A new method ~

[Tomstrees]

This year I'm doing somehting different, and that is:
After my fall garden prep. I did not over-turn my garden this spring. I just dug holes for my tomato / pepper seedlings; I then mulched with straw and seaweed.

I wanted to see if I could reduce soil borne problems.

Has anyone had success with "no-till" gardening ?

~ Tom

[Sherry_AK]

I've been using the no-till method for a few years now. I'm a believer. The only time I turn the soil is where it's become compacted from me walking on it to plant/weed/water.

[Worth1]

Tom,
I don’t even own a tiller and never have.
One of my girl friends said she hoed right up to the stalks and I told her that was more than likely the cause of her BER.
(((((((Tearing up the roots.))))))))))
Before I plant I just use a grubbing hoe to turn up the soil. Then rake it out smooth.
And that is to clear out the weeds.
A tiller would beat me to death with all of these hard base ball sized river rocks.
I like the hole method/I need bigger holes.

Worth

[bryanccfshr]

Tiller? We don't need no stinking tiller!

Set up the beds so you never walk on the planting surface and never leave the soil naked to the elements. Cover that soil and don't walk on it. It's easy to keep weed free and to dig holes and amend the soil when it is time to plant.

[dcarch]

Originally Posted by Tomstrees

This year I'm doing somehting different, and that is: After my fall garden prep. I did not over-turn my garden this spring. I just dug holes for my tomato / pepper seedlings;----------
Has anyone had success with "no-till" gardening ?
~ Tom

Well, using my hole digger, I am doing extreme deep-hole this year. 36" deep. So far so good.

A picture today:


dcarch

[Tomstrees]

yeah Dcarch you're right, Daconils a better solution to soil problems ... Sounds like something I'd want my little ones in contact with in my garden while sampling cherry tomatoes drenched in the stuff; not to meantion the environment ...

~ Tom

Brand Name:Ortho Multi Purpose Fungicide Daconil 2787 Plant Disease ControlOther Codes:EPA Reg. No: 239-2522Form:liquidProduct Category pesticides >> Fungicide >> vegetables
Pesticides >> Fungicide >> trees, fruit
Pesticides >> Fungicide >> ornamentals
Pesticides >> Fungicide >> lawn/turf
Pesticides >> Fungicide >> flowers
Customer Service No.:800-225-2883Date Entered:2001-05-08 Related Items:Products with similar usage in this databaseManufacturer Manufacturer:Solaris Group, TheDiv.,ScottsAddress PO. Box 5008City:San RamonState:CAZip Code:94583Toll Free Number:888-295-0671Date Info Verified:2003-01-01 Related Items:Products by this manufacturerHealth Effects
Enter text or highlight term...
The following information (Health Effects, Handling/Disposal, and Ingredients) is taken from the product label and/or the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) prepared by the manufacturer. The National Library of Medicine does not evaluate information from the product label or the Material Safety Data Sheet.Warning from
Product Label:CAUSES EYE AND SKIN IRRITATION
- DO NOT GET IN EYES, ON SKIN, OR ON CLOTHING
- MAY CAUSE A TEMPORARY ALLERGIC EYE OR SKIN REACTION
- MAY CAUSE A TEMPORARY ALLERGIC RESPIRATORY REACTION
- KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN
Acute Health Effects:From MSDS:
POTENTIAL HEALTH EFFECTS
EYES: This substance causes eye irritation. May also cause a temporary allergic reaction characterized by redness and swelling of the eyes. Eye irritation may also include redness, swelling and discomfort, tearing and blurred vision.
SKIN: This substance causes skin irritation. This substance can cause a temporary allergic skin reaction in some individuals characterized by swelling, redness or rash on exposed skin areas.
INGESTION: Ingestion may cause irritation of the digestive tract. Digestive tract irritation may include nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. If swallowed, this substance is considered practically non-toxic to internal organs.
INHALATION: Breathing spray mist may cause a temporary allergic respiratory response or mild bronchial irritation.
Chronic Health Effects:MSDS: Breathing spray mist may cause a temporary allergic respiratory response or mild bronchial irritation.Carcinogenicity:MSDS: GENERAL COMMENTS: This product contains chlorothalonil. The carcinogenic potential of technical-grade chlorothalonil (97%) has been tested in two rat studies and one mouse study. It was reported to cause an increased incidence of malignant and/or combined malignant and benign kidney tumors in both sexes in both rat studies and in male mice. In addition, increased incidences of malignant forestomach tumors were observed in both sexes of mice and in female rats in one study. Based on the results of these studies, chlorothalonil has been classified as a B2 carcinogen by the US EPA. There is no epidemiology data classifying chlorothalonil as a human carcinogen.First Aid:MSDS: FIRST AID MEASURES

EYES: Hold eye open and rinse slowly and gently with water for 15 to 20 minutes. Remove contact lenses, if present, after the first 5 minutes, then continue rinsing eyes. Call a poison control center or doctor for treatment advice.
SKIN: If on skin or clothing, take of contaminated clothing. Rinse skin immediately with plenty of water for 15 to 20 minutes. Call a poison control center or doctor for treatment advice.
INGESTION: If swallowed, call a poison control center or doctor immediately for treatment advice. Have person sip glass of water if able to swallow. Do not induce vomiting unless told to by a poison control center or doctor. Never give anything by mouth to an unconscious person.
INHALATION: Move person to fresh air. If person is not breathing, call 911 or an ambulance, then give artificial respiration, preferably by mouth-to-mouth, if possible. Call a poison control center or doctor for further treatment advice.
Health Rating:2Flammability Rating:0Reactivity Rating:0HMIS Rating Scale:0 = Minimal; 1 = Slight; 2 = Moderate; 3 = Serious; 4 = Severe;
N = No information provided by manufacturer; * = Chronic Health HazardMSDS Date:1996-06-05 Handling/Disposal Handling:MSDS: HANDLING AND STORAGE
GENERAL PROCEDURES: Keep pesticide in original container. Do not put concentrate or dilute into food or drink containers. Avoid contamination of feed and foodstuffs. Store in a cool, dry place, preferably locked storage area.

