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Post by gianna on Aug 22, 2019 12:55:52 GMT -5
As I continue to get older, I've been using this method more and more. And it's really been working out well. Here is a previous thread on the subject: organicgroup.freeforums.net/thread/3091/till-guidance?page=1&scrollTo=75248I now try to disturb my soil as little as possible, dont even pull weeds, but rather clip them off at the base when possible. Leaving the entire root system in the ground adds lots of organic matter. I also clip crops off at their bases too. Mulch and compost are spread on the surface and not turned under - no need for that. Cover crops can also be planted to enrich soil, but are not necessary, just fun. These also are clipped before seed set. Recently I've added the process of occultation (covering a bed with a tarp, and letting whatever is beneath die and/or decay). Last year after the first rains lots of weeds grew - more than I wanted to deal with. So I covered the area with a light-proof tarp, and 2 or 3 months later when uncovered, it was the cleanest, most fertile bed out there. Another of the benefits is that the less you disturb your soil, fewer weeds will grow. New weed seeds will blow in of course, but you are not continually bringing new ones up to the surface from beneath. This has been making life so much easier. And the plants/veggies I am growing are doing really well. I use mostly transplants - to plant, I just stick them in with a trowel and water. That's it! Has anyone else been experimenting with this method? edit: I just re-read some of the things I said in the old thread - nothing has really changed except now I am totally convinced it works. At least here, at least in my garden. YMMV edit 2 - Title change from "No-dig or no-till gardening?" to "No-till and cover crops"
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Post by Wheelgarden on Aug 22, 2019 15:47:04 GMT -5
I used to till fairly deep every year, until I saw what it was doing to the soil structure. Now I only hand-till very lightly, mostly to get weed root crowns up, and loosen the soil for planting. The soil and earthworms are thankful, and return the favor. Getting weed roots out, instead of clipping the tops, pays in the long run. I compost the root crowns. Adding mulch to over-winter does make the need for deeper tilling less and less necessary --- oh, yes, it does make life easier!
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Post by desertwoman on Aug 22, 2019 18:20:21 GMT -5
I used to hand dig in all my organic matter, just once a year in the Fall. For the last 3 years I have not tilled at all. I LOVE it. My soil has improved dramatically, earth worms have increased even more, not to mention how much easier it is.
In the Fall I just layer compost, manure (if I have it) coffee grounds and crushed leaves as winter mulch. In the spring I simply plant and add more leaf mulch.
I had heard people make reference to mycorrhizae fungi, in the soil, but didn't pay attention to it. Recently I have been reading about their relationship to plants and the symbiotic relationship they have, and how tilling interferes. I am very pleased with my decision to switch to no till.
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Post by gianna on Aug 22, 2019 21:02:14 GMT -5
I LOVE it. My soil has improved dramatically, earth worms have increased even more, not to mention how much easier it is. Me too, big time. When I put in a transplant into a no-till bed, I almost feel that I am cheating. That I haven't done what I should have done to prepare the soil. But it works! The past few years it's been so dry here, and with extreme water restrictions, some of my beds had to remain fallow and got very dried out. That cant be good for them. But going into fall I'm planting cover crops into the beds, one by one, so that I can reestablish 'living roots' and put microbes and worms back into the soil. If you build it, they will come. Since being dry over the summer is our usual pattern, hopefully our native 'soil critters' are adapted to that. But again, I think the biggest thing is to not disturb the beds, come what may.
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Post by desertwoman on Aug 22, 2019 23:00:13 GMT -5
gianna, For some reason I thought the plant/weed would regenerate leaf growth if I just clipped at the base. I never thought to leave roots in the soil to decompose. The few times I have clipped weeds they tend to grow back. Maybe my mistake was that I just trimmed the weeds and didn't shear them to the soil (removing all leaves)? I definitely want to try this.
