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

This is a captivating little book about a woman's deep love and respect for the soil and its produce. A labor-saving book, it explains how much of the backache of gardening can be eliminated by an intelligent policy of mulching and the use of natural rather than artificial methods of cultivation. The author's devotion and care to growing things is entertaining to read, while her chief delight is in proving the experts wrong and testing short cuts - mulching portulaca, growing gardenias in shade, renewing strawberry beds without buying new plants, and, especially, mulching with soiled hay from the neighbors. The book delights while it instructs, offering useful information on all phases of vegetable and flower growing. Ruth Stout is the sister of Rex Stout, creator of the green thumb detective, Nero Wolfe.