ENVIRONMENTAL DATA: No data available.
ECOTOXICOLOGICAL INFORMATION: This material is toxic to aquatic organisms and should be kept out of sewage and drainage systems and all bodies of water.
Disposal:MSDS: PRODUCT DISPOSAL: If necessary to dispose of partially filled product container, securely wrap it in several layers of newspaper and discard in trash.
EMPTY CONTAINER: Do not reuse container. Rinse thoroughly before discarding in trash.
Ingredients from MSDS/Label ChemicalCAS No / Unique IDPercentPropylene glycol000057-55-6Chlorothalonil001897-45-629.6Inert ingredients (unspecified)999999-00-270.40

[dcarch]

Tom,
Interesting info.

dcarch

[bryanccfshr]

I won't get into the Daconil-vs- organic debate but I have never used daconil. I am loosing 3 large Big boys plants not to disease but to 2,4d!!!! MY NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR USED WEED AND FEED. 1

[amideutch]

Tom, been using actinovate this season as a foliar spray and when I transplanted my seedlings I sprinkled some in each hole. So far so good. Also when I brew my compost tea I add it to the tea during the brewing process and then use as a foliar spray and a soil drench. Good stuff. Ami

[Adenn1]

I started my beds using the lasagna bed method. I add to the beds grass clippings, coffee grounds, vegie/fruit scraps, egg shells and in the fall...thick layers of shredded leaves. My heavy gray clay is really starting to turn into some nice rich soil. Worms love the stuff I add and do there part as well.

I have convinced my neighbor to stop tilling...and to add organic material throughout the year.

[Tomstrees]

I'm an organic gardener (Suz is a recent recruit after using the blue stuff at her parents); and I believe in it; but I'm not rude about it ...
I watch the success of everyones garden and no matter what you choose, is well? what you choose ...

So far, my 2007 in ground garden is growing great - but then again, I usually don't have foliar problems until late June, so time will tell. I think the mulch of seaweed and straw will help as well as removing the lower leaves of my plants for "splash-up". After all that I've read, strong healthy plants is what may make the difference.

I stumbled across this article and thought it was interesting. The data isn't concrete, or from my (our east coast) area but its worth a quick glance. I hope others will give it a try even if only as a "test".

