How to Have a Green Thumb without an Aching Back: A New Method of Mulch Gardening

Without a tractor and with an impatience to get her seeds planted for the season, Ruth Stout stumbled upon an unorthodox way to sow her garden: rather than plowing the earth, she would simply make her seedling rows in between mounds of compost she had lain over the previous fall and winter.

In her endearing and folksy voice, Stout tells the tale of her move in 1930 from New York City to a 55-acre farm in the rural Connecticut hamlet of Pov...