No-till/No-dig Gardening
 

No-till/No-dig Gardening (or Less-till/less-dig for the gnat strainers). Anyone tried it? What were the pros/cons?

I like the idea of the concept, yet I have no experience with this, nor have I seen a working example. The closest I have is one raised bed that I allow leaves to cover in the fall and move back the mulch in the spring.

I am asking on a larger scale though - for an entire or nearly entire garden area.

I am visual - pictures/videos are appreciated.

Below is a testimonial I've saved from a person who does not till their vegetable garden. His name was Joe, and this was posted in one of the garden forums years ago.

I am a small-scale home vegetable gardener that adopted no-till practices three years ago.

I started planting fall cover crops (rye, hairy vetch, and crimson clover), which I cut and leave on the soil’s surface. Before planting, I cover the cut grains and legumes with mostly finished compost, and then I cover that with straw. I plant tomatoes into this. I let the worms and microbes work the material on the surface into the root zone.

Results have been superior. Without scientific testing, my personal observations are that I have fewer insect problems and disease, the tomatoes taste better, the yields are great and the plants are hardier and stronger. The soil is fluffy and black, there are more worms, and it takes less time and work to prepare the garden each year.

I have sandy soil with low pH all over my lot, but my garden is loam with neutral pH.

I don’t have a religious conviction about this, and do believe tilling has its place. I think preparing a new bed requires tilling to get started. Other zones or types of soil might require different practices.

I think a key part of the no-till process is cover cropping. I don’t have to till because the roots of the cover crop are getting organic matter deep into the root zone without any use of steel tools. There is as much going on below the surface as is happening in the area we humans can see, and when these roots decay, they get organic matter into the root zone naturally, without tilling. What I put on the surface each spring (except for the top layer of straw) is gone in the fall, having been naturally incorporated into the soil by the soil’s inhabitants. (Laura says – Joe must live where it stays above freezing in the winters. I think winter’s freezes would slow down this decomposition in my zone.)

One other point is that tilling adds greats amount of oxygen to the soil, which encourages a short-term explosion of the microbe population. These extra microbes have to eat, and the net effect is that the organic matter is consumed more quickly, and the long term effect is a reduction of organic matter, with the need to add more and more to sustain the desired level.

Attachment 45706 these is my no till garden /asparagus patch.I just put a thick layer of mulch down than usually plant the next year.Things I have had success with are beans,squash,asparagus,horseradish,and sunflower.Bean plants usually take awhile to green up once they do seem to do fine.There seems to be more slug using this method

My problem with no-till- /nearly no-till is that I never have enough mulch without having to buy it or go on a scavenger hunt. The other problem I have with the mulch I do have,,, in the Spring at planting time, it makes the underlying soil too wet to plant. Also, since I rotate entire garden areas onto new, sodded plots, I have to stop the clover root growth. These actively fallowed areas have clover sod in them to get biomass into some pretty porous sand. I still want to try sodding with small white Dutch clover and then grow plants in oasis holes(like squash, tomatoes, etc.)

I think different soils need different approaches, one size probably won't fit all, even though the no-till gurus would not think so,

geo

Been no tilling for many years here. Parked the tiller in 1999. Have never looked back. As your soil improves and replenishes itself from the damage of tillage, things like too wet or too dry seldom happen. There is piles of free mulch material everywhere. You just need to ask for it.

Mulch. Mulch. Mulch.

When you say free mulch, is that predominantly wood chips, or does it vary?

Wood chips
 

Seems like in my are wood chips are getting harder in harder to get.We used to only have 1 or 2 to places to dump wood chips and brush.Now there 4 ,they make landscape mulch. I am always on the hunt for arborist working in the area.Powerline trimming crew have been the best so far I have got about 200 cubic yards from them in just a couple weeks but when there done in the area they are done.I always them throw some cash (try and keep under a dollar a yard).You can always open the phone book and call all the tree services in your area but most have already have places to dump. Last resort is go to mulch plant and ask if you can have some of their chips out of dump piles.They don't usually like to part with a lot but I got about 20 yards from them I always give the guy running the loader some cash that way they are ready to load me.

The majority of no-till gardening information that I see works best on a small scale. Obtaining and moving large amounts of "free" mulch and compostable matterial is difficult for many. Additionally most people seem to agree that proper no-till gardening requires several month of prep well before the actual planting happens.

