No till gardening

[imafan26]

I have some questions on no till gardening.

I have some bark chips that I can use for browns and I usually use kitchen waste for the greens. I can't use my grass clippings because I have weeds in them. I can use some leaves from my other plants when I prune them.

Does it matter if I am using leaves from ornamental plants?
If I don't have enough greens, can I use fertilizer instead?

I got some fish meal but I ended up tilling it in because the mongoose will dig it up.

I am doing this on an existing bed so how thick should the layers be and can I use compost as mulch?

When you plant, do you plant in the compost layer on top or through the mulch layer into the dirt.

I have very wet clay. I added cinders before and it helped. Can I add cinders as a layer?

Do I have to top it off with more dirt?

I found a lot of videos on starting the garden, but not much on what to do once it is established.

I found that the mulch I used initially sank as it decomposed over time. Would I have to removate the bed like it was being started over again

[rainbowgardener]

It sounds like you are following some kind of specific plan. It might help if you include a link that describes what you are trying to do. Something like a lasagne garden?

In the meantime:

"I can't use my grass clippings because I have weeds in them." As long as you mow before the weeds go to seed, they are not a problem and are just more greens.

"Does it matter if I am using leaves from ornamental plant" Not at all, as long as the plant wasn't sprayed with anything nasty.

"I got some fish meal but I ended up tilling it in because the mongoose will dig it up" I don't have mongeese, but I can't use fish products either, because the cats and raccoons will dig it up. It's really good stuff, but I don't see how anyone ever uses it. I can put it at the bottom of a deep hole and put dirt back in the hole and then plant a tree on top of it and the raccoons will unplant the tree to get to it.

Yes you can use compost as mulch/ top dressing.

The rest I can't answer, because I'm not used to building a garden in layers like that. Someone with more experience in what you are doing will have to answer the rest.

[imafan26]

Thanks rainbow.

I have tried many things on this garden to try to work around the issues. It was renovated in 2008. At the time I was not aware that there were drainage issues which the powers that be chose not to address. the herb garden is appoximately 50ft by 25 ft.

After the first big winter rains it became clear that the garden had several low spots and water would collect for hours after irrigation and days after a heavy rain at high tide. The garden sits 17 ft above sea level.

I have had to change some plants. Some plants simply cannot be grown there at all because of climate and drainage problems. I have moved some of the most susceptible plants into planters instead and most plants that do survive can either handle the sodden soil, are annuals, or have to be treated as short lived perennials. Nematodes are a problem in some parts of the garden. Nut sedge had blown in from an adjacent plot and came in with some dirt and now infests the garden. Pine needles, heavy mulch and lots of weeding are the main controls I have. I do not expect to eliminate it. Herbicides are not allowed.

I have limited resources, but I do have access to a lot of tree trimmings, some compost, not a lot of good soil.

I have tested the soil a couple of times. The results are similar. pH 7.8 (I got it down to 7.2 with sulfur, but it needs to be added continuously). Phos around 1800, K high, Ca high. Chicken manure was initially added in 2008 but not used since. We have added bone meal (really meat meal), but it contains unwanted phos and it needs to be used in a short time or it becomes putrid. I have added worm tea, and vermicast when it is available. I am using sulfate of ammonia as the main fertilizer since it contains the two elements I need nitrogen and sulfur and none of what I don't need. I occasionally use fish emulsion but that is rare. I have grown several green manure crops, they mostly add biomass and do suppress some weeds briefly. The legumes do not fix much nitrogen (0-4 nodules) without inoculation.

The picture is what the garden looked like April 2009. The plants in the foreground is buckwheat used as a green manure. I was having issues with drainage then, but the weeds were not a problem yet. The nut sedge came from the poorly tended plot behind it. I will have to take a new picture to compare. The garden still has a lot of plants that grow well, Some things grow robustly, but I am constantly trying to get it out of the muck.

I cannot do anything about the fact that it lies in a low area and will flood when it rains.
I have tried to raise the beds using the resources I have available mostly mulch and compost. This is why I have tried sheet mulching, as a way to raise the beds and provide a good planting zone for the herbs.

The wet clay is difficult to work and digging it up just makes the nut sedge problem worse.

[rainbowgardener]

Wow... what a challenge -- heavy, wet, alkaline, clay soil with poor drainage and flooding! And yet what a beautiful garden you have made there. Tell us what plants we are seeing in the picture, please...

So yes, raising the beds as much as you can (give yourself another foot or two above sea level! ) seems like the solution to a lot of the issues. You can fill it with good soil, improves drainage, etc.