~ Tom

To Till or Not to Till

Part I: Why Reduce Tillage: An Ecological Perspective

Lois Braun recently moved to St Paul from Georgia, where she completed her Master’s degree in soil science. In Georgia she helped run a trial of a no-till gardening system. In this article she discusses the effects of tilling on soil. Look for Part 2 of this article in the Spring newsletter to learn less harmful methods of tillage or how to eliminate it entirely!
If you ride outside the Twin Cities in the late fall you may notice a change in farm fields. Farmers used to deep turn their soil in the fall, leaving solid black fields. These days more farmers are leaving their fields blanketed with the amber-colored residues of the previous summer’s corn or soybeans. They are practicing "conservation tillage", the collective term for a variety of tillage regimes designed to help reduce soil erosion and soil contamination of lakes and streams. Some of these farmers are merely postponing mold-board plowing or disking until spring; others will do their spring tillage with a chisel plow or other less destructive implement; yet others will not till at all, planting their seeds into narrow furrows sliced into otherwise undisturbed ground. The primary motivation for such "no-till" methods is to reduce soil erosion. But soil erosion is only one of several problems with tillage, and these are just as much a concern for gardeners managing small plots by hand as for farmers managing large fields.
Tilling destroys soil stucture.
One of the reasons why we humans originally developed a tillage-based agriculture was that tillage initially loosens a soil so that we can open it up to put our seeds or seedlings into it, and so that our young crops can extend their roots into it unimpeded. But this effect is merely transitory. In the long run tilling destroys soil structure.Soil structure refers to the arrangement of soil particles with pore space between them. Both air and water should easily infiltrate these pores for healthy root growth and for a healthy soil microbial life. Tillage pulverizes larger clumps of soil ("aggregates") into a fine powderwhich is easily washed by the next rain down into the soil’s pores, clogging them up. The result of many years of repetitive tillage is a soil with poorer drainage and a reduced capacity for holding water and air. Depending on the relative portions of sand and clay in the soil, this problem manifests itself in different ways:
*soil may be water-logged in the spring and droughty in mid-summer
*soil may be compacted, especially under the weight of heavy equipment
*soil may develop a surface crust which impedes water infiltration and seed emergence
*soil will be more easily eroded.
Tilling destroys organic matter in soil.
Organic matter is important for several reasons. 1) Organic matter helps improve soil structure. 2) Organic matter acts like a sponge, helping to soak up and retain both moisture and vital plant nutrients. 3) Organic matter itself is a rich source of plant nutrients, which are slowly released by the feeding of decomposer organisms, primarily bacteria and fungi.Tillage enhances the loss of soil organic matter by the following mechanism: the bacteria and fungi which feed on it are sloppy eaters; what they don’t eat is spilled, and thus becomes available for uptake by plant roots. In a healthy undisturbed soil this release of nutrients from organic matter proceeds at a pace that roughly matches the ability of crops to take it up. But if bacterial and fungal feeding is overstimulated more nutrients are released than the crops can use. The excess nutrients are leached away or lost in other ways.
In a healthy undisturbed soil the activity of decomposers is limited by the slow rate at which the oxygen they need for respiration can diffuse to them through sinuous soil pores. Tilling soil can actually incorporate too much oxygen, which stimulates a feeding frenzy by decomposers, and a flush of newly released nutrients. These nutrients may in turn stimulate rapid crop growth. Undoubtedly early farmers noticed this, and that is part of why we developed an agriculture based on tillage. It is also part of why some farmers and gardeners like to cultivate in mid-season: crops respond to tillage as they would to a fertilizer application. The problemis that the nutrients in excess of the crop’s needs are wasted. Over many decades repetitive tillage can result in soils depleted of both organic matter and nutrients. So, to maintain productive soils farmers and gardeners who have tilled too frequently must use synthetic or organic fertilizers to replace not just the nutrients removed in harvest, but nutrients lost as a result of tillage.
Tilling disrupts the ecology of the soil.
The third problem with tillage is that it disrupts the ecology of the soil. Larger soil organisms, like earthworms, are easily hurt by tillage. Earthworms are important for maintaining a porous soil structure, as well as for mixing organic matter from the soil surface into the soil where it can be worked on by other decomposers. Also sensitive to tillage are some of the predatory organisms that help keep in check the populations of other organisms, such as plant-eating nematodes. Tilling may invertthe soil which disrupts the soil ecology by burying organisms at depths to which they are not adapted. In short, the soil is a complex web of life; disturbing one aspect of it changes its healthy functioning.
So, it appears that as far as sustainability goes, the less tillage the better. That should be intuitive: the most stable natural ecosystems are ones in which the soil is never disturbed. Yet there are many benefits to tillage, or else we wouldn’t do it. Tillage prepares a soft seedbed for good seed-to-soil contact, which promotes good seed germination. Both crop plant roots and beneficial soil organisms need oxygen for respiration, and thus benefit from soil aeration by tillage. By thus stimulating the activity of soil decomposers, tillage promotes the release of nutrients for plant growth. Tillage can also be used to incorporate fertilizers and other soil amendments into the soil, at the root zone, where roots can best access them. Some kinds of tillage, like subsoiling, can break up a hardpan. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, tillage is invaluable for eliminating weeds.
A simple way to describe the relative pros and cons of tillage is that the benefits are primarily short term, whereas the problems are long term. Back when land was abundant, and farmers could simply move to a new site when the old one was depleted, tillage was fine. Nowadays tillage-based systems are only possible because we can maintain the soil with imported nutrients, either organic "wastes" hauled in from elsewhere, or synthetic fertilizers manufactured with fossil fuels. But in the future, as land and energy become more and more limited, we will need to develop agricultural systems based on growing our own fertility on site and on maximal conservation of the nutrients already in our soil. Although gardeners do not usually have to worry as much about soil erosion as field-scale farmers, due the smaller area of soil disturbed (large community gardens or gardens on a slope may be exceptions), gardeners are still advised to be conscious of the harm that tillage can do the soil.
Part II: How to do low-impact tillage
In Part I of this series I explained how tillage negatively affects soil quality: 1) by breaking up soil aggregates tillage destroys soil structure; 2) tillage hastens the loss of organic matter and consequently of the nutrients held by organic matter; and 3) tillage disrupts the soil organisms responsible for nutrient cycling. Yet there are many benefits to tillage, or else we wouldn’t do it. The challenge is to reap these benefits without doing long-term damage to the soil. In this part I will discussless harmful methods of tillage and possible ways of eliminating it entirely!
Less harmful tillage.
The first thing to be aware of is that not all tillage methods are equally harmful. Although most home gardeners do not themselves own the following implements, those with especially large gardens or community gardens may hire them. Mold-board plowing (also called "bottom plowing") is considered one of the most harmful methods because it completely turns over the soil layers and because it tends to form a "plow pan" at the depth where the plow runs. The surface layer may be relatively loose, but it is underlain by a compacted zone of very low permeability. Disking can also produce compaction, because it bears down on the soil with a lot of weight. Rototillers are also harmful: they are very hard on earthworms, they break up too many soil aggregates, and they incorporate too much air into the soil. They should only be used once a year at most.
Recommended implements include the chisel plow, cultivators, and harrows. With long curved metal shanks, a chisel plow can break up a moderate plow pan and aerate the soil moderately with a lifting action. Where the surface soil is already soft, field cultivators or spring-tooth harrows can do a decent job of preparing a seedbed without much damage: they are light and confine their disturbance to the surface layers of the soil.