I had to take my old troy bilt horse tiller apart in the winter to replace the engine and leaking seals around the axles and I haven't put it back together again. I have some manure and can buy a few yards of compost but that's pretty much it. I'm starting with a mowed down field. Rather than amend the entire space I'll lay down what organic mulch I have in rows, cover with black plastic (silt fence fabric) dig planting holds and amend each hole I transplant into as I go. Not perfect but I don't see why it wouldn't work. The plastic should hopefully suppress the grass and weeds that would otherwise come up right through my organic mulch since I don't have a thick enough layer.

I think you just have to work with what you have.

Some of it is wood chips. But I am in farming country. There is always rotten hay, rotten straw; burst bales along the road, burst bales in the fields. Peruse the countryside and you will find farms with materials they would be happy to be rid of. The material is there, you just have to have an open mind, and ask around.

In the fall we take the horse trailer to a local RV park and their staff rakes their leaves and loads them into our trailer.

I too have not tilled my garden in years.
I cover the entire garden, close to 1/4 acre, with straw, hay, leaves whatever about 6-8" deep.I try to have it done before it snows. Come spring you can push your hand into the soil with little to no resistance.
And really no weeding to be done. No watering either.

That about has me sold

Spoke with an older gardener yesterday - in her 80s.

Turns out she did no-till for 30 years, with great success, and is a proponent of anything "Ruth Stout". She had ample access to hay and manure, which is primarily what she used - and said she didn't have much issue with sprouting seeds from the hay.

She stated that it was the best move she ever made in her garden. I just wish she was still able to garden. I like to see something in action but have yet to find anyone local.

I appreciate all the input.

I have done it for 40 years, both raised beds and conventional garden. I use oak leaves and wood chips from the right of way trimmers. The chips have a lot of leaves and bark since they do the work in the summer. Manures from my small animals, goats, rabbits and chickens all composted. I let the chips compost 2 years, the first one alone, turn a couple of times, it gets hot. Then the second year add manures. Take this and add to my regular compost piles of leaves, adding horse manure too. The horse manure has a little hay, wood pellet bedding and road apples, composted all winter before. This is like black gold in spring. It just falls apart into what looks like sawdust size particles. All the oak leaves are chopped up with a bagger mower. I put a good layer of chopped oak leaves on top of everything in the fall, covered with compost to keep them from blowing. In the spring this is all a 3" layer of soft cover, push back to plant seedlings or seeds, push back up as they grow, stir with a .99 cent, 3 tine hand weeder, for traditional garden a piece of 1" PVC shoved over the handle for an extension. Usually never touching real dirt, just the compost on top, very few weeds. Plant very close, thin as needed, use the thinnings as tender greens or baby vegetables. Even the few weeds make chicken or rabbit fodder. I grow oats and peas as covers, make fodder too. I have 6 small hoops to cover raised beds to extend the seasons, so at least 6 raised beds are growing something year around. I also have a bigger hoop, 8'x12' that I move around the garden also as needed. It covers 2 grids and a walking path. My soil has a lot of sand added to let the plentiful Oregon winter rains trickle through. My gardens have 1' walkways through out, in 3'x12' grid. Walk ways are covered with wood chips. I can harvest and plant except on very wet days (when I don't want to be out in it anyway) by placing waterproof 4' wide row covers over crops and pinning them down with big n shaped pins pushed into the soil, made from heavy wire. I went out this morning and cut 2 heads of cabbage that overwintered along with 20 others, have 6 left. I have 16 new ones that are forming heads now, planted in January along with potatoes and peas....James

When we moved out here twenty-five years ago, I called a man to till the garden plot--hadn't been used for 3 years. He took one look at it, and refused to unload his giant tiller--said the soil was so hard it would tear up his machine. So I laid down newspapers, covered them with hay, boards, whatever, and planted squash. We grew a lot of squash. Next year came two dump trucks from a horse barn. It was wonderful. We are now in our dotage, the garden has been cut wa-ay back, and the soil is just lovely. In the fall we drive to town, pile bags of leaves into the truck, and lay the bags on the garden, cut holes in the paper bags, and soak them with water. In the spring the bags , newspapers, or cardboard goes down, then a layer of leaves, then old hay to keep the leaves from drying out and blowing. The soil is slow to warm up, but an area can be reserved for early stuff. My neighbor is still tilling his big garden. Wood chips have long woody things in them, and are reserved for the flower border, as too hard on my shoulders and back to wrestle with. My little garden provides all our needs, plus supplying a local group home with fresh tomatoes, green beans, and cucumbers.

See if you can find books by Ruth Stout, and Lee Reich.

Don't be afraid of using mulch with weed seeds. If seeds sprout, throw more mulch on them. Hot freshly mown grass is a weed killer and super high in nitrogen.

