One of the problems we've run into almost every spring is how to get the garden tilled for planting. Late winter and spring seem to be when we get a most of our annual rainfall and sometimes it can delay getting seeds or plants in the ground by literally weeks.
This year when I was piddling around on the internet, I started seeing articles about "no-till" gardening. I wondered if that might be something that would work in my garden, especially in the spring when it was too wet to till.
What is "no-till?" According to Wikipedia...
No-till farming (also known as zero tillage or direct drilling) is an agricultural technique for growing crops or pasture without disturbing the soil through tillage. No-till farming decreases the amount of soil erosion tillage causes in certain soils, especially in sandy and dry soils on sloping terrain. Other possible benefits include an increase in the amount of water that infiltrates into the soil, soil retention of organic matter, and nutrient cycling. These methods may increase the amount and variety of life in and on the soil. While conventional no-tillage systems use herbicides to control weeds, organic systems use a combination of strategies, such as planting cover crops as mulch to suppress weeds.[1]
I'm actually blessed with a really nice garden spot at this old house. The problem is that the original "good" spot isn't really that big, and the dirt in the farther-out parts of the garden can get really hard and compacted during the summer. It sounds like a no-till garden might be the answer to getting better production from those not-so-great parts of the garden. So I've started making plans to switch to no-till this fall. I have two big problems right off the bat.
First problem: Bermuda grass.
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| Bermuda grass creeping into the garden. |
Aggressive and tough, people don't call this "devil grass" just to be mean. Once it's established, you
can't pull it by hand, and if you miss a "node" when you dig it out, that node will likely take off growing again. I've even read that roots can extend 3' to 4' down into the soil. Yikes!
Most of the yard around the garden is Bermuda grass, and every year, it creeps into the garden around the edges.
Controlling it is going to be a real challenge.
Last year we had an in-ground storm cellar installed at the north edge of the garden. We made the mistake of digging up blocks of Bermuda grass that had grown into the garden while we waited for the cellar to be installed, and used those to cover the red clay that was left piled around the cellar. And when I say mistake, I mean BIG MISTAKE. The garden surrounds the cellar on three sides, and the Bermuda grass has not only covered the clay, it's now spreading out into the garden itself. So I'll need to get rid of that before I can convert that area to no-till.
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| We made a BIG mistake by putting Bermuda grass around the new storm cellar last year. I've put down black plastic to try to kill it so I can create a strawberry bed there instead. |
Second problem: In a no-till garden, you're supposed to top off your garden every year with about 4" of compost and organic mulch. I don't have much of either.
I do have a small compost pile, but it doesn't make nearly enough compost to cover my garden rows with that much compost every year. There might be enough aged compost now to cover one short row. I've bought bales of straw the past couple of years, but that gets pretty expensive at $7/bale, and again, a single bale doesn't cover much ground.
So if I'm going to make the switch, I'm going to have to get creative and re-think how I do things.
In the past, after I've harvested my corn, I would throw the green stalks over the fence for the cows. This year, though, I had put straw around the second corn crop, and after harvest, I just chopped the stalks off and have left them on top of the straw.
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| This year, I'm leaving the corn stalks and leaves on the garden as organic mulch. |
(This may be another mistake, because I'm pretty sure the second corn crop was infected with
Southern Rust (
Puccinia polysora), a fungus. However, I've read that for the most part, the fungus doesn't overwinter in the United States, so hopefully I've not created a fungal party pad where my corn patch was!)
From here on out, all the plants that are "finished" for the year and that don't have some obvious sign of disease will be used as organic matter on the garden or will be incorporated into the compost pile.
I also pledge to start raking up the leaves in my yard every fall and putting them on the garden. I've meant to do that for a while now, but never seem to manage to do it.
I pledge to use fall cover crops that will enrich and loosen the soil, and to "chop and drop" them next spring so they'll add even more organic matter back to the garden.
There are lots of old habits I'll have to break and I'm not sure I'll manage to be 100% no-till. But I really want to see just how close I can get.
It's interesting that the pull cord on the tiller broke off just the other day.
Maybe it's a sign.
Some good articles on no-till gardening:
