Fresh mulch advice needed please. - Page 3

Carriehelene · June 20, 2015

Wow, finally measured my garden. It's more square feet than I expected. 4,042 to be exact. No wonder it tires me out and takes such time. I need a tractor

Cole_Robbie · June 20, 2015

Come on, that's just 1/10th of an acre.

Imagine if you had 40 acres and a mule.

Carriehelene · June 20, 2015

Lol, don't know if I'd feel more sorry for me or the mule

digsdirt · June 20, 2015

When you have acre or more we'll talk tractors.

But you could use a good Troy-Bilt tiller. And I say that fully knowing the no-till folks will likely jump on it but I'll say it anyway.

Dave

Redbaron · June 20, 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by digsdirt

When you have acre or more we'll talk tractors.

But you could use a good Troy-Bilt tiller. And I say that fully knowing the no-till folks will likely jump on it but I'll say it anyway.

Dave

As a no-till permaculture guy I will be happy to jump on it!

Keep this in mind please. I honestly don't have any issues with a gardener using tillage. If you are going to dig your garden, then absolutely a Troy Bilt, especially the older model with a Kohler engine and all the attachments, can't be beat.

The thing about no till that I like is it's advantage over tillage with respect to inputs. That includes organic manures and composts or chemical inputs either way. You are locked into inputs because tillage breaks several cycles in the soil food web. But for a garden, that isn't necessarily a problem. There are plenty of ways to use a tiller in the garden along with inputs to keep the soil fertile. In some cases a whole lot of inputs are needed, but it's all relative. Gardens in general are smaller scale and if a person doesn't mind, inputs do allow a good crop of tomatoes most certainly.

It's a time honored proven method for sure and a Troy Bilt can certainly help reduce the labor inputs, as well as mix things like green manures and animal manures in the soil very well.

Personally I am lazy and a cheapskate.

I am happy to let the worms do my tillage and fertilizing for me for free! They seem to appreciate the work too! They become very enthusiastic workers.

Also the no-till models are much newer and much less well proven and require more experience and knowledge in many cases. So I am a live and let live kind of guy when it comes to gardens. I'll be happy to help folks learn organic no-till for sure, but I don't criticise any gardeners. Happy just to see people growing their own food no matter how they do it.

Once you get to moderate and larger commercial scale though. That's where I aggressively advocate no-till and minimal tillage practises, especially organic or mostly organic and permaculture. If it's your job, there is no excuse in my mind why a person couldn't educate themselves enough to accomplish no-till and at these scales it becomes important to all of society, not just the farmer himself.

Just my take on it.

Carriehelene · June 20, 2015

But, but, I really wanted a tractor to play on lol. Already have 2 roto-tillers. A big man-beater, and a mantis. Actually, my husband has been against the whole soil health thing. Thinks we are fine as is. After I told him if we do it well, he won't need to till anymore, he's reconsidering

Redbaron · June 20, 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carriehelene

But, but, I really wanted a tractor to play on lol. Already have 2 roto-tillers. A big man-beater, and a mantis. Actually, my husband has been against the whole soil health thing. Thinks we are fine as is. After I told him if we do it well, he won't need to till anymore, he's reconsidering

HydroExplorer · June 20, 2015

LOL yeah, I wouldn't recommend that anyone tills their garden. Tilling kills all the bacteria that feed your plants and the worms that break stuff down while producing a lot of things that make plants happy. This makes you reliant on chemical fertilizers to feed your plants which then makes you vulnerable to salt and pH problems.

Edit: tilled gardens become compacted soil in 1 year which makes people till them again. If you sheet mulch you get loose soil AND all the magic things that live in it.

When it comes to growing outdoors I'm very much into soil building with no tilling (I typically don't fertilize my plants either). When it comes to indoors I lean more toward chemical hydro (MUCH easier than organic hydro).

I don't till my indoor garden either come to think of it.

digsdirt · June 21, 2015

Quote:

Tilling kills all the bacteria that feed your plants and the worms that break stuff down while producing a lot of things that make plants happy. This makes you reliant on chemical fertilizers to feed your plants which then makes you vulnerable to salt and pH problems.

Edit: tilled gardens become compacted soil in 1 year which makes people till them again.

I am well aware that such claims are frequently made by no-till advocates and presented as absolute truths. But they are overly simplistic claims. Either that or my gardens, despite regular tillings, are a miracle.

They thrive with active bacteria and worms by the handfulls. My soil tilth is excellent with no compaction and excellent drainage even with the recent 8+ inches of rain. And while I do provide the plants with some compost tea and fish emulsion as supplements, I've never been forced to use any synthetic/chemical fertilizers in them.