In the meantime, it would help to grow things that like or tolerate wet soil. I don't know how many of these would grow in Hawaii, but herbs for wet soil include:

mint, parsley, bee balm, milkweed, watercress, black cohosh, comfrey, chervil, lemon balm, lemon verbena, lemon grass, marshmallow.

[imafan26]

What you see in the picture at the right front is the buckwheat green manure. In front of the buckwheat is lavender multifida (not in the original view). Right back is horseradish. The far left back is arrowroot. The back of the center bed is citrossa (not a culinary herb but a favorite among visitors) the tall flowering plant in the back of the center bed is nicotiana (flowering tobacco), in front of the tobacco are green onions and garlic chives. the bushes covered in blue flowers are borage. On the right next to the borage are scented geraniums (nutmeg, cinnamon, and pepppermint) There is a bowl of mint you probably cannot see in that view, thyme, safflower, sage and dwarf French and crackerjack marigolds that are in the garden for color and pest control. In these other views I have added you can see a small bed that contains mostly cilantro and parsley.

Lavender augustifolia lasted two weeks in the garden. Lavender multifida was killed by rain later in the year. I now have a sad looking plant in a pot. Borage, dill, safflower, cilantro are seasonal additions. You may be able to see the lemon grass, basil and nasturtium in the views below. The lemon grass got root rot, so I need to find a drier place and clean plants to replace it. It took a while to die. I knew something was wrong because the lemon grass kept blooming and it rarely ever blooms.

The bed with the cilantro and parsley was constantly flooded when it rained, so it was paved over and large pots now sit there that contain marjorram, Mexican Oregano and lavender multifida.

There are a few of the plants in the garden that you mentioned. The garden has lemon balm and has had chervil off and on, it cannot grow year round. Marshmallow would be something I can look into if I can get seeds and it can grow in zone 12b. Comfrey is in the medicinal quadrant. This is section is primarily culinary, but since many of the culinary herbs are also medicinal there is some overlap. This garden is truly in zone 12b so some of the cooler herbs did not survive like black cohosh. Watercress requires clean running water, we have stagnant, phythophthora infested wet soil. lemon verbena and lovage killed by phythophthora. Chili pepppers are good for about three years and when the roots get too deep they will wilt and die in a week from phythophthora.

The herb garden was originally divided into quadrants culinary, medicinal, Asian, and other. The other has now become the "organic". Since there was a plan but no one volunteered to take on maintenance for the Asian quadrant, and funding for the hardscape was not available. It became a plot of weeds. The Asian herbs were languishing in the shade house so, I have planted out the culinary Asian herbs into the culinary quadrant. Actually out of state visitors prefer to see the more unusual herbs in the tropics vs meditterannean ones since they can see better examples where they are from.

What follows is a list of what is currently in the garden. Basil - lemon, thai, cinnamon, African. I have not been able to grow sweet basil since 2010 because of basil downy mildew. peanuts, hot peppers (Jalapeno, Thai, Chili,Cascabella, tabasco, Cayenne, Anaheim), daylilies (flowers are edible), pandan, cutting celery, multiplier onions, gynuura(cholesterol plant), stevia, mint, garlic, leeks, rosemary, roselle, false roselle, green onions, garden and garlic chives, pineapple sage, perilla (shiso), white horseradish, papaya, turmeric, ginger, finocchio fennel, arrowroot, lalot, Mexican tarragon (French tarragon will not grow here, it is a direct substitute), culantro, thyme, sage, lemon balm, false oregano, marjoram, Mexican oregano, lavender multifida, Russian sage (for color and to attract polinators), curry plant, scented geraniums, brown turkey fig, parsley, malabar spinach, pineapple mint and spearmint. Seasonally cilantro, chervil, borage, cowpea and sunhemp (cover crops), nicotiana, dill, nasturtiums, safflower, arugula, onions, garlic and sunflowers are grown. Kale is also grown in the garden (left over from plant sales) it is popular among the volunteers and is used to feed the worm bins when no one brings enough food for them. Kale, comfrey and borage help mine the excess calcium from the soil

The fennel, marigolds, basil, blue flowers (borage, Russian sage, lavender multifida, vervain),and sunflowers attract the most pollinators (bees) and beneficial insects- parasitic wasps, lacewings, lady bugs, tachinid flies. Artificial hives have been established for honey bees (in the orchard), leaf cutter bees (in the herb garden, and carpenter bees (by the office)

[applestar]

I think for low area, simplest is to choose plants that tolerate or thrive in it as it sounds like you've been doing, or raise the bed. To raise the bed without the organic material breaking down and sinking back down, one idea that I'm toying with for my own low lying area is hugelkultur or derivative of the concept -- I've already tried some experiments in a tentative kind of way in few spots.