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Post by gianna on Aug 23, 2019 0:10:24 GMT -5
gianna, For some reason I thought the plant/weed would regenerate leaf growth if I just clipped at the base. I never thought to leave roots in the soil to decompose. The few times I have clipped weeds they tend to grow back. Maybe my mistake was that I just trimmed the weeds and didn't shear them to the soil (removing all leaves)? I definitely want to try this. It depends on the plant/weed. Most can be clipped beneath the bottom leaves and not regrow, especially if they form tap roots. I use an old pair of clippers and sometimes will cut below the soil surface to get them low enough. Some weeds can be so small, I just pull them. And grasses tend to have fibrous roots and lots of growing points on top, I'll usually pull those too - though I'm thinking of trying an old serrated knife and cutting them as deep as necessary. My most pernicious weed is Bermuda grass, and that requires digging unless one has the time to smother it out. Last year I grew both collards and broccoli in my beds. When removing these, I did not cut them low enough, and both regrew giving me very nice plants and a second crop. I did not mind. This last time however, I made sure to cut them low enough. I first saw this technique in a YouTube video on Singing Frog(s) Farm in N. Calif. The Kaisers. It's a small market garden, no till, and they clip all their old crops at ground level instead of pulling them. In one video they talk about how much the organic content of their soil has increased over the years. They also spread compost over the surface, but dont turn it in. There is another successful market gardener in Sweden - Ridgedale Regenerative Farm, (Richard Perkins) and they also clip spent plants at the base. And spread compost once/yr. I think it's a method that is catching on. The no till guy in the UK, Dowling? says he 'twists his off' and composts them. But I cant imagine being able to successfully twist some stonger garden plants without also pulling the roots. I would think it's easier to cut them. I love leaving as many roots as possible in the soil since it is said that there is as much biomass in the roots as there is in the tops. Such an easy way to put organic matter back into the soil while leaving channels/pores as they decompose.
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Post by James on Aug 23, 2019 16:13:25 GMT -5
No till, no dig gardening? Hmmm, I don't believe its possible. You may say minimal tilling and I could buy that. You got a plant in a pot and you go out to plant it in your garden..... first you dig a hole then you place the plant then you fill around the new plant and smooth things all up. But you just dug a hole..... that's tilling!
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Post by pepperhead212 on Aug 23, 2019 17:36:41 GMT -5
My problem doing this would be a neighbor's tree, which sends roots over into my garden area, and it would have been filled with sasafras roots, had I not 'tilled yearly. The earthworms don't seem to mind, as every time I turn it, there are huge numbers of worms!
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Post by gianna on Aug 23, 2019 23:03:05 GMT -5
My problem doing this would be a neighbor's tree, which sends roots over into my garden area, and it would have been filled with sasafras roots, had I not 'tilled yearly. The earthworms don't seem to mind, as every time I turn it, there are huge numbers of worms! Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. I've currently got a bed with Bermuda grass growing in it. The runners go deep, and the only way to get rid of it short of spraying is to dig it up, rhizome by rhizome. This disturbs the soil greatly. So I do it, or the bed would soon get unusable, like with your sassafras roots. There are also gophers in the area, and they love to come into the moist garden from the dry hillside. They burrow, create holes, and leave piles of loose soil here and there. They also eat garden plants, so I trap them. To do that, I have to do some digging to find a good run to set a trap. Practicing no till is a mind-set. A general goal I suppose, and whether it's disturbing the soil with a small trowel to plant a seedling, or using a shovel to set a gopher trap, or moving some soil to channel rain in a drought, it's rarely perfect. But it doesnt have to be perfect to get satisfactory results with less work.
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Post by desertwoman on Aug 24, 2019 0:50:09 GMT -5
gianna, I've had great success with repelling gophers and moles with castor oil. They don't like the smell or taste. With your dry areas around your moist area, you could spray your garden and send some extra down their tunnel hole. They will stay away for at least a couple of months, or longer. I use a 5 gallon hose sprayer. For each gallon add 4 oz of castor oil, 2 Tbs dish detergent. Spray your garden area. There are also castor oil based products you can buy in granular form that you sprinkle throughout your yard and then water in.. But I have found a strong castor oil mix in water and detergent works the best.
