Mow 2 Till

[Ridgerunner]

I use newspaper as mulch, thou I avoid the slick pages and try to avoid the bright colors. It's not always possible to avoid all the bright colors but I do try to avoid the big full page adds and the worst of it. I just don't know what chemicals might be in those colors. To keep them from blowing around, I cover the newspaper with wheat straw or year old mostly rotten wood chips. What little grows through that is real easy to pull. Even the next spring there is practically nothing growing there. I don't mulch everything. There is a world of difference in what was mulched the previous year and what was not in both tilth and weeds and grass growing.

I don't keep my rows in the same place every year, like people do with raised beds, so it gets compacted by me walking on it between rows. I break it up with a mattock then level it with a tiller before I plant. It would be nice to have permanent walkways that are never tilled and permanent areas to plant that don't necessarily have to be tilled, but its not the way I choose to do it. I rotate crops to different parts of the garden and use different row spacings for different crops.

 

[seedcorn]

I'm with you on placing different plants in different parts of the garden. Love my tiller but am going to till less deep this year. I mulch with 3-5" of straw every year. 2 reasons, weed control and water preservation. Without it, my sand/gravel would be too dry to effectively grow vegetables. Side benefit is the millions of worms feeding on straw.

 

[ninnymary]

We go to the park that is 3 houses down from us every week. There among the grass is white clover and a few dandelions. The children love to pick the clover and we are always on the hunt for dandelions. There's nothing like finding one and blowing it in the wind.

Mary

 

[digitS']

I don't keep my rows in the same place every year, like people do with raised beds, so it gets compacted by me walking on it between rows. I break it up with a mattock then level it with a tiller before I plant. It would be nice to have permanent walkways that are never tilled . . .

RidgeRunner, it would be nice to think that permanent paths never need to be tilled but I use the tiller there often! The only ways for me to stop the weeds in the paths would be to pour concrete or use a herbicide.

Steve

 

[Ridgerunner]

There was a thread a short while back where VFEM wanted to know how to handle centipede grass in her permanent paths between her raised beds. I’m not sure we gave her a good answer. I couldn’t. The area was too narrow to mow.


I think Seedcorn said it when we were talking about commercial no-till in a different thread. If you till, your problems are annual weeds. If you don't till, your problems are perennial weeds. That obviously made an impression on me since I remember it.


There are benefits and dis-benefits in everything. Trade-offs.

 

[thistlebloom]

Sometimes when you till your problems can be annual as well as perennial weeds.
I'm thinking of my bermuda grass wars at my former residence. Tilling only spread it around more, no-till just let it grow in peace!