I mentioned this before elsewhere, but the head horticulturalist in charge of a Pine Barrens Native Plant display garden told me that the way to grow these plants native to the sandy Pine Barrens in my garden with solid clay soil is to build an 18-24" raised bed of sand. The sandy soil plants will naturally grow long root systems in search of moisture and find the moist clay layer without getting drowned. You just have to provide extra moisture in the beginning until they are established. I think this idea can be adapted with different soil mix ratio depending on the plant you are trying to grow.

Weedy grass clippings --
With weed seeds --> put UNDER cardboard or 4-5 layers of paper
With weeds that will propagate via stem or root cuttings --> COMPLETELY dessicate on the path, driveway, etc. paved area before using the clippings

Suspect pulled weeds with or without seeds or rofirst can be first processed for about a month into drowned weeds in a bucket of water until completely broken down/fermented. (it turns into what smells like fresh horse manure... Mature seeds may survive this process -- I find this method useful for weeds that will go on to mature the seeds using whats left of the remainingfoliage and roots if left to dry out)

*your garden looks beautiful!*

[imafan26]

I was warned against sand. I did try it in the garden. It made concrete with the clay, but I only tried in in a small spot and I mixed it with the clay. It was probably not the smartest thing to do.

My options are limited. I did consider hugelculture, but we have these things called termites. They like nothing better than wood buried in the ground. They ate my pick, rake and hoe handle so far. My current rake, hoe and shovel have fiberglass handles now.

At another part of the garden called the boardwalk, they did resort to a design of planting on high mounds over 8 ft tall. I think it was mostly made of dirt and stones. It is called the boardwalk because the garden is built around a serpentine boardwalk path. When it rains hard, the boardwalk has a river running through it.

I can mound the beds and I have put the most susceptible plants in planters, I cannot really raise the bed two feet without changing the design.

I forgot to mention that this property formerly had Quonset warehouses on it and it was a junkyard. There was a lot of fill brought in, most of it was not really good stuff. The area that is the herb garden was once a parking lot and every now and then I can still pull up sections of asphalt. It appears that the parking lot was filled but the aphalt was not removed. That has complicated the drainage problem.

I have tried to find adaptable plants and I have quite a few. There are some things I just cannot keep in the garden like cardamom, lovage, lavender agustifolia, or any really acid loving plant. A a few plants that should be perennial but are not, like the chili peppers, rosemary, sage, and thyme. I can grow most of the herbs that have shallow roots and are at least zone 9 plants, but it makes the garden very high maintenance when the majority of the garden are annuals.

Thanks for the advice. I am still looking for suitable culinary herbs that can grow here. The Asian herbs can handle the wetness better, but some of them like the gynuura and lalot like to spread.

[jal_ut]

I was warned against sand. I did try it in the garden. It made concrete with the clay, but I only tried in in a small spot and I mixed it with the clay.

Soils are described by the size of the particles they are made up of. Clay is the finest particle size. Then silt has larger particles, then sand. Along with these particles is usually some organic matter, air, water, and chemicals.

It is worthwhile to do a little reading about soils on the web.

Click

[imafan26]

Thanks J. for the link. I think I did not get the proportions right. I only had a small amount of sand and I had fine sand, wet clay and not enough organic matter in the mix. When wet clay is worked and then dries it becomes just large clods.

[turfdr]

Can you add drainage or a sump?

[imafan26]

I am reviving this thread to get some advice. I have been plagued with very nasty weeds in my main vegetable garden and my sprinkler needs fixing so I decided to turn it off this year. The garden has been invaded by bindweed and I had a problem with nutsedge as well. So, this year, I have left the sprinkler off and every time the weeds have come up, I have sprayed them with round up. Pulling bindweed and nutsedge is futile unless they are seedlings, the underground roots don't die.

It seems to have worked. I have been seeing fewer weeds, I hand pulled the seedlings but I have not seen too many of the deep rooted ones. The nutsedge has not popped up in a couple of months although I still get some bindweed.

The soil in the bed is very hard now because it is so dry, it was very soft before. I don't want to till it because that will likely bring more of the nutsedge to the surface, so I am going to try some modified no till. I am going to either use newspaper or cardboard to cover the main garden and put the planting soil on top.