Maybe the key is in knowing how to till correctly.

That way only the soil dwelling pests that can thrive in no-tilled soil are disturbed, any weed seeds are adequately buried, and the green manure cover crops, compost, previous year's mulches and any other desirable organic supplements are well incorporated into the soil. Decades of tilling has proven to be very beneficial to my soil.

Dave

bjbebs · June 21, 2015

I too am a tiller of the dirt. I only till when adding amendments back in.
My gardens are decades old. They've seen hundreds of tons of leaves, manure, spent crops, compost, cover crops and fish remains. No additional ferts are used. The tilth of the soil is loose to a foot or more deep and remains so during the growing season.
Yes, this does not happen overnight but with a lot of discipline and hard work you can end up with soil that will grow anything. On my larger areas a PTO driven tiller behind a 2000 pound tractor does the work. No compaction, no damage to worms, active bacteria and produce galore.

Redbaron · June 21, 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by bjbebs

I too am a tiller of the dirt. I only till when adding amendments back in.
My gardens are decades old. They've seen hundreds of tons of leaves, manure, spent crops, compost, cover crops and fish remains. No additional ferts are used. The tilth of the soil is loose to a foot or more deep and remains so during the growing season.
Yes, this does not happen overnight but with a lot of discipline and hard work you can end up with soil that will grow anything. On my larger areas a PTO driven tiller behind a 2000 pound tractor does the work. No compaction, no damage to worms, active bacteria and produce galore.

Exactly! That's the flip side. Tillage can work too, but it does take a ton of inputs. That's because you are constantly going 2 steps forward followed by one step back.

Eventually you will get there though.

My neighbor is a double dig guy. He always would have a decent garden, but always applied massive amounts of inputs to double dig in his garden the same time. Usually he paid top dollar for them too. Like multiple bags of black cow and garden soil from the big box stores. This year though is going to be a tough one for him. He made two mistakes. First he double dug like he always does, but he skipped the extra inputs "just this once". We also had huge flooding here in this part of Oklahoma. Right now he has a reddish brown square with no sign of life. It literally looks like the bottom of a pond after being drained. Not even any weeds growing. Meanwhile right next door, I have made multiple harvests already (Peas lettuce broccoli onions etc...) and lots and lots of baby tomatoes, peppers and such. I got just as much water and there are still areas that squish when I walk. But being no till ever means the plants there still have a good chance of living. Actually my seedlings I waited to plant were decimated, but the ones that were already in the soil stood up pretty well. (once they regrew some leaves that were knocked off by hail)

His big mistake? He skipped the inputs. So he went a step backwards without going two steps forward first.

He knew the risk, but decided to take a chance. This time that chance didn't pay off.

HydroExplorer · June 21, 2015

I can see how tilling amendments into the soil could help avoid soil compaction because the one thing that seems to have fixed the soil compaction that I had on my property was to add organic stuff back into the soil.

I guess it's the lack of organics that causes the soil compaction. So if you till and then use synthetic fertilizers maybe that's the cause of the problem.

Tracydr · June 23, 2015

Hubby just got a tractor, since we have 21 acres of woods to maintain. He's getting a front loader this week. Imagine all the compost and mulch I can turn and haul to the garden with that! Not to mention spreading fertilizer and seed on the pasture.

Mike723 · June 25, 2015

Here's an excerpt from plantea.com citing Jeff Lowenfels:

Jeff, a recent anti-tiller convert, writes a column for the Anchorage Daily News, which happens to be the longest-running garden column in the United States.

"Jeff, I have a roto-tiller sitting on my front porch. Lots of folks roto-till their gardens. What's so bad about it?" I asked.

"Roto-tilling destroys the network of fungal hyphae that gives soil structure," he explained." This includes the mychorrhizal network that is so important to plants."

Roto-tilling, says Lowenfels, dislocates and chops up small invertebrate animals (such as insects, worms and spiders), and bacteria, and it kills worms and destroys aeration and drainage. "The soil looks nice and smooth, but it quickly looses structure, especially in places like Kodiak Island, Alaska where you get lots of rain."

Organic gardening does not include roto-tilling

According to Lowenfels, whose company Alaska Humus is all about healthy soil, rototilling is an addiction, like lawns and coffee. "We till because early American's fell under the spell of an English country lawyer, Jethro Tull, who thought that roots eat soil particles and the smaller you pulverize soil, the easier it is for roots to eat it."

This was back in the days of Thomas Jefferson. "No one knew about the need for fungi to provide soil structure or about the soil foodweb and how rototilling completely disrupts it. We've come a long way!"

