Any other "No Tillers" out there?

[Lindsaylew82]

I have created a no till system for my garden that has worked VERY well for me for the last 4 years. It has a lot of pros, but just a few cons.

My biggest con? Pests. Which honestly, is no better or worse than prior years, whith the exception of CATERPILLERS.

My question is for other folks that don't till, how do you clean up your garden at the end of each season?

Obviously, I remove diseased plants, spent plants, and any other dead plant material. I cut my plants off at the soil level and leave the roots to decompose. With the exception of cucurbits. I pull the main root clump out, for SVB control. I don't however, remove my mulch. I build layer on layer, every year.

So, how do you control soil dwelling, over wintering pests in a no till system?

I need chickens or guinea hens. I'm definitely gonna increase pressure on my husband about the issue, and figure out what it is he actually has a problem with. I can't get chickens, until I get a fence. In the budget for next year February or March 2015.

Still, they don't go very deep into the soil.

[!potatoes!]

I'm pretty much no-till. I think the main thing in dealing with pests is encouraging a multiplicity of predators. I don't do a lot to prevent overwinterers.

[applestar]

Interesting response !potatoes!

This has been my trend as well. I cut at soil level but leave plant material in the same bed or the paths for the same bed to decompose. I have been thinking that the localized predators that were attracted by the pests in these plants need to overwinter just as much as the pests.

Many sources describe pests overwintering in plant material and the need to chop up and till/bury but it's actually hard to find good descriptions of lifecycle and overwintering habits of the predators.

(I'm having trouble with russet mites this year, so I actually have a tab open on predatory mites right now -- I'm looking for ways to attract, encourage, and promote them in my Garden Patrol -- https://www.nysipm.cornell.edu/factsheet ... /pm/pm.asp
This one's harder to read and have only skimmed so far :
Habitat Management to Conserve Natural Enemies of Arthropod Pests in Agriculture )

I'm not sure how this idea fits in with crop rotation which I do also practice. I'm less certain about disease prevention which crop rotation is supposed to help with, so not entirely willing to give that up. (But if I was trying to encourage the predators in situ, then shouldn't I grow the same crop there next year?)

I seem to heavy mulch in some areas, not so much in others -- this has been a coincidence of available material, but I have been wondering if there are any adverse effects to heavy mulching. I want to explore more about that and figure out the good and the bad.

I intentionally plant potatoes where I WANT to thoroughly dig up for one reason or another. Foremost, I've found the potato bed to leave a nice fluffy clean bed to sow seeds next spring. Also, last fall's sweet potato bed, after thorough rummaging then mulching with the sweet potato vines/foliage over the winter seems to create a rich bed for heavy feeders.

Ha! This is getting pretty long already! I think I have more to say, but will stop for now.

ETA -- I don't know when I actually tilled last. Over a decade ago? Closer to 15? I have variously tried double digging and flipping sod over and sheet mulching when building a new bed. I've double dug a low garden bed that was holding too much water and becoming anaerobic. I've tried pseudo hugelkultur (not quite stumps and logs but up to 3-4" diameter branches. But none of these are same as tilling regularly .

[rainbowgardener]

I don't know if I quite count as no-till. My flower beds are not touched from one year to the next except to plant and thin. (I can plant in to the mulch, because it would be transplants, not seeds.) My veggies are in 4x8 raised beds, so obviously no tiller goes in them. But the veggie beds, I do in early spring turn over with trowel/shovel, turning the last of last year's mulch under where I think it breaks down a lot faster. In this process, I hit the clumps a few times with the shovel or trowel edge, to break it down into a loose, fluffy bed, with bare ground for planting seeds in. The soil in those beds has had so much added to it and gardened so long, hitting it with the shovel edge a few times is all it takes for it to completely fall apart.

I also don't leave all the plant debris in place when I cut things down; I carry it to the compost pile. I know, in a way it is odd to carry stuff to the compost pile and then carry the compost back, but I do think finished compost from a mix of stuff is a different substance than just broken down plants of whatever grew there. AND at least in theory, that discourages whatever bug that likes to eat those plants, from just hanging out in the bed. I don't know even theoretically, if turning the mulch under in spring does anything to discourage any bugs that may have overwintered in it. If anyone else has thoughts about that, I'd be glad to hear.

I understand that no-till purists would say even the gentle turning with a shovel I do, disrupts fungal hyphae. I believe since I didn't chop it up fine with a tiller and I did turn under a bunch of organics, they probably grow back pretty soon. The last couple years I have been doing green/brown mulch - fall leaves or wood chips mixed with grass clippings and pulled weeds - so it should make decent compost in the soil.

I've done the required reading , but I still never understand the idea of planting seeds into a bed that is covered with mulch and hasn't been loosened up at all. Does that really work, folks?

[applestar]

I've been finding that carrots in particular, sprinkled into a bed with loose mulch like grass clippings, will come up unexpectedly -- usually about when I've given up on them thinking they must have dried out.

I'm thinking it depends on ability of seedlings to grow through mulch and am currently trying to keep track of what works and what doesn't. Certainly grassy seedlings such as in the carrot family, onions, corn all seem to work.

[Lindsaylew82]

I have trouble growing beans and Okra on my raised rows. I do till a smaller patch for them. I had issues with squash/zucchini at first, but not now. Maybe I should try the beans and okra again....

I don't disrupt the mounds at all. Just add more mulch, more grass clippings, and another layer of packaging paper every year. I'm not even sure if I need the packaging paper anymore... I think that probably inhibits seed growth more than anything. Weed growth, too though. Double edged sword?

I think in nature, mulches are not removed, and seeds are dropped close to the parent plant. They are also carried far away via birds. Diversity isn't controlled. In an ideal world, invasives (both plant and insect) are non-issues. Crop rotation doesn't happen, but diversity is wide.

I need to stop neeming I think... Messing with my own bio diversity, but it's very hard to watch all that work and money waste to hornworms and squash bugs. I attract all the beneficials that I can.

Are there birds other than chickens that work the ground in the same way?

[rainbowgardener]

Yup. I don't do much "crop rotation" because my sunny areas are so limited, but I do very big diversity of planting. Lots of stuff in each bed, including herbs and flowers for the beneficial insects. Various alliums scattered through all the beds.

I have never used Neem and don't do much spraying. I used to make a garlic pepper spray sometimes, but found out that its not very effective against the worst bugs - e.g. I have sprayed it directly on squash bugs and it doesn't seem to bother them or make them decide to leave. I think it works against other things, but not what I most worry about.

So I mostly rely on handpicking, squishing aphids, trap crops, and beneficial insects/ Garden Patrol (including birds, lizards, etc), especially the Garden Patrol, with heavy mulch against weeds and diseases and to conserve moisture. I do low maintenance gardening!

[Lindsaylew82]

Yeah. I hand pick. Sooooooo much hand picking. Lately, it's been squash bugs. Their numbers have tripled nearly every 2 days. My heavy mulch encourages them, though. I lift the plant, grab, stomp, gag on smell, move to the next plant.

Last night was the first time I've used neem oil in 5 weeks. I even have squash bugs laying eggs on my cucumber plants...