Most home-scale gardeners do most of their tillage by hand, using a spade or fork and a rake. These are much easier on earthworms and other soil life, and also do not have the problem with soil compaction that large tractor-drawn implements may have. But gardeners still need to avoid inverting the soil, breaking up aggregates too zealously, or incorporating too much air into the soil. Of course there are some soils which need to be aerated. Double-digging is a good method for aerating already-compacted or shallow soils (see John Jeavons, How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land than You Can Imagine for a description of how to double-dig.)
Gardeners also need to be aware of the importance of tilling under the right soil moisture conditions. Soil structure is most harmed when the soil is either too wet or too dry. Of course this depends a lot on how much sand or clay your soil has. A crude test for determining the right moisture content for tilling is to try to form the soil into a ball in your hand. It is just right if you can form a loose ball which falls apart when tossed in the air or prodded with a finger.
Time of year is also important. Many farmers and gardeners plow in the fall because waiting for their soil to dry out enough to plow in the spring would delay planting too long, even though fall plowing leaves their fields exposed and vulnerable to erosion all through the winter and early spring. New technologies that enable them to eliminate plowing altogether, namely no-till planters and highly effective herbicides, have helped them avoid this compromise. Fortunately, gardeners have options for no-till and reduced-till systems that do not rely on special equipment or herbicides.
No-till gardening--my experience.
No-till gardening? Most of us have heard of no-till farming, but very few can imagine no-till gardening. My experience with it comes from Georgia. When I was in graduate school there I was part of an experiment comparing tomatoes grown with "no-till" and conventional methods.It was not no-till in the strictest sense because we did disturb the soil to dig holes for our seedlings.We seeded crimson clover as a winter cover crop after harrowing lightly in the fall. In the spring we dug holes directly into the standing clover with a post hole digger. We mixed compost or granular fertilizer (comparing compost and synthetic fertilizer was another aspect of our experiment) with the soil in the bottoms of the eight to ten inch deep holes, covered this with about an inch of plain soil, then transplanted our tomato seedlings on top of that. We hand cleared any clover that might shade or otherwise compete with the seedlings. Initially, any clover within four inches of a tomato stem was pulled and laid down as a mulch on the cleared spot; then as the tomato plants grew, more clover was pulled to match the width of their canopies. When weeds started to poke through the dying clover in early summer we used old hay to smother mulch it. Control plots were managed in the same way except that the clover was rototilled into the soil two weeks before tomato planting. This experiment was repeated, using the same plot assignments, for two years.
Our results were not a resounding success story for no-till gardening, though we were happy that it worked at all! Fresh tomato yields in the no-till plots were only 71% of yields in the conventional plots. In spite of this 29% yield loss we still had more tomatoes than we knew what to do with. For some gardeners with a lot of space or low vegetable requirements this may be a tolerable yield reduction, since it is balanced by the reduced time and expense of tillage, and possibly by enhanced soil health. Unfortunately, our experiment did not run long enough for improvements in soil health to become evident, though another experiment at the same site showed large gains in various indicators of soil health over 18 years of no-till management.
We also grew other vegetables besides tomatoes with the no-till method, thought they weren’t part of the experiment. For direct-seeded crops the method could be better described as "strip-till" since we used a hoe or a digging fork to clear the clover and loosen the soil in the row where we would plant our seeds. For fine seeded crops like lettuce, quite a fine, albeit narrow, seedbed was prepared.
Our results using these methods were good in the rich loamy bottom land of our experimental site, which had been gardened for many years, but were terrible at a new garden site with a compacted red clay soil and low fertility. One of the problems with no-till is that it is difficult to incorporate fertilizers. This led me to conclude that a good initial soil structureand good fertility areessential for no-till gardening to work. At the new site I would have done better by first building soil with cover crops for several years.
I also tried Ruth Stout’s deep mulch method (Gardening without work: for the aging, the busy, and the indolent, 1961) on one plot at the new site, with moderate success. Ruth Stout advocated preparing new ground by smothering out the existing vegetation with a very thick layer of mulch (over one foot thick) over a winter or longer. With her method seedlings may be planted directly into the decayed mulch, and seeds may be planted by pulling the mulch away from the planting site and scratching a furrow in the soft soil beneath it. If I had had several years to build up a rich layer of humus from mulch before attempting to grow anything there, perhaps it would have worked better. But I did not have that much time, so double-digging turned out to be the best method at that site.
Reduced-till gardening in Minnesota.
When I first came to Minnesota I had a hard time finding anybody here who had tried any of these methods. In Minnesota, I was told, soils are too cold and wet in the spring for no-till gardening. Soils must be bare in the springtime if they are to dry out and warm up early enough for planting. Thick mulches might help protect the soil from erosion over the winter, if there is no snow to do that, but they must be removed early to allow the soil to dry. As for winter cover crops, I was told, the growing season is too short and the winter too harsh for them. A report in Greenbook ‘97, (which is put out by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s Energy and Sustainable Agriculture Project), on an unsuccessful experiment with living mulches further discouraged me.
Then I met Mark Zumwinkle, who works for the Energy and Sustainable Agriculture Project, but also likes to experiment with various methods of soil management on his own vegetable farm. Minimizing soil disturbance and maximizing "in-situ" production of fertility are priorities for him, so he has developed a system for reduced tillage gardening that works in Minnesota. Like my system in Georgia, his system depends on fall-planted cover crops. Yes, there are cover crops that can survive the winter in Minnesota. They will be the topic of my next article in this series, to appear in the summer edition.
Mark Zumwinkle plants rye and hairy vetch in the fall (mid-September to late October), and in the spring uses zone or strip tillage to clear a narrow strip to plant his crops into, leaving most of the cover crop as a living mulch, much as I did in Georgia. He warns however, that cover crops used as living mulches must be controlled: if they are too close to a growing crop they may compete with it for water, nutrients, and sunlight. Failure to do this was probably the cause of the failure of the living mulch experiment reported on in the Greenbook ‘97. In a home-scale garden, control can be by hand pulling from an ever-expanding ring around the crop, like I did in Georgia, or by mowing. Rye and hairy vetch can be killed by mowing when they are over a foot tall, but their stubble will still hold and mulch the soil.
Key to making a no-till vegetable system work in Minnesota is a permanent raised bed system. Raised beds drain faster than flat beds. Together with their greater surface area, this helps them warm up faster in the spring. Cover crops growing on the beds also drink up soil moisture and thus help dry the soil. Thus it may actually be possible to plant earlier with a no-till method into a thirsty cover crop than if you had to wait for the soil to get dry enough to till! (In Georgia the thirstiness of cover crops was one of their drawbacks: they could suck a soil so dry that it was difficult to get a shovel into it for digging transplant holes!)
