This is the best place to ask about no-till.

[CapnChkn]

I have to say I'm surprised with the new place for my plantings. In the past few years I've planted in what used to be the garden, now shaded by huge Hackberry's I can't cut down, and the barnyard, that's had the grass cut and left on a foundation of hard limestone gravel for around 30 years. In both cases the composts I planted in worked pretty well.

Now I've cut down a bunch of Lonicera Japonica (Honeysuckle vines) and other brush. I've laid from 0 to 13 inches (0 to 330mm) organic matter in different rows. I see the same relative results in each.

Can anyone share their experiences with these systems? The earth is clayish, but I can poke some stakes and so on in "pretty good" when it's wet. The sunflowers are not doing nearly as well as they are in the old garden, which hasn't been tilled in some spots for many years. The Country Gentleman Corn seems to handle the untilled ground fairly well.

All my veggies look small. Brandywine fruits are huge, but the vines are only about 4 or 5 feet long. The only things really doing well are the Zuchs, and some hybrid cabbages.

I grew Crimson Clover in the beds, I have White Clover in the aisles, I use the worm castings, goldfish water, and urine to embellish. I tried to deal with the "Living mulch" concept, but need more experience on that front. I've taken straw and grass clippings to mulch in some cases and am trying to cultivate thyme and oregano as a cover in others.

I'm looking to add some mycorrhiza. Right now I'm more concerned with the mosquitoes, rabbits, and deer which keep stomping my plants...

[Redbaron]

I use no til. Have for years. I notice it takes a few years to get the full benefit. You can usually get a crop first year or two, but don't get those big bumper crops right away, taking 4 or 5 years usually.

Some things you can do is use manure, or compost, to speed it up. I use compost right in the root zone where I plant seedlings. That should get the plants off to a good start. In fall or very early spring cover your beds with aged manure. That makes a huge difference.

If your sunflowers are small it likely means that your issue is deep. Must be either a clay hard pan or the gravel you mentioned causing problems for plants sending deep roots. Shallow rooted crops are less effected. I have read, but never tried, pounding wooden stakes through the hard pan and leaving them to rot can help that problem. What I have done is grow giant sunflowers with stalks the size of small trees. Then cut the stalks off leaving the roots to rot in place. They last surprisingly long and allow the soil to absorb much more water. Not sure if that will work going through gravel though. You may be forced to simply grow shallow rooted plants in those beds, or pile up a bunch of new soil making them into raised beds.

In your new bed I bet it will just take some time. Soil tests couldn't hurt.

[tlintx]

I double-dug my first raised bed, and laid the second one out over clay dirt (disturbed maybe 30 years ago) -- just newspaper over the grass, followed by a bunch of bagged stuff. I saw no real difference between the two, but my back sure did.

Six months later, the ground under the no-till bed is soft and I can push a stake a good foot into the ground. The newest bed isn't there yet. Nothing but tomatoes grown there.

I will say, start with the absolute best soil you can afford. For several reasons, I can't have a truckload brought in right now (even though it would be cheaper and better) and I have found most of the cheap stuff has little nutrition.

[Ken4230]

I think that the soil benefits from not being disturbed. My old garden at the farm was no-till for at least 20 years. I planted my tomatoes and most of my other plants with a tobacco dibble, the soil being that friable.
I used cardboard doughnuts around most of my plants and 1/2" OSB between the rows. Many years we would put up 200+ quarts plus what we froze. I sure miss that old garden and all the vegetables that it produced.
We still have the house and farm, but it's just too far to drive to take care of a garden. Now i am stuck up here at the lake with my little garden in the back yard.

I started a new raised bed this year. It's only 3'x8' and has no added "soil" in it yet. I dug 6 holes 12" deep and wide filled with finished compost for my tomatoes and planted through a double layer of weed cloth.
For a first year bed, it has produced reasonably well. I have harvested at least 20 lbs. of tomatoes already and i expect at least that many more before the season ends.
I will remove the weed cloth and fill it up (18" deep) this winter with composted leaf litter on top of several layers of cardboard and plant next year into whatever remains. The mulch in this bed next year will be about 4" of peat
which will mixed in with the new third year compost.