What should I use? I can buy topsoil, and compost or I have peat moss and can get some bagged compost and steer manure. I tested the garden last year and the pH was 6.0 so I added a little lime, all it needed was a little bit of nitrogen. The rest of the elements will be good for another couple of years at least. I have perlite, but it has not worked that well in the garden when I tried it before. The clay just glued the perlite into balls. The bed does drain well, so maybe I don't need it? I will need to go to the other side of the island to get a bale of straw for mulch. All I have as an alternative would be shredded paper. I cannot use my plumeria leaves, although they are starting to drop because they have plumeria rust. I have been raking them and throwing those away. The other trees are not deciduous. Chipped bark is getting scarce now because of the rhino beetle.
Will a 4 inch layer be enough?

[applestar]

4 inch layer of growing medium above the cardboard? Mix any weed-free media you can get your hands on.

I think it will depend on whether you plan on planting through the cardboard or want to leave the cardboard intact for a period of time to be sure to smother the weeds and give them no escape routes.

4 inches can be enough if you start with shallow-rooted ground cover/root along the stem -type. I’m also thinking if you don’t have enough material, the thing to do is to grow something that can become part of the layers.

It’s a bit difficult to suggest what will work for you because I’m more used to thinking in terms of 5 month-long chill with at least 3 month’s hard ground freeze. But here are things that I would consider and maybe you could come up with similar scenarios:

- Potatoes are one of the top suggestions for sheet mulching because they can grow mostly supported by the mulch. You would cut an X in the cardboard and put the seed potato in the X to grow roots under the cardboard, but just use the mulch to cover the crop potatoes allow the stem to root in the moist mulch. Trouble with potatoes is they harbor solanacea pests and diseases.
- I often plant sunflowers as the first crop - again X for the sunflowers to grow under the cardboard, but their allelopathy as well as significant root systems and annual lifespan means They do most of the clay subsoil infiltration with their roots/organic matter, then die. The stalk can be cut at ground level and piled in the path to be trampled into the soil and disappear during the cold months. Even without trampling, the tough-seeming sunflower stalks become brittle and easily fall apart by next spring, even “saved” in the shed — yes I tried.
— But I use “trampling in the path/swale” as effective method for “composting” tough materials that normally won’t easily break down unless pulverized in some way.
- I find sweet potatoes make good solid groundcover that doesn’t harbor too much fungal issues. In my garden, sweet potatoes often fail to grow harvestable roots, but they do make pencil-thick tubers that when left in the ground over the winter, decay into fertilizer and grow fantastic heavy-feeders next year.
— I have found corn is a good deep root/subsoil organic matter supplier and stalks and leaves can supply future organic matter even without giving me harvestable ears... maybe you could grow sugar cane? (Maybe *I* should try growing sugar cane.... )
- I often use fresh tree and shrub trimmings for the sub and mulch layers. I can’t use thicker branches except as pseudo-hugelkultur (bottom layer) because I don’t have a chipper/shredder, but finger thin woody branches will decay and the green soft new-growth branches and leaves will simply dry up and fall apart. These come from established trees/shrubs as well as volunteers that I let grow in scrubby areas of the garden, my Bonsai wannabe volunteers, and espaliers.
— some of these turn out to root well while fresh — those I know can become a problem are left to dry out in a sunny area first.
— the sticks can be part of the larger aggregates in the soil. Is there anything else you can get? Ground up nutshells and hulls? Seashells? Oh yeah, you said you can’t use some materials because of digging critters. Sand? Sand-size cinder/ash?

...I just had an idea — didn’t you say strawberries don’t grow well for you there? They runner and take over my entire garden if I let them, and they are super winter hardy. I end up having to treat the Wild strawberries like weeds and ruthlessly pull them out of where I don’t want them. If they would grow well for you during the winter, then die in the summer, for example, you might be able to use that to your advantage. They do harbor their own set of issues though — like Rust — would that be same kind of rust as plumeria rust?

The idea is to use whatever grew there as part of the next rotations/successions’s mulch layer, and rotate in crops that would not be bothered. It would be a good idea to grow legumes as well. Generally speaking, don’t look at the first rotation planting as harvestable crop.

[imafan26]

I actually was planning on putting strawberries in part of the garden. I usually keep them in hanging baskets so I can move them around to morning sun in summer and moved away from slugs and snails. I could still grow corn but I would have to use newspaper and not cardboard or the corn would be falling over. I would not have any stalks now. However, I thought I would be planting above the barrier, not through it. Going through the barrier will let the weeds through too. The soil is very rich and high in just about everything so adding fertility is not the goal, just blocking the weeds from coming up.

