vulnerable to pathogenic fungi, and more dependant on me for water. There would also be bare soil everywhere, increasing evaporation & providing plenty of opportunities for new weeds. My costs would be very high, paying for fertilizers, pesticides, & herbicides, and I would have to water, a lot. It probably wouldn't be at all economically feasible to grow food on this plot using conventional methods.

Now, I look at it and say, I'm going to do no-till. I look at the hard, weedy, depleted soil and there's no way a seed is going to be able to come up through that. But, I'm not just doing no-till, because I'm not looking at it from a conventional mindset and just trading out one practice. I'm doing basically everything different from above.

Instead of tilling, I'm laying down a thick layer of mulch, to shade out the weeds, increase soil organic matter (increasing the amount of water and nutrients the soil can absorb & good on to), and feed the soil ecosystem. By the time spring rolls around, the soil underneath will be much better, but I'll still add more compost in most cases.

Instead of fertilizers I've had to pay for, I'm using mulches that I got for free from my gardening work & composts made for free from restaurant kitchen wastes****. I'm going to use over crops, plants that fix nitrogen and also serve as perennial hosts to beneficial soil fungi, which will also form symbiosis with most of my crops, increasing their resistance to pathogenic fungi while also providing them with increased access to water and soil minerals.

Instead of bare soil, there will be mulches and cover crops every where. Instead of monocrops & pesticides, I'll be intercropping which will help by hosting beneficial native insects that will chow down on aphids and other crop pests.

From this framework, there's an upfront investment of effort and planning, but farming this land now seems feasible.

And the thing is, each of those choices is backed up by research. We know so much more now about soil and nutrient cycling and how it actually works than when conventional ag really got started. We know so much more, and so many practices are new, so growing non-conventionally isn't a step back into the past of how things were grown.

But at the same time, it's not exactly completely information either- other cultures have different ways of growing food crops, and if you broaden your concept of what cultivating plants looks like, there's examples everywhere. We're just studying it now and providing it scientifically.

*and I honestly think that it's a result of the extractive mindframe that comes from being the decendants of colonizers. Just look at the different perspectives between many western foragers ideas and Indigenous peoples' relationship with the land.

** chickens are one of the most efficient, with a feed conversion ratio of 1.6, which means for every 1.6 pounds of food you give them, you can expect the chicken to gain 1 pound (cows are over 4 pounds of feed to pound of live weight, and pigs are 3 to 4ish). That's the whole bird though, counting all the parts we don't eat- guts, feathers, bones, etc. Even so, a pound of chicken food has over 1300 calories, and is about 20% protein for starter/grower, where as a pound of chicken has about 500 calories and about 30% protein (for dark meat, you get fewer calories from white meat). I'm not saying everyone should give up meat, but I am saying that the amount of meat in mainstream diets has increased dramatically, much of it comes from cafos where animals are fed on grains & legumes, and if we're measuring productivity and yield per acre because we're worried about feeding the world, this is a huge factor. Look up how much of the corn & soy crop goes to actually directly feeding people.

*** from a western, colonizing prospective

**** is this a particular boon from my particular circumstances? Yes. But everyone has their own challenges and resources, there is no cookie-cutter solution to all agriculture, everywhere. You have to find the solutions that work for you.

[nynehells]

I snooped on ur tags on the homesteading post, and hell yeah I never expected to find a fellow permaculture fan in the FR community 🤘

AYYYY I got into it super recently when I first started getting into plants, knowing that we have to destroy “annual” garden plants made me think like.. there has to be something better, less wasteful and more sustainable that that right???

Right now I’m working with a lot of very basic perennials still but im trying to plan out a permacultured Ruth Stouts method food garden for if i ever get out of here.