[amideutch]

It makes since because every time the soil is disturbed by tilling or digging so are the biological's that reside there to include bacteria, fungi and worms. I've been growing in the same bed for 5 years now and at the end of the growing season I remove my tomato plants, put a layer of horse manure and compost on top and let it sit over the winter. The following spring I add a few organic amendments and rake the the top 2 inches to level the bed and plant.
Here is a pic of the bed taken the other day and some of the fruit trusses getting ready to ripen up.

Ami

[CapnChkn]

Thank you everybody. I'm expecting as much. Here in TN, soil is pretty much red clay, although it's fairly loamy. I.E. I would not be able to make a pot from it without a lot of processing.

My soil/compost is made from grass clippings I harvest from 14 acres I mow on, leaves, and detritus. I've been moving the "garden soil," soil I make from decomped organic matter, from one place to another for 4 years because my Mother demands tillage, uses chemicals on my plants, and has an impossible watering schedule. She's 76, so I can't get any idea through that wasn't taught her in 1955 in the horticultural college she graduated from.


Here's a pile from last fall, mostly leaves, that I made with a pitchfork and riding mower with a grass catcher while waiting for Sears to deliver a refrigerator, so the math is more than just a brag. Also the old soils from the former locations; I've also gotten about 8 cubic yards from the solid waste facility here in the 'Boro that's a managed dump of fall leaves. That soil is so sterile I don't even have grass growing on it!

Scott, I planted a pint jar of Giant sunflowers, and got distracted . As you may imagine, before I got some soil out to cover it, the birds had broken and eaten all the seed. I have one lonely plant at the end of the row they missed, it's about 5 feet tall now. Other sunflowers are growng, but not like in the old garden...

I'll get photos posted I took, so you'all can get a better idea, but I need to get out, the rain's stopped for an hour or something.

[Redbaron]

CapnChkn,
I would buy your Mother a book called:

The Living Soil

By Lady Eve Balfour

One of the most influential originators of the organic movement. In fact the original Haughley Experiment is actually the scientific basis for organic methods even to this day! You wonder why we say "sustainable agriculture"? Thank Lady Eve Balfour. Why we can confidently say organic is more nutritious and healthy? Her again. Why organic gardeners and farmers eventually end up with higher yields than conventional? Yep, you guessed it. It was Lady Eve Balfour who proved scientifically all those things. The Haughley Experiment, started in 1939, was the first long term scientific comparative study of organic farming and conventional chemical-based farming. Every single month for decades extensive samples were taken of everything from soil to crops to animals, by the 1980's even temperature readings were taken to determine potential effects to global warming! (of course 1 farm can't effect Global climate, but many many farms all added up can)
Since your Mother is formally educated in agriculture, but stuck in her ways, maybe if you get her started on the subject this way, she will possibly understand it and turn around and teach you a few things?

[Worth1]

Capnchkn,

What you have is clay/loam or clay/sand soil.
Do you know how to do a soil test to see what kind of soil you have?
Here is a link to show you what is in your soil and so forth.
I believe you have the same soil as I do.
I also know you already know what you have but I posted this for you and others to try if they like.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...,d.b2I&cad=rja

Now on to my opinion on tilling and gardening.
Go get a drink and sit back, I have a lot to say and it will take a while.
Or better yet just move on past this post so as you wont be bored.

