Gardening without tiring

First French translation to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the publication of Ruth Stout's book, the 1960s American gardener who revolutionized organic gardening with mulch. Preface and commentary by Didier Helmstetter (Le Potager du Paresseux).

In the 1960s, a woman named Ruth Stout, based in Connecticut, USA, became famous for her gardening method, which relied on covering the soil with a thick layer of hay. Her book bluntly proclaimed: "No spading; no hoeing; no weeding; no watering; no spraying..." There's no doubt about it: it was revolutionary, and radical to say the least.

Was it his birth into a Quaker family - a religious movement stemming from Protestantism that can be characterized by four words: abolitionism, pacifism, simplicity and sobriety - that gave him this incredible freedom of thought? Who instilled in her a way of gardening that is still totally innovative today? And how did she, a woman, manage to stand up to the scientists and other male experts who champion conventional agriculture?

The translation of this American bestseller at last rectifies what might be considered an enormous injustice. With a great deal of humor, and without bothering with scientific developments, but drawing on years of experience and her exchanges with other gardeners, Ruth Stout gives us what was called during her lifetime the "Stout method" for producing abundantly without tiring.

When Didier Helmstetter, the iconoclastic agronomist who popularized the Potager du Paresseux, accidentally discovered Ruth Stout's existence, he realized that he wasn't the inventor of hay gardening! Initially intrigued, then captivated and enthralled by this incredible, passionate woman, he took the liberty of annotating the text with his own comments to back up Ruth Stout's words with the latest knowledge in agronomy. A delightfully explosive encounter.

Ruth Stout - Tana Editions - 304 pages