[bambuita]

I got my HAY delivered today!!! 20 bales of HAY for my vegetable garden... this is what I use as mulch... it works wonders and keeps my soil in good shape, dont have to till... been using it for the last 3 years . Ruth Stout method works! 6/5/18

[joey-gatorman]

“Take It Easy Before Dinner”

Fini-Mun’s posted some terrific, informative retro food posts on his tumblr lately, so in honor of this I would like to post excerpts from a 1945 cookbook by Ruth Langland Holberg entitled Take It Easy Before Dinner. No pictures, but the written goodies within tell tales of mid-1940s America. As an example I would like to start off by posting her introduction in full, written mostly with the housewife in mind:

INTRODUCTION

HUSBAND

I believe that the hour before dinner should be gracious and peaceful with no creaking of domestic machinery, or frequent and frantic trips to the kitchen. This is the time when menfolks are home from work and the time when the best meal of the day should be planned for their pleasure. Men enjoy a cocktail or a quiet chat with an unhurried companion. They like to listen to the radio and make informative remarks on the news to the lady of their choice. If you don’t agree with his views, save your comments for after dinner. A man’s disposition after a good meal is enormously improved.

GUESTS

If you are having a party and the guests are present, you can be as calm and relaxed as though a battery of efficient maids were in charge of the kitchen. The well-known panic of wondering whether the dinner will be successful and whether the guests will enjoy the evening will be eased off if you are not scrambling around the kitchen with one eye on the clock and the other on the food you are preparing. To be cook, hostess and waitress and to preserve tranquility is not impossible if you know that nothing in the kitchen needs your attention this last hour. You can receive your guests and stay with them until cocktails are over.

EVERYDAY

For everyday living these recipes will suit the clubwoman or give a free afternoon for a matinee, shopping or charity work. They will suit the career woman or the woman who has a maid mornings only. A part-time maid can prepare things ahead of time if you have her use this book. If you are an author, painter, musician or teacher, this is the book for you. It sounds like a sales talk, you say. Well, it is. You will find these recipes really work.

BABIES

If you have babies, it is possible for this hour to be given to putting the infants to bed. Small children in the family can be given this time for reading and repeating their prayers, with your undivided attention.

WORKING GIRL

Are you a working girl or a busy executive wondering how you can find time to entertain guests at dinner? These recipes are designed for you. Many of these dishes can be made the night before, kept in the refrigerator and baker or reheated with no bothersome watching. Long, slow cooking develops and blends flavors. All dishes that need high heat and fast cooking are left out of this book. There will be no smoke from the broiler and no smell of chops permeating the small apartment the night you are having guests. This is the complaint of one of my friends. That’s why she says she is all agog waiting for this book.

METHOD

The secret of leisure simply is careful planning. My method of giving a dinner party is this. Several days beforehand I write down a menu suitable to the time of the year, my finances (usually low) and what the markets have to offer. I look over my collection of recipes and, after selecting a main dish, I check over my supplies at hand and make a list of what to buy. If I am increasing the recipe to serve eight or more instead of four, I multiply carefully because I am an idiot at figures.

It has been a hobby of mine to collect recipes from the magazines, newspapers and my friends. They are filed in stout envelopes that once brought me a monthly poetry magazine. The women’s magazines print delectable streamlined recipes that you should clip for your files. The food ads are worth reading and all their free booklets are an addition to the cook’s library. Experts on the radio give you all sorts of good ideas.

HERE’S HOW

I make out a menu that can be prepared a day before or during the morning of the day. I have never been able to give an entire day to party preparations. I have too many other irons in the fire. I set the table during the afternoon for a sit-down or a buffet meal. Dishes to be used in serving are laid out on the kitchen table. The dessert dishes and silver are ready, the tray of coffee cups, the tray of cocktail glasses and a bowl for cocktail crackers are arranged. Coffee is measured into the drip pot. Water for it will be set boiling when the dessert is being taken in from the kitchen. Everything that should be chilled—tomato juice, fruit juice, butter, the salad etc.—is in the refrigerator.

GREENS

When greens arrive from the store they should be washed, drained and patted partly dry with a dish towel. A head of lettuce soaked in ice water, the core removed, then kept in a covered dish, will stay fresh and crisp for an amazingly long time. The same goes for celery. Other greens are stored in a covered pan in the refrigerator. Keep parsley and watercress in covered jars after they have been washed. The salad for dinner can be mixed and kept in a covered bowl. But for goodness’ sake, don’t add the dressing until time to serve it, or the greens will wilt.

