Starting a No-till Garden
Now is the perfect time!
Sometimes we humans wait too long to start an important project…like starting a no-till garden. You don’t want to wait until you’re ready to garden, to begin. Do you want to garden this way? If so, where do you start?
No-till gardening isn’t new. It been called by several names through the years: lasagna gardening, layer gardening, and most recently cardboard gardening. Each method has its own nuances but the outcome is the same. No tilling of the soil. Why does this matter? The example I’d give would be that of a tornado ripping through your town, destroying everything in its wake. Then there’s the long slow recovery. That’s what tilling, disking, and any other soil-turning practice does to the life beneath your feet.
We take so much for granted when we walk on the ground, and yet 2/3 of all life lives under our feet! This community of life-forms is what makes mine and your lives possible. Oh, there are many insects and rodents working away down there, but the one that will be most pertinent to this article will be the group of mycorrhizal fungi that performs the communication and feeding of roots.
In our modern era of quick fixes, marketing has convinced us that WE feed the plants, but there’s nothing further from the truth. The fertilizer we apply, whether it’s synthetic or natural, must be tended to by the fungal activities, which then makes the nutrients available and absorbable by roots.
What does all this have to do with no-till gardening? Everything!
Let’s start with the beginning of the process, and you’ve picked the perfect time to do this to get ready for the spring growing season.
Before you actually start the process, you should have tools on hand to proceed; LOTS of cardboard, newspaper, and any other paper lying around, a garden hose at the ready, a bucket, some stones or pieces of wood to use as weights. You’ll also need your organic matter – composted manure, leaves, old sawdust/woodchips, and a wheel barrow to move them.
Mark off where you want your garden to be. It should be located in a full-sun, well-drained area, with some good air flow. It should be in a spot that’s convenient for you to tend. Don’t make more than you can handle the first year. You can always make it bigger. Set your push mower on its lowest setting and “scalp” the grass in the chosen spot. The next step works much better if it’s not windy and if you have some extra hands at the ready. Lay the cardboard and paper in multiple layers over the scalped grass. If the cardboard it thick, one layer will do. If its newspaper or thing paper/cardboard you’ll need thick layers. Make sure it covers the grass completely and overlaps all other paper, so no green can see through. I like to work in small sections at a time so I’m not chasing papers. If its breezy, laying the stones on the cardboard/paper will help, or wet it all down very well. It should eventually meld to the ground. Now you can begin to dump your organic matter onto the cardboard/paper. If you’re not sure how much organics you have, at least get a couple inches on it to keep paper in place. If you have enough, then pile it up! 6” isn’t too much. You’ll be surprised how it breaks down through winter. Now that you have everything in place, you can begin the hunt for more organic matter. I have the goat and chicken waste from my barn, very old hay from a neighbor farmer, and straw if I can find some. I also have a neighbor who has tons of leaves that they bring up and pour onto the garden every fall. I continue to add whatever organics I can come up with all winter.
The magic happens underneath the paper. Earthworms and other soil-dwellers love paper! So do the fungal families. The vegetation under it all will die (hopefully) and rot, adding to the available nutrients. When spring comes and you go out to see if the ground will support a garden, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
I’m not going to say that you won’t have weeds. You will. There’ll be those persistent ones that push right through the paper. Also, birds, critters, and wind will deposit seeds. That’s Nature’s survival mode. The good thing is these weeds are usually easy to pull up, and if they’ve not gone to seed, lay them back on the garden to become more organic matter.
Do you need to repeat this process every year? I did the cardboard and paper two years in a row, because my soil was so bad. I think I’m good now. I still add cardboard and paper at the bases of my perennial fruit and veggies, topped with organics, as insulation. As far as the compost and organic matter, that will need to be applied every year, as the life in the ground will continually break it down.
An advanced, or larger no-till space might utilize cover crops for the winter, mowing it before it seeds.
A word about paper and cardboard. As with any other topic there are folks who are far-left and far-right on what kind of paper, cardboard, food boxes can be used, and whether one should pull off all tape and staples, or worry about ink. I’ll let them debate. I use EVERYTHING if it’s not been around chemicals and my garden soil is nice. Almost all inks are soy-based. The worms will eat the glue on the tape and I’ll remove it in the spring. My philosophy is, why would I send things to the already overcrowded landfill that will rot right here on our farm? There are also fungi and insects that consume heavy metals in the soil. Nature has a cycle, and I don’t think landfills fit into it.
Source your composted manure, old hay/straw. Don’t be afraid to ask. If there have been herbicides used on them, or antibiotics and wormers given to the animals, this will persist in your soil, potentially killing your garden and microbial life. Also, the city recycle center may be a free resource of leaves and woodchips, but you have no idea what you’re getting.
No-till isn’t no-work, but it’s so much nicer than conventional gardening. Ours is free-form, no rows, and plants are put where they’ll thrive. Volunteers come up and we decide what stays and what gets to be green manure.
Benefits of the no-till method extend to soil moisture retention, cooler soil temps, and overall better soil year after year. It’s also an easier way to garden for we “seniors”. Look it up, read about it, watch a video or two, but don’t wait too long. September is your prime time!
