No till method

[SeaGoat]

I am fascinated by a no till method (mainly because I don't have a tiller )

Like I said in previous thread, I have raised beds.
Id like to try ground cover method, but what's appropriate for vegetables?

When you want to create a ground garden, what's the best way to do this without tilling?
I know there is the (what I call) tarp method where you lay plastic on the ground and solarize the ground, which kills the grass and seed (what about the good organisms? ).


When everything dies after harvest you just leave it there?
No "turning it under"?

[doingitmyself]

I do not till, as in i till grassy new sod into dirt one time, then i don't till again. I pull the remains at end of summer, compost them and add them back as they are finished. I do not stir up the soil at all, i use a very sharp and extreme angle oe i made so when I hoe a weed i do not go deep into the soil and bring up new weed seed. I has worked very well for me 3 years now, very, very few weeds.

I use straw around my tomatoes and i do not broadcast water. I also use buckets with the bottom cut out and have one around each plant I water, with harvested rain water in each plant bucket only. This way I'm only watering the plant and not the general area where the seed seeds are waiting to jump out of the ground. Lettuce and row crops obviously get watered in the conventional way. Try it, it works very well.

Good luck to you this year!!!!

[geo in mi]

What you refer to as "tarping" is really called solarization. You lay clear plastic over the area for about six weeks during the hottest part of the summer. It will kill everything under it for about eight inches deep and then you start over, Eventually, beneficial organisms will return and multiply if you give them some fresh organic matter to eat.

I feel a person should till in lots of organic matter in getting prepared for no till--then gradually keep laying down--on the top--copious amounts of the same each year thereafter. Keep in mind that a continuous mulch may make your soil slower to warm up at the beginning of the season; some seeds will not germinate well in cool soil, wet soil.

You should Google "Ruth Stout" for her book.

geo

[Solar Geek]

We live on bedrock and sand and gravel. We built 2 yrs ago and when they laid down the 5" "topsoil" it was loaded with foxtail weed - insidious.

I wanted a 130' x 75' garden - so without any prep other than cutting the weeds with the mower, I had the guys dump 4" top soil and spread; then
24" straw (took 14+ of those giant straw rolls) spread fairly evenly over the soil.

Then I had 5" compost laid out in what people now tells me looks like a cemetary --- 39 beds with center aisles and each bed is between 3' and 4' wide.

They are humped up in the center.

This spring 4 year old seeds that I was too cheap to toss were planted and are coming up! It is so easy to plant.

I will not be covering the beds with straw as it is under the compost smothering the weeds. The few weed seeds in the straw I just pull - a child could do it as they are not attached as so much straw is under them.

Love love love it. No till at all ever. I am so blessed we budgeted for this when we built.

[JillyG]

I use the no till method. I mulch with hay. I do not have seeds in my hay. If I did , I would simply put a thicker layer of hay.
All the weeds and stalks, other than corn and broccoli, get laid down on top of the hay. By spring they are mostly gone.
I replace the hay as needed and a full cover in the fall before it snows. Come planting time I can almost plant with my hands.

[julieq]

We use the no till method also. We mulch heavily with leftover alfalfa hay (pure, no weed seeds) and goat pooples pretty much every month that there isn't snow on the ground. It goes straight from the goat pens to the garden due to the fact that I don't have the back strength anymore to turn heavy compost piles. Works wonderfully well!

[farmerDale]

We have not tilled our garden soil for about 15 years. We apply a thick, like about a foot thick mulch of sheep manure/bedding/waste hay in the fall. By spring it is maybe 4 inches thick. We then just plant into this. Virtually no weeds, the soil improves with time, and no fuel burned, hoes worn out, etc.

Under our conditions, the fall application lasts for a couple growing seasons, then we add more mulch.

First time we did this, I thought this is crazy, I just choked my soil, obliterated my garden patch. And then the garden grew, and the weeds did not. And I rejoiced! No more hard, baked soil, no more compaction, almost no more weeds.

[haypoint]

True story, but over a hundred years old. I think much still applies.
Mr Roe had nearly every square foot of his 3 acres in crops. His family tended black berries, strawberries and all sorts of vegetables. he was so busy, he was able to hire a gardener for the summer months. But in the Fall, he had to let him go, risking not having him in the next Spring.
So, he bought 18 recently bred heifers. He and the hired man gleaned neighboring fields for corn stalks, after the corn was picked. The stalks were stored in the barn, huge piles. The heifers were fed twice daily a mix of ground corn and chopped stalks, cooked into a sort of stew. The manure was cleaned out daily and stored under a cover of boards. This kept the hired man busy.
Come Spring, the resulting calves were sold, the recently freshened milk cows were sold and after paying for the hired man, a small profit was realized.
But the real treasure was the manure. He had a huge supply of manure that was entirely free of weed seeds. That commodity is impossible to come by and allowed fertilization of strawberries without adding millions of weed seeds.

If you want to keep away from chemical herbicides and chemical fertilizers, a source of weed free fertilizer might be a goal.

[SeaGoat]

So, I have goats and their "dirty" bedding. I can just mulch with this?
Not worry about composting?!

What about with potatoes?

[ronbre]

solarization will likely kill off a lot of the good organisms in your soil, yes. It is one way to kill off things to plant, but extremely heavy mulch will also do the trick and actually feed the soil organisms..

I do no till and the only thing that is a bit difficult is things that need deep roots like carrots and parsnips..i use a fork to loosen the soil..and small seeds..you gotta pull back the mulch to get them started ..or put some soil or sifted compost on top of the mulch and plant in that..

you can dig right into the mulch for started seeds and larger seeds though.

[farmerDale]

I forgot to mention what I do with the top growth at the end of the season, for those interested. I wait until very late fall, like just before it snows so that the material is really frozen up and pretty well black, and I go over the garden with the lawn tractor/mower, which mulches the material into a nice fine addition to the existing mulch.

Even the corn stalks are mowed, and it works fairly well on them, as by late fall they are quite brittle with all the frost activity for the prior month. I also wait till later, because when you hit a squash or hiding pumpkin, they disintegrate when affected by frost, rather than firm and well, lets say dangerous to your mower and others around you.

So yes, I guess I DO use a bit of gas to farm my garden. I forgot about the late fall mulch program I do...

Dale