FRENCH DRESSING

Make a large jar of French dressing and keep it in the refrigerator. A clove of garlic should repose in its depths. Shake well before using. A refrigerator can do a lot of work for you. Be sure to let it.

ODDS AND ENDS

Vegetables can be prepared during odd moments. The main dish has been made ready and is either waiting to be baked, reheated or assembled. Rolls are in a paper bag to be heated a few minutes in the oven. Look around and check up on everything.

Now, this is important for your peace of mind and an uncluttered kitchen. There should not be an unwashed dish or pan in the kitchen. Clean up as you go along. Now you can put on your party dress and relax.

INCREASING RECIPES

This is a very personal and informal cook book. The recipes have been tried many times. They are designed for four or six people as a rule, but they can be increased to serve twelve or sixteen people with very little more work than is needed to prepare for four.

GUEST HELP

When you are having guests for dinner, delegate one of the men to help you. Let your husband remain at the table chatting with the guests. It causes less flurry and your helper is flattered. He can carry the plates and silver to the kitchen where you scrape, rinse and stack neatly.

DESSERT AND COFFEE

Get the dessert ready for him to carry in to the table. Pour boiling water in the drip coffee pot and join your guests, bringing in the coffee tray at the same time. Perhaps you missed some good jokes and witty remarks, but your guests are having a good time. It looks as in the party were a success.

Finally, you say when the last drop of coffee has been sipped, “Let’s find more comfortable chairs.” Men get restless if kept too long in the same chair. Or else, serve coffee in another room from a low table. Someone takes the last dishes to the kitchen. You scrape, rinse and stack them and put away leftovers. I hope you have a little mirror in the kitchen with a lipstick and some face powder. Make a few repairs if your face needs it. Turn out the light and proceed to enjoy the rest of the evening as much as you did the first.

DISH WASHING

Those stacked dishes can be washed in a jiffy when the party is over. It is fun to talk over the evening with your husband and to hear the stories you missed while you were out of the room. Your husband will hardly know he is drying the dishes, especially after a jolly evening.

KEEP ON HAND

ADD IMAGINATION TO THESE

Biscuit mixes, muffin mixes, cake and pie mixes.

Pudding and gelatines in packages.

Cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, cloves, allspice, ginger, mustard.

Vanilla, lemon, orange, mint and almond extracts.

Celery salt, celery seeds, onion and garlic salts, curry powder, chili powder, parsley flakes.

Dehydrated sauces, such as mushroom, spaghetti, white and brown.

A SUGGESTION

Examine the grocer’s shelves for new products and try all short cuts.

Do a lot of canning and preserving or else buy relishes, jams, jellies, chutney and chili sauce.

There are many sets of herbs with directions for use. The most valuable to me are tarragon, basil, thyme, dill, parsley and chives. There are some mixtures suitable for meat dishes or cheese dishes and there are soup bags for different kinds of soups.

Doughnuts, cakes, cookies and pies bought from a fine bakery will save baking. Ice cream and sherbet are perfect desserts. I have included a few of my favorite desserts.

Buy good coffee and serve it hot or iced with every dinner.

Every now and then have an old-fashioned baking day and turn out a batch of cookies or a fat layer cake with a delicate filling and frosted to perfection. Make a pie and keep some pastry in the refrigerator for another day.

How about a special coffee cake or fancy bread or tiny rolls? And by all means, bake bread. The delectable aroma of bread baking is wonderful in a house and homemade bread is wonderful to eat, too.

[the-saqib-ali-blog]

One of there bigger farming problem they are facing is, it’s soil being to dry. clay stay in large lumps and vegetable like potato and carrots tend to grow unevenly year by year. Fertiliser is expensive to cover large fields.

i proposed this farming method made Ruth Stout. Layers of straw can be spread on fields and left to decompose and fresh layer is added on top.

This allows for growth of land, produce and softness of ground.  due to softness and richness of decomposed straw, plants prosper and spread roots.

Locals want to keep using straw hey as animal feed instead because that the only thing animals have and grass.