I tried mulching several years, but had huge slug troubles. It was a lot of hassle keeping the varmints at bay. And it did become a burden trying to keep enough mulch on hand. I still do a limited amount of mulching, mostly on alliums, but even they get infested some years. Using strictly pine needles alleviates some slug problems.

3 years no till here and not looking back. I only tilled to breakup new sod the first time. I don't really amend the soil as I feel it is nearly perfect as is. Only thing i do is mulch the garden waste with my lawn tractor in the fall including sweet corn stalks, and leave it on top of garden till it breaks down or blows away. I don't work anything into the soil.

Works just fine for me. I do add organic fertilizer to the holes for tomatoes, side dress for everything else.

How do you stop the mulch simply blowing away? Trying to bring a large and abandoned veg garden back into use, it's a heavy clay that's had a lot of work done on it, many many worms, drains a lot better than the surrounding land. but totaly infested with nettle/thistle roots and seeds.
I was thinking of covering one side with cardboard and mulch since I really don't think I can dig the entire thing in one year (and remove all the roots) But I can't for the life of me think of anyway to hold the stuff down.
PS I live in northern Denmark, the trees round my house are nearly horizontal from the wind. my house has extra supports on the roof due to wind load (windward side only) wind is a really big thing here. if it's dry the soil blows right off the fields as well, luckily it isn't dry very often.

Most mulch is lighter than soil but does not blow away.I think it has to do with particle shape and the way it locks together.

I would look into a sturdy wind fence, or two or three at proper spacing if possible. Also, once you have crops growing in the mulch, DO NOT REMOVE the above ground material, just cut it off, so that the stubble protects from wind, and also so that the roots hold the soil from eroding. It used to erode a lot in the plains areas, it still does. But it only does in the areas that are still tilling the soil, and removing the roots and above ground material.

Every year I see pics posted from regions where for whatever reason, they beat the soil to death with tilling, and expose it to the wind.

I agree. Especially of you are using wood chips or manure without pulverizing it into tiny pieces.

Pine Needles
 

Is it okay to add pine needles to this mix or would they be too acidic?

The chicken manure (straw) blows right off the compost heaps! The wind fencing sounds a workable solution, but not unfortunatly where our plot is, it's close to the edge of our land and I don't think the railway would apreciate us putting a fence on the line!
It's amazing what we find in our wind breaks, ever piece of rubbish from miles around stopps when it hits them. have a good collection of roofing sheets, what might be tomato cages (rolled chicken wire) and of course plenty of rubbish.

I suspect I will not be converting to mulch.. one becasue if it causes issues with soil warmth.. this far north that's really not going to help (57 north) two becasue I do not have access to any, there's no free compost from the state here, and hay/staw comes in the huge round bales that I have no way of getting here, even if I did find some going cheap.

Also I wonder what it would do to the water.. all I hear is how it helps conserve it, well I have the oposite problem, I want to get rid of as much as possible as fast as possible!

I never thought of Denmark as windy or at least had never really read about it being so. THAT sounds WINDY!!!

One thing about mulch and water: We also are cold and damp in our area. But longer term, as the soil is left in its natural state, it heals, and soaks up moisture much more efficiently. As the soil life returns, the soil structure heals, OM goes up, and the soil life channels and rotting root channels actually improve infiltration. that is one of the amazing things about no tillage practices. In wet areas it allows better drainage and infiltration. In dry zones, it conserves more water for plant use. Best of both worlds.

I must say though, I do try to push the snow off our garden about this time of year, to allow the space to be exposed so that at least there is a chance of it drying enough to seed. It is not very windy here, and we also have our garden in a very sheltered area surrounded by trees.

Sadly, so far, I have not been able to clear the garden of snow: It is still simply too deep.

Did I mention, that sounds WINDY!!! lol. Good luck.

Many of my plants have a 2 gallon bucket with the bottom cut out surrounding the plant. When i water i use only rain water and put it directly into the buckets. That way the space in between of the plants stays very dry. When i cultivate i do so with a hoop hoe i ma myself that cuts the seed stems off just below ground level and pretty much leaves the surface ground as it was. That way no new weed seeds are brought to the surface to germinate.

The dry ground becomes like a crust that preserves the moisture beneath it and doesn't support weed growth at all. For my row crops i hoe weeds as they merge just a little each day until the corn is knee high and then the shade keeps most weeds at bay. Simple matter to hoe one here or there as needed. For my beans and peas, I side dress with mushroom compost mixed with chicken manure. I do plant closer than recommended and that alone keeps the mulch in place and protects from the wind.