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Post by SpringRain🕊️ on Aug 24, 2019 10:57:17 GMT -5
pepperhead212 , that's a MAJOR problem for me as well. A good 200' are affected by the roots from the neighbor's huge trees, which have been neglected for years. Two of them already came down across my garden. This is a good discussion; I hadn't thought about removing all plant residue on the bases discussed here. I usually scuffle hoe before I plant, and sometimes at the end of the year. I LOVE my scuffle hoe! The bigger problem though is that non natives love fertile soil and have set up colonies. The last few years saw the invasion of Virginia Creeper, and as I wrote elsewhere, now bindweed. I don't scuffle hoe the later, for reasons advised by others. And I have far more native Adenaphora Bluebells, as well as Siberian Squills that segued from a few rows into 50' spreads across sections of the entire yard. I don't want to disturb them.
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Post by gianna on Aug 24, 2019 11:49:32 GMT -5
I've had great success with repelling gophers and moles with castor oil. They don't like the smell or taste. With your dry areas around your moist area, you could spray your garden and send some extra down their tunnel hole. They will stay away for at least a couple of months, or longer. I use a 5 gallon hose sprayer. For each gallon add 4 oz of castor oil, 2 Tbs dish detergent. Spray your garden area. There are also castor oil based products you can buy in granular form that you sprinkle throughout your yard and then water in.. But I have found a strong castor oil mix in water and detergent works the best. Thanks for the information. I'd not heard of this before. I'd be more likely to spread granules than spray. But the granules seem expensive. Amazon carries the granules, but the link just was too large to leave here. Right now there is a gopher snake working the area - just saw it on Thursday and have seen it on/off for the past month. It is amazingly effective. I've seen snakes slither into gopher holes and seemingly disappear... Gopher, king, and rattlers... Not at the same time of course.
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Post by gianna on Aug 25, 2019 7:33:38 GMT -5
Another aspect for further developing a no till garden is, as some farmers say, 'keeping a living root in the soil at all times'. And at the end of the season, leaving their 'bodies' on the ground providing 'armor on the soil'. The crops, flowers, landscape plants that we grow are some examples, but another tool is the planting of cover crops if your weather permits.
This seems to be a fast evolving area of interest with much new information emerging. Living roots in undisturbed soil help nourish the microbes, worms, mychorrhizae, etc. Apparently about 50% of the products of photosynthesis (carbs) is exuded from the roots of living plants to feed them. In return, these supply the plants with soil stability, easy channels to grow in, plus various nutrients and other subtle signals. The more the soil is disturbed, the more this interconnected network is damaged. And when the plants die and their roots are left behind to decay, leaving even more organic matter, plus easier channels for new roots to grow in over time. It is said that you can rebuild the organic content of your soil by 1% every 5 years.
If you plant cover crops in your garden, apparently the greater the diversity of species, the better this system works. For my cover crops, I use a mix of 'official' cover crop seed, as well as extra garden seed or for microgreens I know I wont use again. So why not plant them as a cover crop? I also no longer mind non-noxious weeds growing in my beds, and welcome various re-seeding annual flowers. Pretty is good.
Another benefit of keeping garden soil undisturbed is water management, especially in a dry environment. Not only does the stable more porous soil allow water to penetrate more easily with less runoff when rains come, the soil, with naturally greater organic matter, retains that water longer. win-win. When I used to till my soil, there would be these 'clods' with good crumb structure, plus lots of pores in them. At the time, I thought it necessary to break these apart to make the soil ready for planting. Just the opposite of what was good for my soil. Live and learn.
There is so much new information emerging on building healthier soil while doing less work. The trick is implementing some of these techniques into a home garden setting.
Or not. Do what works for you.
If anyone is interested, there are some good youtube videos on 'Carbonomics'. Keith Berns is a good speaker on the subject.
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Post by desertwoman on Aug 25, 2019 8:50:42 GMT -5
If anyone is interested, there are some good youtube videos on 'Carbonomics'. I am! My motivation for going no till, 2 years ago, was because I was looking for easier ways to work my gardens as I age. Once I started, I began to discover more benefits than I thought were to be had. I'm loving learning about this.
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Post by octave1 on Aug 25, 2019 9:28:05 GMT -5
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