Mark Zumwinkle came up with a clever system for controlling cover crops in the spring at the same time as speeding soil warming: "plant pillows". His plant pillows are water-filled clear plastic tubes laid on top of the cover crop. They are like a cross between "Wall of Water" season extenders and black plastic mulch, but they warm the soil better than "wall of water" because the earth beneath them provides some thermal mass. And although the clear plastic, unlike black plastic, lets light through and thus the cover crops may continue to grow for awhile, the weight of the water keeps them from pushing the plastic up and eventually smothers them to death. When the soil is warm enough, usually in June sometime, Mark replaces the pillows with a hay or straw mulch.
Experiment!
Reduced- or no-till gardening is not well developed in Minnesota, or anywhere else for that matter. But responsible soil stewardship calls for it where appropriate. I would like to challenge those of you who have a bent for experimentation to give some of the ideas I have presented a try in a corner, especially if you have a soft loamy soil with good fertility that has been gardened for many years. I do not recommend it for garden plots with lots of rhizomatous weeds (the deep mulch method would be more appropriate there) or for soils with a plow pan (double digging and or cover cropping would be better there). But after you have built the soil with these methods, and with applications of lots of organic matter, you may also find that reduced till methods help you maintain the improvements you have made. Try it! And let me know how it works for you!
Part III: Cover Crops
In the spring issue of this newsletter I described a several no-till gardening methods. Two of them (the one I used in Georgia and that of Mark Zumwinkle, of MDA’s Energy and Sustainable Agriculture Program) called for planting crops directly into standing cover crops. Much as I would have loved for some of you to try these methods this spring, I realized that probably only a few of you came into spring with established cover crops in which to do so. I myself, having just inherited a new community garden plot, found myself planting into soil which had recently been rototilled and was bare except for a healthy crop of weeds. But if we start planning now to plant cover crops this fall, perhaps we can start experimenting with no-till gardening next fall! And even if conditions aren’t right in your garden for no-till, cover crops still can have an important place there.
A cover crop is any crop that is planted primarily for the benefit it confers to the soil and garden ecosystem, rather than for the value of its harvest. "Green manures" are cover crops that are planted specifically for their fertility-building potential.
Benefits of Cover Crops:
The list of benefits from cover crops is long. Their primary role is to cover the surface of the soil. Think about it. In natural ecosystems a bare soil will not be bare for very long. "Nature abhors a vacuum" and will cover a bare soil with a protective layer of weeds if we don’t plant something else first. (If it doesn’t it indicates that something is wrong, like severe disturbance, compaction, intense shade, or drought.) Because we may not want the particular plants that nature chooses, we are better off pro-actively choosing a cover crop to serve our own purposes.
Cover crops, like other plants, both domestic and wild, are nature’s erosion control. A cover crop protects soil by absorbing the pounding force of raindrops with its leaves, and by holding it in place with its roots as rain washes and wind blows over it. A cover-crop’s leafy canopy shades the soil from the baking of the sun and keeps it cool.
Cover crops harvest sunlight and convert it into organic matter in the late fall and early spring, times when many gardens are bare. With more organic matter, tilth is improved, making tillage (and no-till!) easier. Infiltration is improved, so that more water goes into the soil instead of running off the surface, which reduces both erosion and need for irrigation. Deep-rooted cover crops like rye may break up a plow pan or compacted zone, further improving infiltration.
Organic matter also feeds beneficial soil organisms, like earthworms. There is increasing evidence that the complex soil ecology enhanced by cover crops may actually help suppress soil-borne plant diseases! And if allowed to bloom, cover crops such as clovers, buckwheat, and mustards provide nectar meals to beneficial insects which help control insect pests.
Leguminous cover crops are well-known for their ability to "fix" atmospheric nitrogen into forms that can be taken up by plants, thereby reducing or even eliminating the need for nitrogen fertilizers. Hairy vetch has fixed up to 180 lbs of N in a year; alfalfa up to 100 lbs; and sweet clover up to 90 lbs! In general, about half of this nitrogen becomes available to subsequent crops in the first year after plowdown of a legume, with the rest becoming available over several years. But non-legumes growing side-by-side with legumes may benefit from nitrogen from the legumes immediately.
Nitrogen is not the only plant nutrient enhanced by cover crops. Buckwheat, sweet clover, and lupines have been shown to solubilize soil phosphorus, and possibly potassium and micro nutrients as well. Deep rooted cover crops, such as grain rye, keep nutrients from being leached by heavy rains to below where shallow-rooted crops can reach them. (Leaching of nitrate, a form of nitrogen, is especially a concern because it can enter groundwater where it becomes a human health hazard.) Even shallow-rooted brassicas like mustard and rape can help keep nutrients available when grown as cover crops. They are useful for short periods between other crops because they grow quickly and decay quickly, readily releasing the nutrients in them to the next crop. Basically, cover crops play an important role in keeping plant nutrients cycling--and recycling!
Cover crops can be used to control weeds by competition with them and by "allelopathy". The faster a cover crop germinates after planting and the faster it blankets the soil with a canopy of leaves, the better it out-competes weeds for sunlight, water and nutrients. It simply smothers them out. Buckwheat, mustards and rape are especially good at this. Some cover crop residues contain chemicals, so-called "allelopathic" compounds, which suppress the germination and growth of other plants. Rye is the best known allelopathic cover crop, but barley, oats, wheat, buckwheat, hairy vetch, and yellow-blossom sweet clover may also contain allelopathic compounds. Scientists are not sure exactly how allelopathy works, but it seems to depend on their decomposition in the soil, which means that incorporation of allelopathic cover crops is essential to take advantage of it. But if you are trying no-till methods, leaving cover crop residues on the soil surface as a mulch
will help suppress weeds by being a physical barrier to their emergence. Mulches have the additional benefits of keeping the soil cool and thus conserving moisture, and of preventing soil splash onto leaves, which helps with disease control.
A final benefit of cover crops, especially in areas with cold wet springs like Minnesota, is that they soak up excess moisture, drying soil for earlier planting in spring. Drier soils also warm faster. This benefit can quickly turn into a problem however if conditions turn dry: in Georgia I once had a cover crop suck the soil so dry that I couldn’t get a shovel into it. And cover crops may delay soil warming in the spring by shading the soil too much.
Most of the problems with cover crops are the flip side of their benefits. But none of them are insurmountable with a few management tricks.
Management of Cover Crops
So, you’re convinced that cover crops would be good to grow, but you have no idea how to fit them into your already overcrowded garden season. Your garden is too small to spare any space for them in the summer, which leaves the winter. But there simply doesn’t seem to be enough time between harvest of the last vegetables in the fall and the first winter snow to get a cover crop established, and even if you could, in the spring you would want to plow it down before it had grown enough to make a difference.One way to stretch our short windows for cover crops is to overlap growing seasons either by 1) "overseeding" cover crops into standing vegetable crops in late summer, or by 2) planting your vegetables "no-till" into standing cover crops in the spring. The latter is basically what I described in my "no-till" article last spring.
You do not have to wait to plant your whole garden to one kind of cover crop at one time. Rather, as harvest of each type of vegetable is completed you can clean it up and plant that area to cover crops immediately. If you clear out a bed in August, plant oats mixed with hairy vetch there; plant rye in beds that aren’t cleared until later. That is what the folks at Red Cardinal CSA farm do. Better yet, don’t wait for the end of the vegetable season, but "overseed" your cover crops into standing vegetable crops in late summer. Simply scatter the seeds between your vegetables just before hoeing them, then water them in well.
