Smoking The Truth Out

Many of you folks who have been on here for a while know that I focus on soil quite a bit and I take measures to conserve, protect and enrich it so that I can grow nice flowers and get good harvests.A couple of days ago, I was having a conversation with one of my gardening neighbours who was lamenting that his crops were not doing as well as he had hoped. His crops are yellowing and the harvests are what he calls, "sub-optimal". I found that term an understatement.

We were looking at his plot and mine (as it was right next to his). He tried to say that he could not understand why things looked so good in my plot and not as good in his.

For starters, it was immediately apparent that his soil level was noticeably lower than mine. That is because I actively build it up[ by adding "structure green manure", stall manure and compost every year.

He also found it curious that I was having such good "luck" when I did not till my soil like he did every year.

Now, I have explained to him the soil handling technique called "minimal tilling" several times. It goes the same way each time--he asks, I explain and then he forgets and asks again later.

I pointed out to him how his soil is so worn out that it closes with one rain shower and he is left with a crust which lets little water through to seep down to the lower levels with subsequent rains.

I asked him if he had lots of worms in his soil. He had just been digging up some potatos and he said that come to think of it, he had not seen one.
I told him that I have so many that there are worms to see with every use of a spade.

He shrugged it off and said that worms were nice to have but not essential. Now people, I know that my chin must have hit the ground at that remark.

When I recovered I told him that I thought that I purposely tried to attract worms to help digest and compost soil and that the tunnels that they made assured that there would be oxygenation down to significant levels and that water would be taken up more easily through the worm channels.

To which he just said, "Mmm-hmmm". I could tell that he didn't believe a word of it. It was in his mind, a case of 1+1=3, I believe.
He could just not believe that water could soak into ground that is never tilled.

I have a little something that I want to show him one of these days when I have the laptop in the lottie.

You may know that I take part with a program here in my city where tourists come in on a boat and then they can dine with locals and then they may ask questions and I answer them over the meal. It is fun to do, but I get to meet some very interesting people from time to time.

One such character was a farmer from somewhere in the U.S. and he was telling me that more than 30% of big time farmers there practice minimal tilling or even no tilling and have done so for more than a decade. I was totally gobsmacked!

Such an willingness to try a different method was not something that I had expected, as the farmers here; while being schooled to learn the trade, are a bit to conservative for this method. I see this unwillingness on the level of allotment gardening as well.

The thing is that now for the past thirty years a wealth of information and facts have been accumulated to support this. Studies of soil and its components and how the microorganism strata work with plants to actually help them grow.

Oké, oké...I'm straying....back to the thing that I wanted to show my neighbour. Remember...he was saying that the presence of worms wasn't an important issue and that they may not add anything positive to gardening.
Have a look at this YouTube vid made by a chap in Indiana. I hope that this will smoke the truth out in the eyes of my neighbour gardner.

http://youtu.be/eroGrAjlLZk

I mean, I knew this already, but to see it demonstrated so graphically. It is a very good test, I find.

I have a second vid to show that shows the value of not-tilled soil as opposed to tilled soil. It is in the format of school experiments but shows us the difference in the two schools of thought.

http://youtu.be/q1aR5OLgcc0

I realize that the majority of folks on here are more concerned with flower gardening in beds around the house, but in fact the principals are the same for each situation.
Having a flower garden I can see that it has to be weeded in some way, but I do not clean up too much of the debris of dead plants from preceding years and I do not disturb the soil any more than necessary to remove bind weed, mare's tail and ground elder.

For the folks that do have some veggie plots, I hope that you will find this posting particularly interesting.

 

i love your tales, and appreciate your insight and expertise!...as for your neighbor, some people can't see the forest for the trees!.......thank you.

 

Very interesting videos. I must say that I learned
something, and now I will stop thinking that my life
would be so much better if we owned a tiller.
Guess your plot neighbor is not ready to take your
good advise.

 

I use a tiller. Two times a year, spring and fall, a plow would be better. I also use a broadfork in my beds to break up the hardpan. As my sig says, good plants begin with good soil. If I could only get some rain, I would be good to go!

 

Thanks ANNETTE--I am glad that you liked the posting. The neighbour is a good chap and we get along very well. I just cannot understand why he keeps asking me why I work the way that I do each season. Chuckle.

Glad that you liked the vids and found them interesting, TONI--It would be nice if he would accept that there is more than one way to skin a cat (as I think the saying goes). I must add that when I explain what I am doing and why, it isn't in a tone that I am trying to convince him to change his ways. I am just trying to answer his question in a way that he can understand. Perhaps I am not being clear.
It is a pity that the videos are not in Dutch.
Boy Toni, doing your whole garden by hand must have been an enormous job.

Glad that you found the vids interesting, 4G--For a small time gardner like me, the soil ought to have something done to it. I use the min-till technique that loosens the soil, but does not turn it. Using a tiller might be the best way for you to get your soil in order, but it remains a personal choice.

