I've seen mention of no-dig gardens, what is this really all about, how do you do it, and what are the supposed benefits? I'm starting to think about next year's veggie garden (this was my first, and was pretty inefficient and not well organized), and I want it to be the best it can be.
It's not exactly no-dig. At least I've never heard of this. You need to dig when you put your seedlings in. It's no-till. As in you don't turn the soil, and generaly try to disturb it as little as possible. The idea is that soil can b seen as a living being, or as a community of living beings. When it's torn up and moved around, it disrupts it, makes it less healthy. People usually till because it makes the soil looser, and therefor easier for the roots to break through and grow. No-till methods relly on worms and mulch to loosen up the soil. It can work. Another big advnatage is that it's much less work.
It kinda seems more natural too. And soil naturally forms horizons - it makes sense not to mess them up. But then it's success might depend on your soil quality and weather conditions etc?
well here in iowa more and more farmers are going to no till becouse it helps stop eroshon,saves time.saves resorces like machines and gas,and helps conserve watter during a dry year.the yelds arnt nessasaraly bigger at first but they are not smaller eitherafter 5 or 6 years of this method farmers claim to get bigger yelds becouse of the watter conservation as a result of a no till field.the fields dont look as clean with all the stalks ,and plant material siting on top of the land.i can look out my window here and see lots of no till land and it makes me smile to know that it is helping to conserve resources and the earth. sunshine frog
i do spend time improving my soil before planting for the first time in virgin ground..after that i disturb the ground as little as possible but top dress and mulch... subsequent years in the patch also recieve little digging even ahead of planting..i always have good yeilds...
From the small amount of time I've had to read up information on it, no-dig/no-till cultivation makes a lot of sense to me. Plants For A Future have some information on it in one of their leaflets (Section 1 => 'Wherever possible, do not dig the soil').
One of the pioneers of the 'No-Dig' method was Ruth Stout. A sweet little woman who touted that you when using enough mulch you never had to dig. You laid your mulch super thick,and if any weeds came through you just threw more mulch over them. Over a bit of time without the sun baking it and the worms coming closer to the top the soil would naturally loosen up. Here is a site...there are books by her. I still have one from the 70's. http://www.organic-gardening-tips.com/no-dig-gardens.html check amazon,and half.com for books of her method. also the library good gardening, teepi
Ruth Stout is one of the women who greatly effected my life. Two others are Rachel Carson and Helen Nearing. They helped me realize that others felt as I did (still do) about ... well, a lot of things. From the book Teepi mentioned: "The unmulched garden looks to me like some naked thing which for one reason or another would be better off with a few clothes on."...The Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book, 1971 A couple other quotes of her's I like: "In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself." And: "Working in the garden...gives me a profound feeling of inner peace." While I'm quoting quotations, here's one from Rachel Carson that says a lot: "The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction." http://www.rachelcarson.org/ Helen Nearing's books are also very inspirational and informative. http://www.goodlife.org Peace, poor_old_dad
hay,thanks teepi and p.o.d. for posting about ruyh stout.im gonna look into that book. do you 2 have annymore quotes from her.quotes like that are nice to see here. sunshine to all frog
I did a no till garden but I put down about 8 inches of mushroom compost right on top of the grass, I didn't get any weeds and the plants produced like you wouldn't believe
That sounds wonderful. We have a compost toilet and we dump on the other side of our land as we have a well on this side. We move the dumping about 4 feet every 4-5 dumps. The following year I plant flowers along where we have dumped. This past summer volunteer tomatoes came up where we dump and they were beautiful. We did not eat them but I left them be and the plants were so green and after a mild frost my tomato plants in the garden suffered greatly but the toilet compost ones were still beautiful. I know there are ways to use that compost in your veggie garden, but still can't bring myself to do it. I am pretty laid back in my regular composting, and don't get too worried about the temperature, I just let it all sit then turn it over when I have time then use it from the bottom up as it becomes ready. With the toilet compost to be used in a garden you will eat from the temp's need to be kept at a certain temp for a certain time to kill certain things.....
there is another "no till" book called 'lasagna gardening' i have tried some of these methods & found them very effective. instead of weeding your beds, you just cut existing grass (or weeds) really short & lay stacks of wet newspaper down. then build the bed up in layers....for example, a layer of straw or hay, then a layer of compost/manure, etc. & by the time the seedlings' roots reach down that far, the newspaper will be decaying & the roots will be able to tear through....VERY simple gardening indeed. i've made a small veggie bed like this in the past & just used old bricks to build up the sides
yay for composting toilets!!! some friends have one & dump theirs on the outskirts of the garden near the woods...great for keeping the deer out of the veggies! seems they won't cross the line
wow, all of a sudden this thread picked up. Thank you everyone for your responses. I'm not sure if I'm going to try this next spring, but it's something to keep in mind. I'll have to go through all these posts and their references more closely, for now I just skimmed. I like the idea of doing things as closely to the way nature does, and nature obviously does not till her soils too much, aside from worms and digging mammals, and the occasional freak accident (landslides and such). So this really appeals to me. I figure nature should be our guide in all things, but especially with gardening, as it is a very "back to nature" sort of thing, what with the plants and such. But I think I'm going to have to dig it up again, because it needs a lot more compost/organic matter than it has now.
Can you use brown paper bags to keep the weeds down? We have TONS of them from Trader Joes (yes yes I know, I need to remember to take my canvas bags with me when I go there).
Probably, also newspapers - to be on the safe side, don't use either if they have colored ink. Some colored inks are soy based, but who knows which. Peace, poor_old_dad
Unless you have no topsoil, I cannot see the point in a no-dig garden. The other thing is you need an abundent amount of compost to start with.
you can't see the point in avoiding hours of backbreaking labor? Or do you live somewhere the soil is not rock-hard clay? Because to dig in the dirt here, you need a pickaxe. But, if you just pile on the compost, keep layering it and leave it alone, the worms will do all the work for you!!
You may have trouble getting hold of enough compost though. Youd want alot of it! After you have the plot covered in a whole load of mulch, cover it with a big black tarp thats porous yet blocks the light. That way you wont have to worry about weeds. Just leave it there for a few months. Personally, I like digging my own garden. On a small scale such as mine, I wouldn't consider it damaging to the soil especially when you return nutrients to the soil with compost. Also, its much more of a connection with the earth that way.