The greatest challenge of cover crops is that there is a trade-off between not leaving them in long enough in the spring and leaving them in too long. The longer you let a cover crop grow, the more organic matter it will provide, the more nitrogen it will fix, and the more phosphorus it will mobilize. But the longer you let it grow, the tougher its residues become and the more slowly they decay, delaying the release of the nutrients in them to subsequent crops. Not only is there a lag time in availability of nutrients contained in the residues, but the actual decay process can temporarily tie up nitrogen from the soil! This is because the soil micro-organisms responsible for decaying the residues need a balanced diet: if residues are low in nitrogen, like straw, they will take the nitrogen they need from the soil, depriving your crops of it. The micro-organisms will re-release the nitrogen when the decomposition process is complete, but to keep from having your crops be stunted by nitrogen deficiency in the early stages of their growth, be sure to allow at least two weeks between plowing down an old coarse cover crop, like rye or wheat, and planting your crop. An alternative is simply not to plow them in: if they are not mixed in with the soil but left on the surface as a mulch they will not tie up nitrogen. Or plant a leguminous cover crop like vetch or clover together with your grain cover crop to boost its nitrogen.
This is where a no-till/living mulch system fits in: by planting directly into a living cover crop one may prolong the benefits of the cover crop.(See my article in the spring issue of this newsletter for details on how to do this.) In Georgia I simply transplanted my tomatoes directly into holes dug in a standing crimson clover cover crop. As the tomatoes grew I hand pulled the clover from an ever-expanding ring around them, and eventually smothered the clover out with a thick mulch of old hay. Here in Minnesota, Mark Zumwinkle (MN Dept of Ag’s Energy and Sustainable Agriculture Program) plants rye and hairy vetch in the fall (mid-September to late October), and in the spring uses zone or strip tillage to clear a narrow strip to plant his crops into, leaving most of the cover crop as a living mulch.
Cover crops used as living mulches must be controlled: if they are too close to a growing crop they may compete with it for water, nutrients, and sunlight. Failure to do this was probably the cause of the failure of the living mulch experiment reported on in the Greenbook ‘97. In a home-scale garden, control can be by hand pulling from an ever-expanding ring around the crop or by smother mulching with a thick layer of grass-clippings, straw, or old hay.Another option is to use a cover cropof a type that dies naturally before spring planting, such as oats. Some cover crops, such as rye and hairy vetch will survive the winter cold, but can be killed by mowing once they start to head out or bloom.
Mark Zumwinkle (MN Dept of Ag’s Energy and Sustainable Agriculture Program) came up with a clever system for controlling cover crops in the spring at the same time as speeding soil warming: "plant pillows". His plant pillows are water-filled clear plastic tubes laid on top of the cover crop. They are like a cross between "Wall of Water" season extenders and black plastic mulch, but they warm the soil better than "wall of water" because the earth beneath them provides some thermal mass. And although the clear plastic, unlike black plastic, lets light through and thus the cover crops may continue to grow for awhile, the weight of the water keeps them from pushing the plastic up and eventually smothers them to death. When the soil is warm enough, usually in June sometime, Mark replaces the pillows with a hay or straw mulch.
Recommended Cover Crops for Minnesota
Oats need to be planted in August, and thus are a good cover crop to follow crops which are finished by then. They do not survive the winter, but this can be an advantage for early spring crops that are planted no-till: one can plant directly into the matt of dead oat residues, which will help suppress weeds.
Rye will also suppress weeds, but it can be planted up until late October, though it is best to plant it in mid-August to mid-September. It is extremely winter hardy, needing only to have germinated before frost to vernalize. It may not look like it’s doing anything on most of those cold autumn days--it may even look dead-- but it is poised ready to take advantage of any little warm-up in the weather to do a little growing and in the spring it will grow with such vigor that it can get away from you.
Rye needs only to grow to six inches or so before being killed to still have some benefit. At that stage it can be killed by tilling it in or by smothering it. But if left longer it can be hard to kill, even with tillage! Mowing it after it is over a foot tall works, but that is usually not until late June, too late to plant most vegetables. If it gets away from you like that you might as well grow it for an abundant supply of rye straw mulch, right there where you can use it!
Rye should not be planted preceding small-seeded crops like onions or carrots, which may be affected by its allelopathic compounds; transplants into rye residues do not seem to be affected.
Hairy vetch is a winter-hardy annual legume which is known for its ability to fix large amounts of nitrogen. When you buy it be sure to ask for inoculant to go with it. Inoculant is necessary for nitrogen fixation to occur. Hairy vetch should be planted in August, the same as oats. Interseeding hairy vetch with oats or rye is a good practice since the stiff stems of the grains will help hold the viney hairy vetch up, and the grains could use a nitrogen boost from the vetch. Hairy vetch will not winter kill, so it will be necessary to kill it mechanically by mowing or smothering it..
Alfalfa, white clover, and yellow-blossom sweet clover are also winter-hardy legumes. White clover and alfalfa are perennials, whereas sweet clover is a biennial. In field scale agriculture all three are commonly planted in spring with a small grain "nurse crop". After the grain is harvested they are left for hay and to build the soil for a year or more. In a garden system they could be used the same way, if there is enough space to take out of growing vegetables for a year or two of fallow. If there is not that much space, white clover planted in the spring could be used as a "living mulch". Alfalfa and yellow-blossom sweet clover would be good candidates for overseeding into standing vegetables in the early fall.
Buckwheat, mustard, rape, and turnips are all short-season summer crops, good for filling gaps in the planting schedule as short as 30 to 40 days. Buckwheat is an excellent smother crop and is one of the best-known crops for mobilizing soil phosphorus. Two successive crops of buckwheat are sometimes planted, for maximum effect. Be warned that although buckwheat flowers are excellent nectar-producers for beneficial insects, if it is allowed to go to seed it can become a weed itself. Mustard, rape and turnips have similar benefits as buckwheat. Since they are all brassicas, they must not be used in rotations with cabbages, broccoli, or cauliflower, because of common pests with them.
Faba Beans and Lupines are grown for their ability to fix nitrogen. Although they are not frost tolerant, they do not tolerate heat well either, so should be planted in early spring, or for a fall crop. They are lousy competitors with weeds, so they should be tended like other vegetables. The large seeds of faba beans can be eaten, either as green beans in the pods, or as dry beans.
Experiment!
There are more different kinds of green manures, and more ways of using them than I have been able to describe here, so I encourage you to experiment. And let me know what you learn! Cover crops can be a lot of fun to grow. When rye and alfalfa green up in the spring, while the rest of the world is yet a dull brown, it can be magical. Not only do they remind us that yes, there is life in that seemingly life-less garden, but it is satisfying to know that by growing them one is doing the right thing for one’s soil.
Planting cover crops this fall is the first step for no-till gardening next spring. Reduced- or no-till gardening is not well developed in Minnesota, or anywhere else for that matter. But responsible soil stewardship calls for it where appropriate. I would like to challenge those of you who have a bent for experimentation to give some of the ideas I have presented a try in a corner, especially if you have a soft loamy soil with good fertility that has been gardened for many years. I do not recommend it for garden plots with lots of rhizomatous weeds (the deep mulch method would be more appropriate there) or for soils with a plow pan (double digging and or cover cropping would be better there). But after you have built the soil with these methods, and with applications of lots of organic matter, you may also find that reduced till methods help you maintain the improvements you have made. Try it! And let me know how it works for you!

