No Till questions

[ducks4you]

I was watching "Mid American Gardener" and somebody finally explained WHY to No Till. They said it brings up weed seeds and suggested using a spade and rake and mixing the dirt with compost. So....I did that to my pea beds. They're gonna be pulled out in June and replaced with other crops, anyway.
Anybody good at this and can tell me why I should give my tiller a break?

 

[journey11]

I've been considering going no-till on my garden too. Tilling more than once or twice a year on this red clay we have here will get you BRICK. I have had to add lots and lots of organic matter to my soil to get it loose.

My plan is to establish permanent "beds" and permanent walking paths. Mulch, mulch, manure, compost and more mulch. You just keep adding to it and what is on the bottom gradually breaks down and feeds the soil. You also have to keep something growing on the spot year-round, a ground cover of some sort. Bare soil is a no-no. The sun bakes it and kills off all the good things. A healthy ecosystem of bugs, fungi, microbes, etc. is what you are going for.

Tilling beats them up, kills them and displaces them (the good things.) There is a lot of wisdom in it, certainly, and that is how nature does it, but it's initially more work regarding the removal of weeds. But in the long run you will end up with softer, looser soil and less dispersion of weeds. I have faithfully pulled and removed pig weed from my garden for 6 years now, but every time we till, more come up from the bottom of the soil to sprout again. It's the weed's survival mechanism. No-till will help break that cycle. New weeds brought in by wind or birds (or composted manure) will be easier to pull up and remove before they can go to seed.

 

[digitS']

. . . why I should give my tiller a break?

When I was reading the other day about bindweed, I learned that some ag department determined that bindweed seed will lie dormant in a field for over 20 years!

Okay, this is why I have come very close to giving my tillers a permanent break:

They stink.
They make a terrible racket.
They have a mind of their own and when I say "Gee," they hear "Haw!" That can be hard on the back!
They break down.

Steve
a spading fork is my friend
:tools

 

[journey11]

My DH would say I should give him a break. My dad "gave" us his tiller (to keep in storage here) and I can't even handle it...it runs away dragging me across the garden. My DH figured out this weekend how to lower the handle bars and says he gets better leverage with it now.

Given how expensive a good tiller is to buy, that would also be a good reason.

ETA: This would be the tool to have...a broadfork.

You aren't going to be turning the soil structure over, top to bottom (or pulverizing it into a homogenous powder), just loosening and aerating it. You also count on deep rooted veggies and cover crops to bring trace minerals and nutrients up from a couple feet below the surface. With tilling, you usually end up with loose soil to maybe a depth of 10" and what is below that forms a hardpan, difficult for anything to permeate (other than certain deep plant roots) and that is usually what causes poor water drainage. This is certainly the case with my red clay. I will have to dig a big hole and take a picture of it for you. I swear you could cast pottery from the clay found just beyond the first spade's depth.

 

[digitS']

. . . ETA: This would be the tool to have...a broadfork. . . .

I guess so. It looks like he has a good design with that handlebar.

When they first came out like, 35 years ago, I wouldn't have bought one. First of all, with handles all the way up from the tines, you could really get some . . . what do we call it? Bind? Torque?

Anyway, if the handles are like 5' long and vertical, I can imagine just twisting the thing apart! To compensate for that, I guess they could make it out of 50# of steel!

Then, they made that bar that holds the tines with nuts set down on threaded posts. My foot was too wide to fit in between and you'd probably have to vary where you'd have to put your foot anyway. Stepping on a half-inch nut all day? My foot would have been so sore that I wouldn't be able to walk!

The handle bar on that one you linked to, Journey, looks like it really would control the torque (?), bind (?). I can't see if it has any posts & nuts to step on.

Here is one that has the flaws I am talking about. I'd bet I'd break it in a week. (And, I'd bet those nuts would make me want to break it in a couple of hours :/.)

Steve

 

[ducks4you]

GREAT answers, all. THANKS! You should know that I double dug 30 inches below the soil line on 4 of my raised beds in 2011, then mixed tilled dirt from my horse turnout with composted stable cleanings. Winter of 2011-2012 I covered my beds with stall cleanings, then tilled it in. NOBODY but the cats and the dogs, occassionally, steps on these beds. I've been trying so hard to keep them from being compacted bc I used to have compacted garden beds.
I am interested in reading more about no till. I studied up on some agriculture many years ago and there was a book that suggested saving seeds came from burying the dead and noticing certain plants that grew upon top of the graves.
Still, my tiller is easy for me to use. It really helps in the horse pasture and sometimes I till my horses' 55ft. x 65x training area with it.
Keep the no till classroom coming.

 

[MeggsyGardenGirl]

I've been considering retiring my Mantis and reconfiguring my gardens to accommodate permanent rows. I've read a lot about the pros and cons and I think it has merit. I always sow cover crops over my entire garden and it would be nice just to fuss with designated rows and leave the paths undisturbed. Johnny's Selected Seeds carries a selection of broad forks based on Eliot Coleman's design http://www.johnnyseeds.com/c-469-broadforks.aspx a..nd I'm curious to know what people think of that design. I'm not sure I understand the purpose of all the sizes and widths. What say ye?

 

[digitS']

Ducks, I'm not going to be able to give up the tillers, either. Still, I want to use them as little as possible!

I should probably shut up about the broadforks because I have never used one.

Meggsy, Eliot Coleman has a reputation to uphold . I hope he is doing that.

The widths would make a difference in how big and strong the gardener is. I can't quite understand getting one that has short tines. The spading fork tines I've had are 11" and I think those are the same length as with Johnny's broadforks.

Johnny's don't have that nifty cross bar like on the one Journey showed us but that company is in Australia. Might think about that design and do some searching if it seems to make sense to you.

Steve

 

[seedcorn]

Terms.......

IF you work the soil with anything, it isn't no-till. So tiller or spade, tilling is tilling.

No till does not reduce weeds, it just changes the type of weeds.

I'm not trying to dissuade anyone as there are advantages. You can only do strict no-till with chemicals. Minimum till is more what most of us will use.

Working the ground breaks up the integrity of the soil thus allowing water to escape carrying nutrients.

 

[canesisters]

hummm... making my (as yet un-tried and un-proven) circle garden look like a better & better choice. Part of the idea was that I don't have a tiller and had to find a method that is designed to be worked by hand.

The weather is LOVELY this week - Rotmore is flatened - the garden is going IN THE GROUND this weekend... I guess we'll see how it's going by this time next month...