Lets start with some misconceptions on the garden spot.
we are waling along and see a forest with lush green trees.
We think, "What a great place to grow a garden all of the trees are so green and lush".
In reality that is the last thing you would want to do but it was done time and time again in our history.
You cut the trees, pull the stumps and remove the rocks.
You then hitch up the mule and start to plow.
You get a few years, 'maybe 4 or 5, of good crops and things start to fail.
What happened?
Well those trees were taking up all of the nutrients from the top layer of soil.
Where were the nutrients coming from?
The trees.
That's right the trees would grow leaves from energy they took from the soil.
They would then drop the leaves and they would decompose and the tree would then use this for the upcoming years.
What would you do on your farm?
Way back when many people would just move on.
I know this is elementary to most people but you would be surprised how many still do this today.
The amazon rain forest is on place they are doing it at an alarming rate.
Many of these people used up the soil in the east and new land was opened.
The Midwest was where they went.
Vast fields of green grass, (Buffalo grass) was the most common.
Deep soil many feet deep.
They came along at a time when the weather was uncommonly wet and cool.
They sunk their plows and everything was just like heaven.
Then the weather cycled back to drier than normal.
Wheat is not buffalo grass.
The fields were laid bare and the winds came.
Many many feet of soil was blown away to lay bare soil that hadn't seen daylight in many thousands of years.
This soil contained many nutriants and was kept in place by the buffalo grass.
Many of these nutrients came from volcanic eruptions from the cascades in the west.
Ash fall out.

So what do we do when we sink the plow fertilize irrigate and raise crops on these soils?
We accelerate time.
We add salt and we cause erosion.
What do we do if we dont till or plow and grow organically on poor soils.
We again accelerate time.
We add nutrients and the roots help break up the soil.
I firmly believe that organic gardening and no till benefits poor soils far more than it does rich soils.

Not to say that it doesn't preserve the rich soils as it surely does.

On to other misconceptions.
I need to till deep so the roots have some place to go.
The soil is too hard for a good root system.
I need to get the nutrients down deep so the plant can get to them.
I need to till to get rid of the weeds.
I need to till so it breaks up the cracks so moisture wont escape.

Let me disprove these misconceptions respectively.
Roots dont normally need some deep place to grow they are happy on the surface.

Roots are mean and tough, they can grow into things we never imagined they could.

In nature the nutrients are on the surface of the soil.

In nature the leftover leaves do this by mulching the surface.
Or the buffalo grass is so thick nothing else will grow.

If you keep the ground covered you dont have to worry about moisture escaping.

Lets look at the weed thing.
I have read many books on Texas plants and weeds.
The most common saying in all of these books is, "Commonly found in areas of disturbed soil". (Get it)

I have grown huge tomato plants in soil so shallow you wouldn't believe it.
About 3 inches and all of the feeder roots were in this three inch layer with only a few going deep into red clay.

Yes I do have a tiller and I use it sparingly and many times to break up soil I want to move for other reasons.

My neighbor cuts down all of his trees, rakes the grass and all of the leaves from his yard.
They are cedar elm leaves and here is what they look like.


They are wee little things that break down in my yard in about three months on their own.

My yard, 'forest to be realistic. has a nice layer of dark humus on top.
His yard is dry and he has to water all of the time.
There are cracks and it is nothing but red clay on top.
There is no wild life to speak of there.
Just over in my yard there are flowering plants and critters everywhere.
I believe in creating a habitat for the critters where I live.
Most of the plants are adapted to my area some aren't.

I have no problems with these critters because they are watered and fed so they dont eat my food, (most of the time).

Ive said about all I have to say.

Worth

[Redbaron]

What he said!

[CapnChkn]

I don't need convincing! I planted a pumpkin in 1977 in an untilled spot where we had just built a pond. The pumpkin didn't do well at all, but I've wondered about it since. Once I discovered other people piling material on top of the earth to grow in, I was surprised that I had thought of something like that but never tried it.





This guy looks like somebody you would have to say, "WTF?" when he starts talking about soil. I would think twice about listening to him, but I look a little like that.


I think they could have done a better job with these videos, it looks like a "troll." There's no connection to the first video, but don't see any reason to doubt what they're claiming, knowing something about worms and burrows... yet.


I actually decided the layer of OM on top may be redundant, so planted a an experiment after seeing this. After the first 20 seconds I mean...


I planted three rows, two with large seeds, to see what may work. So far I see no problem with the plants digging in. One row with Country Gentleman corn, one I started some regular sunflowers and put radishes in, the last I planted California Wonders i had extra of. The brush to the left of the corn is actually an invasive species of rose from Asia, 20 feet wide and about 10 feet high and honeysuckle vines.