Update:

I wrote this article two years ago, in the spring of 1998, when I had first moved to Minnesota. I felt a little nervous writing it then, when I had no experience with what I was recommending here in Minnesota. But now I am happy to say that I do, and that it works!
I am now starting my third season no-till gardening here. I use permanent raised beds to warm and dry the soil faster in the spring, and to channel foot traffic to limit compaction around plant roots. In the fall I plant cover crops either oats and hairy vetch in August, or rye in September/October. I either hand pull or hoe the cover crops out for small seeded crops, or plant directly into them for larger seeded crops and transplants, later using a thick mulch of lawn clippings or straw to smother them out. For heat-loving crops like tomatoes, peppers and melons I pre-warm the soil with clear plastic or with wall-o-waters. This spring I plan to dig out some of the pathways, using that soil which has been enriched by decomposed mulch to build up the height of the raised beds. The only problem has been that creeping Charlie is starting to invade at the edge of the garden; I'll dig just enough to get it out.
I haven’t done a controlled scientific experiment to compare yields from this method with more conventional methods, but I’ve harvested enough vegetables for my own needs. And there is plenty of evidence of soil health: infiltration of water after a rain or watering is rapid (even last spring when it was so wet) and earthworms are abundant. I’m looking forward to observing how the system evolves over many years!

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by bryanccfshr

I won't get into the Daconil-vs- organic debate but I have never used daconil. I am loosing 3 large Big boys plants not to disease but to 2,4d!!!! MY NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR USED WEED AND FEED. 1

I don't mean to hammer anyone that uses the stuff but if I had the money I would buy out Scott's and close down the company

Austin Texas has many springs and streams that are constantly polluted by folks using this garbage and other deadly chemicals on their yard.

This has been a known problem for years!!!!!

The people that build out in west Austin put in large homes on a rock pile then put down Saint Augustine sod on top of this.

Then they have to water and fertilize all year long to keep it alive.

