I closely mow and smother all my cover crops at green manuring time.

My cool season legume favorites are crimson clover, hairy vetch, and Austrian winter peas. Non-legume favorites are radishes and mustard greens.

My warm season legume favorites are all forms of beans. Non-legume favorites are buckwheat and sunflowers.

Swanz

Supplies nitrogen all season long and no other weeds grow through.

Austrian winter pea and Calendula for my other beds.

A natural forest floor has mulched browns on top of the soil. The oldest stuff is on bottom, the newest stuff on top. Also there may be some animal matter mixed in too, like dung or even small dead insects or animals. But the forest floor always has more browns than greens and more plant matter than any animal matter. Also heavy browns (like leaves) are on top to mask any funky odors, and to preserve the available nitrogen in the topsoil (or mini-sheet compost pile).

Excessive tillage not only harms or kills earthworms and other beneficial soil macro-organisms, but it also kills and harms mycorhizza fungi in the soil. (Necessary for phosphorus and other nutrients to be released to plant roots.)

Excessive tillage in the soil can be compared to excessive turning, or unnecessary frequent movements to a cooking compost stockpile! It also harms beneficial fungi from forming and growing properly.

Swanz

Because here in TX, I see no tomatoes or basil or mint or other garden plants growing in the wild. So while I could see growing say buffalo grass or bluebonnets with no till, I don't quite see how it would be the best method of growing things that dont naturally grow in our region. Growing organic, I get-I understand that pesticides are lousy for us and that chemical fertilizers have issues with runoff and don't help plants like organic fertilizers. But...the goal is still to grow things that aren't native as well as if not more efficiently than conventional gardening.

But I just can't get my head around how not tilling would be good, but I'll look into it for sure and thank you so much for sharing the info.

You wouldnt want to put down any manures that would burn your plants once they are established, instead use more gentle feeds like alfalfa or crack corn or aged compost.

Just wanted to speak up as a no tiller here!

Domesticated veggies are bred to be hungrier than the native
plants that grow in the wild. They are bred to demand more
water, nutrients, etc. in order to supply you with large delicous
luscious fruits in a relatively short time. With the No Till
method you're simply magnifying to the nth degree what happens
in nature at a slower pace. They say it takes many years for the
forest to build an inch of good soil. But through composting
and adding organic matter we can build up our veggie or flower
beds rather quickly.The native plants in your area do use the
resources available more efficiently than Our domesticated veggies
or else they wouldn't survive..No till method does not mean
not adding nutrients or organic matter to the soil, it just
requires a steady input of OM to the top layer of soil and
letting the earthworms, fungi, bacteria, etc. use it to feed
the soil and then the plants.

Swanz

My land has not been tilled recently; we just bought it a few months ago. It is pretty clay filled. I'm getting the soil test done this week. My plan at this point is to build up as many no-till beds as I can over the next few months, and then cultivate the rest traditionally when planting time nears. Over the years, maybe I can convert more and more to no-till.

I was also planning on cover-cropping my unused field with seedballs, not tilling. Have you used this method? If so, which cover crops do best for seedball cultivation/replacing the grasses that are currently there?

I was surprised to hear that you use vetch a lot. I've heard so much that it is hard to kill, I just assumed I couldn't use it in a no till method. What about summer alfalfa? I was considering using that and letting the cold weather kill it.

Anyone else can answer these questions too -- I just directed them to CC because it seemed he was doing it on a larger scale. It's funny, all the info about no-till seems to be for either smaller gardens or HUGE scale farmers. There's less info about mid-size no-till operations. I'd appreciate any thoughts.

If you till and cover crop intensively for a few years, you might be able to get it to the point where no-till becomes more of an option. It takes time and compost :).

Well, if your soil is compacted and you want a jump start you can till the first year, afterwards you won't need to. But what you want to do is make beds that are no more than 3-4 feet across (so you can reach in without walking on the soil), and put permanent paths between them that are at least 2-3 feet across. The only reason your soil gets all compacted is because you walk on it, when you are planting, weeding, harvesting, etc. Box the beds in so you know where they are. To keep your no till you can still cover crop the boxed beds, just don't ever walk on them. Heap them up with organic matter and the worms will keep them tilled up for you.

For some really interesting ideas on gardening for the household check out Square Foot Gardening. There's a website aptly called www.squarefootgardening.com that you might check out. Before anyone flies off the handle about how its not sustainable because of the peat and the buying of soil. Just look at the good stuff that it points out.

1. Don't walk on the soil.
2. Make beds small enough so you can reach across them.
3. Divide the planting area into squares so you know what is where.
4. Don't plant 2000 carrots on a Saturday all in a row, plant 20 this Saturday and 20 more in two weeks in a little square.
5. Use 20 percent of the area to grow 100 percent of the produce (think of the long rows in a row garden where tons of space (nearly 80 percent of your soft tilled soil) is wasted.
6. Use compost, its good stuff.
7. Lots more stuff I can't remember.

If it bothers you, don't use peat and don't buy potting soil and use it for your garden. But don't discount the whole idea because of a few things that tick you off.

Thanks for reading.

-Kyle