When the ground is dry, I can't even chunk a pitchfork into it, but when it's nice and wet, I can take a pin flag and poke it all the way to the flag. Corn seems to do well, the sunflowers that I put under the compost I spread out to cover the seeds are coming in, and the radishes I sprinkled around are doing their job. Maybe I'll get some Eggplants now.


I realized I would have better tomatoes if I had a bank of water underneath. Now my problem is getting it down there. I also need to survey, but I will have to clear the first growth forest out first...

Here I've used the dreaded "Slash and Burn" technology. This is the best method I've found to clear the brush. I can't say what it may do to the the soil organisms, but it gets rid of the honeysuckle vines. Light a fire, burn the trash, and rake the fire around to burn it down to bare earth.


I've been trying to grow flowers for the Braconid wasps, made houses for the toads, and am working on getting up a bat house and martin houses. I bought an Anise Hyssop for my bees only to find every other insect sipping at it. We had a real mess with the Fruitworms last year, but I've only found that damage on one Zucchini this year.

My main problem was the flea beetles. Another reason for planting the radishes. Some of them look like they've been eaten to just the veins. Most of my insect trouble is from mosquitoes. The cabbage worms are pretty well controlled with Dipel and Thuricide. The cabbage moths also feed on the Anise Hyssop, and there's a patch of Early Golden Acre for their offspring to eat.

Mom didn't go to an Ag college, but rather to a Horticultural college. She majored in Painting and art history. She earned a degree in Landscaping and design. About 4 years ago she decided she was going to do the taxes, and had me resurrect a program written in 1982. There are infinitely better spreadsheets to use nowdays, and I had to install it with a DOS emulator which I autostarted when the drive was plugged in. I could have done better, but I knew she was never a'gonna use it. She couldn't figure out what to do.

I might read the book though. Thank you Scott and Worth!

[CapnChkn]

Nobody has any opinion on the videos? Just because the guy is a soil scientist doesn't mean his words are the "end all." I can tell you, my brother is an organic chemist, and my sister has some biology degree she won't write down for me. It's a full sentence.

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by CapnChkn

Nobody has any opinion on the videos? Just because the guy is a soil scientist doesn't mean his words are the "end all." I can tell you, my brother is an organic chemist, and my sister has some biology degree she won't write down for me. It's a full sentence.

It is fairly self explanatory IMHO. Just showing why no-till works. Soil organisms work the soil instead of the plow. My Red Baron project uses the same principle, but pumps it up a notch because I use mulch instead of glyphosate.

I don't know what kind of opinion you want?

[CapnChkn]

The video referencing Glyphosate doesn't have a soil scientist involved in it at all, so I'm looking for an opinion on the other two.

There are enough magical demonstrations of how "stuff works" to fill a street hustler's hat. One I've heard about for 30 years now, free magnetic energy, hasn't shown up in general use yet, and people are still talking about it. It involves producing work from generation of electricity to turn the generator, tapping some of the generated electricity to power the motor producing the work.


I am inclined to accept Frank Gibbs and his claims, but there's a "Big Machine" and a soil pit showing strata. The video ends, the next video shows a bunch of mulch and smoke coming from underneath. Why isn't there video showing smoke coming from the "macrophores" exposed in the soil pit?

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by CapnChkn

The video referencing Glyphosate doesn't have a soil scientist involved in it at all, so I'm looking for an opinion on the other two.


I am inclined to accept Frank Gibbs and his claims, but there's a "Big Machine" and a soil pit showing strata. The video ends, the next video shows a bunch of mulch and smoke coming from underneath. Why isn't there video showing smoke coming from the "macrophores" exposed in the soil pit?

You actually want to see smoke pumped into a pit coming back out of a pit? HMMMM ok. Fair enough. As for me personally, I don't need either demonstration to know that worms dig that deep. I knew that by 5 or 6 years old digging forts in an abandoned field.

Seeing Mom's face and hearing her screams of terror when I brought home nightcrawlers as big as a grass snake to show her was big fun at that age. Almost as fun as digging forts and playing war.

[CapnChkn]

Crawdads.