To Till Or Not To Till That Is The Question

[gixxerific]

I know this has been gone over but there are new people on here now with new ideas. I also know about the microbial life that could be set back with tilling.

What I want to know is if YOU don't till your garden what do YOU do and why.

I am in a pickle I have always tilled my garden, but now come to realization that that may have been wrong. It figures because late last summer I acquired grandpas tiller to keep instead of borrowing which was usually not convenient. I know some of you double dig or pry the ground around with a fork etc. But my mindset say's that this is the same thing as tilling in a sense. So why is that better than using a machine other than the fuel/carbon release part.

Wouldn't digging and flipping and stabbing also mess up the microbial life upset the fungi kill hapless earthworms and in general bring chaos to the soil food web? So why is the guy behind a tiller the bad guy but the guy behind the shovel the good guy? Or should nothing at all be done? So many questions I don't know where to start.

So enlighten me, tell me I'm a fool, or confirm my previous light use of a tiller.

[applestar]

My purpose in forking the ground, which I only do when starting a sheet mulched garden bed (or tree planting area), by the way, is to open up a foothold -- be it stabbed prong hole of the garden fork or fracture from prying around -- in the solidly compacted clay under the sod which comprise unworked (ungardened, if you will) ground on my property. By putting compost, etc. on top and watering in, I introduce the beginning of biological and microbial action, provide ready-made airways and pathways for the roots and earthworms to travel deeper and make it easier for them to connect those pathways and eventually make the entire -- what used to be just clay -- subsoil their home.

When each plant is done giving up the harvest, I lop them at the ground level, leaving the roots in place to break down (i.e. be broken down/consumed as organic matter). The tops, I used to mostly put in the compost pile, but I'm re-thinking that now.

[gixxerific]

I am a leave the root in ground guy as well.

But Even digging or forking can disturb the natural air and water passages from what I read. and that messes up what the worms etc have been doing. Worm holes can go very deep and latterly as well depending on species.

So what I'm thinking is either NEVER touch the soil or do what you want (till, dig, fork).

[applestar]

I want to stress that what I'm dealing with is PACKED SOLID, comes out in blue-green lumps clay. I will occasionally find earthworms even in there, but they're usually between the sod and the clay. I have, on occasion, found an earthworm in the solid clay mass, so you're right that they manage to travel in there. They're usually bloated light pink. They leave an open tunnel. But a single earthworm in a 1 or 2 sq. foot space? Nary a chance of stabbing one, and MANY MANY more will move in after sheet mulching.

I may find out different as I get further along in the book, but clay, I believe is mostly mineral, anaerobic, and not a hopping party zone for the microbes (that we want).

[Ozark Lady]

I don't own a tiller.

I have never owned a tiller.

Reason 1. I have rocks... rocks would break a tiller.
2. I have tree roots... roots would break a tiller.
3. I don't have the money to buy one.

Early on, I wanted to garden, about 25 years ago, I read up on the subject... could I garden with rocks, roots, and without a tiller?

Well, I found that I can double dig, and get the rocks out, cut out the roots, and totally destroy the soil... ha ha. But, I only had to do that once, and that is when I am first making a garden, or when tree roots return.

It was explained that the tilling, the rhythmic turning of the blades, will actually compact the soil and create a deep hardpan that is impenetrable.

I do, actually rough up the top inch or two of soil, mostly with my bare hands, occasionally with a hand trowel. But, I don't dig deep very often.
I think it is the frequency of the digging that is the difference.

I would agree, if a person double digs every year... what is the difference, only the fact that you are less rhythmic? ha ha

I have not arrived to the point of not digging or tilling... I still LIKE to dig!
If I had a tiller, I bet I would LIKE to till too!

So, I reserve my deep digging for areas that have roots, that are rocky and I want to remove some rocks to grow root crops. And I try to get my beds in good tilth, and lots of humus, so it does not need to be dug... I can focus my energy elsewhere, and leave the soil in peace.

It may not be the answer you were looking for... but this is my personal opinion and reasons for no tiller.

[gixxerific]

Thanks for the replies so far.

And I would like to stress that this is not a bash on anyone, please believe me. I'm just trying to figure out what I have been pondering on for some time now.

Basically I'm looking for the answer to my dilemma of if I should till at all this year. Some of my garden is probably great to not till but others not so. This is a new garden and it was clay when I got here. If it would ever thaw out I could find out what kind of shape it is in. My normal method would to till but in the back of my mind I say "NO" but than even further back it say's if you don't than ....................................................!?

Peace Dono

[rainbowgardener]

It is a tricky question and I don't think I have all the answers. But my soil here is also solid clay, yellow in my case, but like you could make pottery out of. I think in a situation like that, to start a new bed you pretty much have to till it once or twice at the beginning. By twice I mean close together-- till it, lay down a bunch of soil amendments and till them in.