For more information about the soil foodweb, a term coined by Dr. Elaine Ingham, visit her informative www.soilfoodweb.com web site. Her business mission statement sums it all up: "To grow healthy, productive plants you need healthy, productive soil. It is the organisms in the soil that provide the food plants need, in the form they need, when they need it."

What about breaking up sod?

When it comes to gardening efforts, Lowenfels advocates that less is more. He says there is one time when using a tiller is okay: when breaking up sod-grass. "Just do one pass to break up the sod. One pass only." Jeff then adds "The less energy you can use when planting, the better," he says. "Control weeds with mulches, in the case of annuals and vegetables, green mulches and in the case of perennials, shrubs and trees, brown mulches."

"All plants--grass, trees, shrubs, agricultural crops--depend on the food web for their nutrition."----Soil and Water Conservation Society

The idea is to avoid compacting and deep-tilling the soil, which harms the structure. It would be trying to survive after tearing down the walls of houses, damaging the streets and other transportation networks, destroying water lines and other utilities, and limiting access to food. Living would be tough. Some people would get sick and die. Plus, it would take a long time to rebuild. See what I mean?

Supporting soil structure "is just good science that couldn't be explained before," says Lowenfels. "Roto-tilling is definitely, out. The only time it is acceptable is when you want to plant vegetables and annuals in areas just claimed from forests. You want to increase the bacterial dominance and rototilling does that. The fungal structure will return if organic fertilizers are used."

So we can gather that a bacterially dominant soil would tolerate tillage more so than one of fungal dominance.. Not to mention, the average home gardener isn't tilling as deeply or aggressively as a professional farmer so one can infer that the negative issues associated with deep tilling wouldn't be AS crucial to the home gardener..

Sojourner · June 25, 2015

Yes, you can spread your woodchips as mulch in your garden - as long as you aren't going to till them in at the end of the year. I do no-till automagically-watered (drip irrigation) square foot gardening mulched with cardboard (weed block) topped with wood chips - mostly to keep the cardboard from blowing away. Have done so for a couple of decades at least, after trying and discarding multiple gardening models including everything from the "standard" till it all in approach to cover cropping and double digging. Gave up on THAT the 2nd year when I dug up the same cover crops I'd dug in the last year, perfectly preserved by the heavy clay soil, LOL!

Spreading wood chips IN your garden bed won't hurt a thing as long as you don't till it in.

If you want to be able to till it in, let the woodchip pile age until next year. Then you can spread it around to your hearts content and till it in at season end if that's what floats yer boat. Most of the decomposition that gets blamed for "nitrogen robbing" is all over in about 6 to 8 months.

June 20, 2015	#34
digsdirt Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2015 Location: No.Central Arkansas - 6b/7a Posts: 179	When you have acre or more we'll talk tractors. But you could use a good Troy-Bilt tiller. And I say that fully knowing the no-till folks will likely jump on it but I'll say it anyway. Dave __________________ Dave

June 25, 2015	#44
Mike723 Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Sep 2014 Location: CT Posts: 290	Here's an excerpt from plantea.com citing Jeff Lowenfels: Jeff, a recent anti-tiller convert, writes a column for the Anchorage Daily News, which happens to be the longest-running garden column in the United States. "Jeff, I have a roto-tiller sitting on my front porch. Lots of folks roto-till their gardens. What's so bad about it?" I asked. "Roto-tilling destroys the network of fungal hyphae that gives soil structure," he explained." This includes the mychorrhizal network that is so important to plants." Roto-tilling, says Lowenfels, dislocates and chops up small invertebrate animals (such as insects, worms and spiders), and bacteria, and it kills worms and destroys aeration and drainage. "The soil looks nice and smooth, but it quickly looses structure, especially in places like Kodiak Island, Alaska where you get lots of rain." Organic gardening does not include roto-tilling According to Lowenfels, whose company Alaska Humus is all about healthy soil, rototilling is an addiction, like lawns and coffee. "We till because early American's fell under the spell of an English country lawyer, Jethro Tull, who thought that roots eat soil particles and the smaller you pulverize soil, the easier it is for roots to eat it." This was back in the days of Thomas Jefferson. "No one knew about the need for fungi to provide soil structure or about the soil foodweb and how rototilling completely disrupts it. We've come a long way!" For more information about the soil foodweb, a term coined by Dr. Elaine Ingham, visit her informative www.soilfoodweb.com web site. Her business mission statement sums it all up: "To grow healthy, productive plants you need healthy, productive soil. It is the organisms in the soil that provide the food plants need, in the form they need, when they need it." What about breaking up sod? When it comes to gardening efforts, Lowenfels advocates that less is more. He says there is one time when using a tiller is okay: when breaking up sod-grass. "Just do one pass to break up the sod. One pass only." Jeff then adds "The less energy you can use when planting, the better," he says. "Control weeds with mulches, in the case of annuals and vegetables, green mulches and in the case of perennials, shrubs and trees, brown mulches." "All plants--grass, trees, shrubs, agricultural crops--depend on the food web for their nutrition."----Soil and Water Conservation Society The idea is to avoid compacting and deep-tilling the soil, which harms the structure. It would be trying to survive after tearing down the walls of houses, damaging the streets and other transportation networks, destroying water lines and other utilities, and limiting access to food. Living would be tough. Some people would get sick and die. Plus, it would take a long time to rebuild. See what I mean? Supporting soil structure "is just good science that couldn't be explained before," says Lowenfels. "Roto-tilling is definitely, out. The only time it is acceptable is when you want to plant vegetables and annuals in areas just claimed from forests. You want to increase the bacterial dominance and rototilling does that. The fungal structure will return if organic fertilizers are used." So we can gather that a bacterially dominant soil would tolerate tillage more so than one of fungal dominance.. Not to mention, the average home gardener isn't tilling as deeply or aggressively as a professional farmer so one can infer that the negative issues associated with deep tilling wouldn't be AS crucial to the home gardener.. Last edited by Mike723; June 25, 2015 at 02:52 PM.