I don't have shrubs unless you count the vines that are coming over the fence from the neighbors. I have citrus trees, but they do not need pruning. I have already pruned the Indian curry and bilimbi. I might be able to get a couple of more branches from bilimbi, but it is mostly greens. The only other plants I can cut are heliconia and the bay leaf. The heliconia would be like cutting up banana, it is mostly water, but it will dry well. The bay leaves have scale and they don't break down that fast. I cannot use the bougainvillea, it has thorns and a stump laying on the ground will still try to grow. I do have palms and they drop fronds all the time, but not a good idea since rhino beetles like palms. I can scout around the community gardens. Tree trimmers dump their trimmings illegally, sometimes it is good, sometimes it is full of weeds. I'l have to ask the gardeners who use it which piles are good.

I have compost, but I can't really plant in that since it is almost guaranteed to kill my plants from holding too much water. I could put the compost under the newspaper.

It looks like there are only two places to get a straw bale. In Waimanalo 24 miles away or Waialua 13 miles away. I would have to go to Waimanalo to get alfalfa pellets (horse feed) as well. I don't even go to Waimanalo once a year anymore and I always got lost.

I am going to plant above the barrier, so I think for this time I will put the compost under the newspaper, and put potting soil on top. I am going to plant relatively shallow crops now. I have strawberries, chard, perpetual spinach (a kind of chard), cucumber, and maybe some Asian greens. I do have cowpeas and buckwheat that I can plant later. Right now, it is too hot for the buckwheat, but cowpeas or bush beans may work. I am starting broccoli, to plant in September.

I have tilled in corn stalks after I planted them, but this is what I don't get about no til. I till the residues in. Am I supposed to chop and drop? Cover it with compost? I cannot plant in that, so where am I planting? If I dig down into the soil, well, the roots from the corn is still occupying the space. The white fungus that decays the roots usually keeps anything else from growing there until it is finished. Since my garden is small, I only have about 10 inches between the corn so there really is not much space between them to plant.

Potatoes sound intriguing. I have not tried to grow that, but I have done sweet potatoes in pots. They get all over the place and the leaves of those are edible.

A lot of things here have a habit of surviving. There is a compost pile in the garden that was partially composted for a trench composting study. It sprouted papaya and squash. I am cutting vines to fill the trench and I have to pull the papaya when they are still young since I don't want them there. The malabar spinach just won't die, and wild bitter melon is a weed in my yard.

[Gary350]

Clay soil is a nightmare. Gypsum = drywall = sheet rock = drywall mud, is very good at breaking up clay. There is a 9 year study done by Tennessee Tech college you can find online. When I lived at the other house I had a clay problem I got pickup truck loads of drywall pieces from construction sites hauled it home and threw it out then tilled it into the soil. I tried construction sand too it works ok. I had the city bring me truck loads of free tree leaves for organic material I finally had good soil. Once you add enough stuff to the soil it raises the elevation several inches then your above the water during rainy season. It was a lot of work I was 35 year younger then.

[imafan26]

I do have clay soil, but i have worked my garden bed for a few years and I doubled the amount of compost I added a few years ago, so it is relatively easy to work when it is not muddy or very dry. Right now, since I haven't watered it all year, it is really dry and hard, but watering should make it expansive and fluff it up again. It will probably activate the dormant weed seeds. It is very rich. My soil test are all high in the major and most of the minor nutrients. a pH of 6.0 is actually considered to be ideal here, but I did add some lime since I don't want it to drop any more. The pH was 6.4 three years ago. I don't really need to add anything more to improve the tilth. I just don't want to bring anymore of the weeds to the surface. That is why I am going to try a no til approach.

Because of rhino beetle that was found on Hickam AFB and it is yet another invasive species that has no predators here. It attacks coconut trees, pandan, bananas, so the state has a task force monitoring with traps and palms are not supposed to be cut and transported to areas that are not contaminated. Unfortunately, the local tree trimmers dump illegally all over the place to avoid paying tipping fees. Most legal mulch now must go to the local composter.

I have deliberately selected trees that do not set seed and do not drop a lot of rubbish, so I don't have a lot of browns, just a lot of greens. My grass is full of weeds and I mulch in place. I put cuttings in the green waste can so I don't leave much around to dry out. It usually doesn't dry out anyway. The cuttings have so much water, it is more like they slime out.