Everything is on a hill around here so every time their bless id automatic sprinkler comes on all of this poison washes into the streams.

It's a waste of water to say the least.
Lake Travis is a mud hole compared to what it used to be.
Sure it is full now but thats only because we have had A LOT OF RAIN.

So what happens when it drys up and we go on water rationing to the point that we cant grow tomatoes?
Just because a bunch of folks want to have a golf green for a yard.
Its coming soon with all of the urban sprawl going on and every yard has a lawn.

One little yard may be 1/4 of and acre but you take into account all of the houses and you have 1,000's of acres of grass with with all of this water being wasted on it and lord knows how many barrels of toxic waste being put on it.

If a train load of this poison were to spill it would be a
catastrophe, and thats what is being put out every year, 'train loads.

If you read the label on this stuff and do as it says, you cant use it.

Sorry for the rant, I'm just as guilty as the rest on some of this stuff.

I'll back down now, I just get stirred up sometimes.

Now, 'what was this thread about?

Soon to be dictator of Texas.

Worth

[dcarch]

There are many sides to any issue. One has to take into all considerations and put things in the proper perspective and proportion. Extreme views serve to polarize and always counterproductive.

I think organic v.s. non-organic is important to study because of some non-reversible effects to the environment. But I think mostly we are talking about the immense commercial applications. As for most of us backyard gardeners, as far as the environment is considered, (not talking about personal health) the result is very negligible. (I understand everything adds up).

For me, I will experiment with many techniques just because I am curious, and I am having fun. I do take extra precautions whenever I have to use chemicals or questionable techniques.

I posted in another thread the consideration of using UV to sanitize the environment, which is 100% non-polluting, and a technique commonly used, I was very surprised and disappointed at the some reactions from some of the members. So I had to stop the thread.

I am experimenting the following regarding Daconil,

I am using an ultrasonic mixer to mix the solution. The manufacturer indicates the solution (a suspension) lasts about six hours. I seem to have found that the solution lasts much longer if it’s mixed with the ultrasonic mixer. I am curious if the ultrasonically mixed solution is more potent (therefore you can use a lot less) because it is much more homogeneous.

I am considering the use of electrostatic spraying technology for spraying Daconil. Plants, stems and leaves, are electrically conductive. Electrostatic sprayer will drastically eliminate over-spray, and the nice thing is that it will coat the underside of the leaves at the same time. I think 85 % of Daconil is wasted using the normal sprayer.

So Guys, Have fun! We are here to eat great tomatoes, and to find out how we can have plenty of them.

dcarch

[Worth1]

dcarch please look at link below.
I am by no means trying to start an argument over organic VS chemicals.I have daconil my self
when folks think of Texas they think of flat land, cows and desert.
You also mentioned large commercial farms as the culprit to most of the pollution, that is very true in some areas.
The Rio grand valley is one of these places.
Where I live is very important to me central Texas is a unique place with the Edwards aquifer and porous lime stone we have here.

The Austin area is a beautiful place and trough out my life I have seen the area change drastically, creeks dry up, swimming holes dry up, springs dry up, lakes dry up.
25 years ago at lake Travis it was a big thing for it to be 30 feet below normal.
Now it is common to see levels like this.
25 feet below normal is normal now.

The people that move in here have no idea what this place looked like 40 years ago (I do).

The so called high tech industry could not have picked a worse spot to come too.

When I was 8 years old you knew you were in town when you got to the what they called the (state hospital for the insane) back then.
Now the suburban sprawl has reached Lampasas 70 miles away where I was born.

Yes all of the chemical's from the stuff we put on our yards and more have been found in the springs and water sheds.

I just don't like what I see.

I guess thats why folks like me aren't supposed to live past about 75, we cant handle that much change.

And yes Tom TOO MUCH tilling/plowing does destroy the land and top soil.
Thats how the dust bowl came about.
Plus many years of no rain, my mom and dad lived trough it.

http://www.environmenttexas.org/pres...barton-springs

[bryanccfshr]

Worth, I agree. I am a big lover of the hill country and our spring fed creeks and rivers. My personal choice is organic and I influence most my neighbors. But there are still a few that use Scotts lawn service or my favorite misnomer of all "Chem lawn" (what the hell kinda name?)and of course that one next door neighbor who thinks weed and feed and blue water are his ticket to less yard work. I will build more tomatoe beds AWAY from that fence line so the tomatoe roots don't reach out for poison and continue . The funny thing is I had told his wife she could pick any tomatoes she could reach from her yard.. her husband killed that oppurtunity and her rose bushes. (idiot).
It sickens me that this is so widely acceptable. We need to do more to reduc e runnoff and conserve water. I like to fish the guadalupe downstream of Seguin for catfish. I don't like the fact that all that poison from two medium sized cities (new braunfels and seguin) plus a lot of farms ends up in that river. It is still clear but algea blooms in late July-august.

In Corpus Christi bay where I have fished so much my night fish ing trips were often changed by high pjhospourous levels in the water. Anything pulled through the water would light up.

My wife is a realtor, yet my biggest hope is for a housing crash to slow down the building..


My admittances to non organic.
I will round up the areas that I construct new beds in(first time to use it in a couple of years but from Malcolm Becks opinion on it I think its the less of two evils.
I have Miracid I use on some plants that are planted in almost pure crushed granite.
Instead of throwing away my Scotts Turf builder grass fertilizer when I went organic I have been using it as supplemental nitrogen for my compost. (waste not)

I think urea is acceptable in some cases.

If I saw foilage disease as a problem I would consider Daconil. My seaweed and cornmeal juice sprays seem to hold it at bay and by the ti9me foilage disease becomes a problem it will be too hot to worry about the tomatoes.