I have a wind farm surrounding me so i have wind too, straight line stormy winds up to 60 mph regularly (not as much as in Denmark it sounds). I plant the popcorn to shelter the garden from the winds a little. Sweet corn takes a beating from the wind but its tough and matures early. I have an evergreen wind break on my west side, my home on the north side, east and south are exposed. I'm pretty exposed here, I'm the only home on a one square mile corn field.

I have tried it some , I like wood chips over card board or whatever I can get for free ,I had a neighbor bagging his lawn every week and he would just stop next to my fence and empty the bags over the fence , that worked nice I would just move it to the garden a few feet away with a fork but need to work harder at collecting and moving mulch to the garden If I remove one bush I can drive the trailer right up to the garden that is on my to-do list for this year as I hate many trips with a wheel barrow

it is very cool to dig a small hole plant a tomato plant then pull up the mulch around it again

40% of all electricity last year in denmark came from wind, on good days the turbines produce over 100% of usage. Up here the main crop is turbines!
We are standing up trees that have blown over atm, several fruit trees, that were here when we bought it, putting in bigger stakes so they can get re-established, getting the drainage better will also help there.
I think I'm going to be trying a unconventional way of using half my patch.
cardboard covered by small branches, more twigs really, we have about 1/2 acre of snowberry bushes that I want to remove, so I will try cutting their twigs down and covering cardboard with that, a few pegs/stones on the windwardside will hopefully stop the wind getting under it and flipping it all over.
I may not be able to plant much through it, but I hope it'll kill some of the weeds underneath.

This is a great video about no-till and cover crops. South Dakota farm manager. About 15 minutes.

This sounds great. Do you only do the beds or do the pathways between beds and all? Do you (all of you that do this) rotate where the beds are in your garden (used to be path last year, is bed this year)? Thanks for the great information!

This is what I was planning for my garlic patch.Other beds are totally mulch add more mulch every year.

Glacialtill, thank you for taking the time to post the video about no till, most excellent info. and spot on with this thread! Again Thank you!!

There is movie called Back to Eden that is about no till garden and mulching.It has some very good points.The first year I had a lot of slug and pill bug problems.my chickens seem to be correcting that problem.

All gardening is local. I think your soil critters won't mind if you till it in and get it a little closer to their mouths.

geo

Haven't tilled here for years. We have the best soil ever. The first few years I was short on mulch and material for the compost. I drove to town each week and loaded up my van throughout the year with compost material from folks raking leaves or cutting grass. I built a huge compost pile that year and it got me started. Now I have more compost than I can use (almost). When I finish the fall harvest I put down compost on the bed and then add leaves or wasted hay. In the spring, I plant and put down some more wasted hay on top. Garden paths are mulched with pine straw and bark from the wood we cut in the fall. I use wide beds in an intensive method. I do have one very large hugulkulter bed under a pine tree that has flowers and herbs in it also. My garden is gorgeous and produces plenty of food for us and enough to give away to other folks as well. When I was converting to no till I used the lasagna method to extend my planting area in a hurry. It worked very well. Blessings, Kat

Pine needles? Okay to use?

Pine needles are acidic. You'd want to keep an eye on your ph for sure.

Wood chips are also acidic. They work well, but you'll need to lime more often if you use them a lot.

No-till/No-dig Gardening
 

Raeven, I read a good article from a university a few years ago on the net, while I was still working at the sawmill. They found that hardwood chips would lower the ph initially, but the ph would soon return to normal. They said that, in their opinion, the overall result was beneficial. I've seen the tanic water that leaches from piles of wood chips and wonder myself. I wonder about pin straw as well. I know pine straw does not seem to affect begonias and most other ornamentals negatively. However, never having seen anyone in the pine belt of SC using pine straw as mulch in their garden, I remain suspect.

Only use the pine needles for mulching the pathways, not the beds.

I think this guy has the proper take on the acidity of pine straw(needles). He actually did some tests to find out. https://www.pinestrawdirect.com/Pine...calTesting.pdf

Take a look at his summary of the results.

My opinion is : yes, you can use all the pine straw mulch you can get, IF you let it stay under the tree for a couple of rain cycles...... As a mulch it will be better to lay it on the top so it will interlock and not blow away. Pine needles have little nutrients other than carbon when decomposition is complete, so they will need to be used along with high nitrogen mulches, if mulch is all you rely on for getting nutrients for your garden vegetables.

Like coffee grounds, any acid(and there isn't very much to begin with) will get washed away pretty fast with water, pine needles into the soil, and coffee in your cup.... Besides, you can always correct with lime...

geo