June 20, 2015	#31
Carriehelene Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Apr 2015 Location: Upstate NY Posts: 300	Wow, finally measured my garden. It's more square feet than I expected. 4,042 to be exact. No wonder it tires me out and takes such time. I need a tractor

June 20, 2015	#32
Cole_Robbie Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: Illinois, zone 6 Posts: 8,407	Come on, that's just 1/10th of an acre. Imagine if you had 40 acres and a mule.

June 20, 2015	#38
HydroExplorer Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Apr 2014 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 132	LOL yeah, I wouldn't recommend that anyone tills their garden. Tilling kills all the bacteria that feed your plants and the worms that break stuff down while producing a lot of things that make plants happy. This makes you reliant on chemical fertilizers to feed your plants which then makes you vulnerable to salt and pH problems. Edit: tilled gardens become compacted soil in 1 year which makes people till them again. If you sheet mulch you get loose soil AND all the magic things that live in it. When it comes to growing outdoors I'm very much into soil building with no tilling (I typically don't fertilize my plants either). When it comes to indoors I lean more toward chemical hydro (MUCH easier than organic hydro). I don't till my indoor garden either come to think of it.

June 21, 2015	#40
bjbebs Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2014 Location: illinois Posts: 281	I too am a tiller of the dirt. I only till when adding amendments back in. My gardens are decades old. They've seen hundreds of tons of leaves, manure, spent crops, compost, cover crops and fish remains. No additional ferts are used. The tilth of the soil is loose to a foot or more deep and remains so during the growing season. Yes, this does not happen overnight but with a lot of discipline and hard work you can end up with soil that will grow anything. On my larger areas a PTO driven tiller behind a 2000 pound tractor does the work. No compaction, no damage to worms, active bacteria and produce galore.

June 23, 2015	#43
Tracydr Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2011 Location: Laurinburg, North Carolina, zone 7 Posts: 3,207	Hubby just got a tractor, since we have 21 acres of woods to maintain. He's getting a front loader this week. Imagine all the compost and mulch I can turn and haul to the garden with that! Not to mention spreading fertilizer and seed on the pasture.

June 25, 2015	#45
Sojourner Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Nov 2014 Location: Earth Posts: 27	Yes, you can spread your woodchips as mulch in your garden - as long as you aren't going to till them in at the end of the year. I do no-till automagically-watered (drip irrigation) square foot gardening mulched with cardboard (weed block) topped with wood chips - mostly to keep the cardboard from blowing away. Have done so for a couple of decades at least, after trying and discarding multiple gardening models including everything from the "standard" till it all in approach to cover cropping and double digging. Gave up on THAT the 2nd year when I dug up the same cover crops I'd dug in the last year, perfectly preserved by the heavy clay soil, LOL! Spreading wood chips IN your garden bed won't hurt a thing as long as you don't till it in. If you want to be able to till it in, let the woodchip pile age until next year. Then you can spread it around to your hearts content and till it in at season end if that's what floats yer boat. Most of the decomposition that gets blamed for "nitrogen robbing" is all over in about 6 to 8 months.