As AS points out the solid clay has minimal soil biology to disrupt at that point anyway. But having done that once, I think that should be it. There should not be any need to come back next year and do it again. And next year there should hopefully be lots of soil biology that you added when you tilled in manure, compost, etc.

I do think running sharp churning blades through your soil is different from turning it over with a fork. Since I do small scale raised bed gardening, I turn it with a trowel, just enough to loosen it up a bit and turn in all the leaves that have been sitting on top as mulch since last fall.

The question is what would we be recommending for farmers, with acreage? Difficult to do that with a fork. I'm thinking if you keep your soil very enriched, mulched all the time, that maybe all you would need is pull the mulch out of the way and make a quick pass of very shallow tilling just in the seed row, just a couple inches deep, just to make a nice little bed to drop seeds in. Then add your compost and what not as top dressing, don't worry about tilling it in, let it work itself in. But it's outside my experience. I do think we have to be thinking about what practices will work for acreage, not just in our backyards.

[TZ -OH6]

Tilling bare dirt just to loosen it up is not a good thing over the long term (year after year) because it will add oxygen and shift the organic decomposition from slow fungal breakdown to fast bacterial breakdown, but if you are tilling in moderat to large amounts of organic matter and then covering with mulch the way most gardeners do you are feeding the fungi and protecting them from drying out so the good microbial community is enhanced. I kill soil microbes all the time but when I see mushrooms popping up out of the soil a few weeks after I do it I'm pretty sure that they are not holding it against me.

As far as worms go, if you are tilling or turning with a fork or shovel you don't need them to do their comparatively small amount of soil turnover. Their bodies are high in protein = nitrogen, which they ate out of your soil and stole from your plants. This is why they are a good indicator of garden soil health (lots of compost = lots of worm food). If you chop up a worm you are fertilizing your plants by giving them back that nitrogen.

One way to avoid having to till is to prevent your soil from compacting. Put down walkways of boards or pats of straw, so that your feet don't compact the soil and keep a thick mulch over the soil so that pounding rain drops don't compact the soil. Planting cover crops on the off season will help too because their roots force open spaces between soil particles.

[gixxerific]

TZ I have been thinking about doing something like this in the garden this year. I have been adding organic material since i moved in about 3 years ago. But right now there is still chunks of horse poo on top of the soil. I thought about giving it a very light tilling. I am going to put at least 2 yards of well composted "humus" (that's for you toil ) on top of that. I will still do the "humus" but not sure about the tilling. I want to make my garden great but not at the expense of my garden. Following me?:idea:

That's where you all come in.

[boggybranch]

I started my garden year before last. Dug it out, all by hand, using, only, a "Garden Claw" and the two hand on the ends of my arms. The first year was a disaster......with sunbaked, concrete hard soil by mid-summer. Started using the Ruth Stout year-round mulching method, that fall. Cut in 1 1/2 tons of homemade compost and 1/2 ton of horse manure (aged), then covered it with 10 inches of costal bermuda hay....to "age" during the winter. Last year's garden was great with almost not weed problems. Didn't have to water a single time either. The earth under the mulch stays cool and moist. Highly recommend her book...."The Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book". I don't have a very large garden....about 1500 square feet. It's a good bit of work, to begin with, but not much work in up-keep.

[gixxerific]

Nice Boggy! Now that's what I'm talking about. A happy customer High 5 on the Stout teaching.

[The Helpful Gardener]

And Fukuoka-sensei was running a rice in summer, barley in winter farm at the same time Ruth was figuring it out for herself. The man never tilled or plowed for fifty years and ran one of the best farms in Japan. People studied Fukuoka-sans's system and just didn't get it; we still don't.

Less is more. The plant decides how to make the soil, just give it good tools to work with. Leave the soil to the plants; they do better making it in the long run.

I stick the fork in and wiggle it around a little bit. Done. That's my tilling.

Ruth Stout would be dissappointed with all that unecessary work.

Good stuff Gixx! Nice discussion... Thanks for the book recommendation, BB!

HG

[gixxerific]

Too bad a new Ruth Stout book is around $200, though you can find used ones pretty cheap with some wear.

[boggybranch]

Too bad a new Ruth Stout book is around $200, though you can find used ones pretty cheap with some wear.

Yea...got my copy off eBay for less than $20, incl s&h.......but I had to look and wait for a pretty good while to get it that cheap. That's my gardening "bible", for sure.

Have you checked out the 3 vids on youtube about her, filmed before she passed?

[rainbowgardener]

Links to the youtube Ruth Stout videos were posted in this thread:

http://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/v ... out#111340