FBG-- I wish that I could direct all these rain clouds over your way. It is a pity that the weather can't be a bit more uniform isn't it? I understand that some regions over there are really suffering with heat and dryness. I hope that changes sooner rather than later.

 

I found those videos very interesting Sjoerd. I really think I need to do a little more research on No Till gardening. Ironically, I did not till my veggie beds this year ... I topdressed with composted manure in the fall. I did notice a lot of worms when I planted my crops, so I must be doing something right!

 

Worms are a sign of healthy soil.

 

Sjoerd, I am constantly amazed by people who look at their poor results and your good ones, whatever they may be, gardens, baking, etc... and refuse to believe it is anything you have done correctly! I am tempted to say something silly like:

1. I hire a coven to dance naked in my garden every full moon.
2. I have hung Feng Shui mirrors around the perimeter for better garden energy.
3. It's probably due to an old family secret that I am not allowed to reveal.

I, on the other hand, am in awe of all your garden wisdom and virtually sit at your feet with chin in hand listening in rapture!

I also get a few worms in each scoopful of earth, good to know something is healthy here ;-)

 

Chuckle, chuckle; 'gobsmacked' eh?
I believe that is the first time I've seen that word.. I think the context revealed the definition.. I would probably have said 'flabbergasted', I like your word better.. Hank

 

You have sparked a new interest in me. I have a small raised bed garden and it has the soil-less mix in it, but lots of worms have made their way in it. Those videos are great, in fact I watched a couple of the others too. As for your neighbor..you can lead a horse to water but you can not make him drink.

 

Wow!!! That is interesting and timely too. I was about to make a post about soil quality because I was getting worried that my soil might be getting worn out. My soil is not at all healthy soil when I started 4 years ago. I had my yard filled to level it by about 2 feet with muddy earth from cutting a hill for construction. They were orangey white in colour, very smooth and sticky when wet and very hard when dry. That was about 15 years ago when I had it done with no knowledge what earth I'll be getting from the contractor when I got him to do it. Our yeard was like hell for a couple of years, when it rained all our footware, car tyres and porch would be a dirty orangey yellowish colour. When it is hot and sunny, it was really dusty and everything would be covered in a layer of of orangey yellowish dust. With no planting experience, I bought cans and cans of bermuda grass seeds and kept my fingers crossed that the will grow fast. They did not and it was the weeds thast started to grow first but it was indeed a pleasant sight.

When I started my mini-farm, I don't remember seeing any worms at all and the ground was hard. Every bed I made I make sure that it is at least 8inches deep and layered it with grass. I did that in the hope of attracting worms. Then the top 3~4 inches of earth is mixed with compost. After harvesting each crop I would dig up the bed and repeat the whole process again. The only difference is that the top part of the soil go down to the bottom and the bottom part becomes the new top part.

Nowadays when I work on the beds, I can see some worms and the soil break easily even though there are still some stubborn clumps that need a bit more effort. Guess I'll continue working on the mini-farm the way I am doing now until I can achieve minimal tilling. :-D

Question :?: - If the beds have roots from other plants near by, can minimal or no tilling be practiced? In my case whenever I dig up my beds closer the the climbing Ivy, I had to get rid of quite a lot of the roots.

 

Nice videos. If you must have machinery associated with your garden, I believe a good chipper is way better than a tiller.

 

Hi NETTY-- It sounds like you have gotten a bit of an idea how the concept works...but as I said, for small areas, no tilling is not totally reasonable. Minimal tilling is (for me) a better option...for one reason, because there are certain types of weeds that MUST be removed, and to do that some soil disturbance is necessary.

MART--I agree.

CRIS--Chuckle. What a nice response. Thank you very much. I enjoy reading some humour in postings.
Good to hear that you are getting worms in your scoops--that is a very good sign, isn't it?

ROCKHOUND-- I agree that a chipper is a very handy thing to have. Our gardening club has one that we all may use free of charge. It is so handy.

Hello HANK--haha...I thought that "gobsmacked" was an english word commonly known. You know, come to think of it now, I believe that British folks may use that term more often than North Americans. But you are right, it is a word that gives one the image of being astounded or flabbergasted.

Thanks FP-- Glad that you enjoyed the vids and are thinking about soil. it is such an important aspect of gardening. That chap has several vids on YouTube and I have watched most of them. I enjoy looking at what the big guys do, and pick up a few things here and there that can be applied to a small gardener like me. The principles of some techniques apply to large as well as small gardners.

KK--It sounds like there is a preponderance of red clay where you are living. It sounds like you have been slowly changing the composition of your soil, year by year. In that type of soil, one of the most important aspects is to alter the structure....to change the clay into a type of soil that does not become hard and closed. When changed the structure will rend to hold moisture and not seal-over and become as hard as concrete.
I think that it is important to add compost to one's soil every year to keep the nature of the soil in a good state.
When there are roots or pernicious weeds in your beds, then they have to be removed. Period. And this means that that area is not min-tilled, because you MUST removed the unwanted. However the soil surrounding that does not need to be disrupted in the same way.
So when one is faces with the choice of removing weeds or roots as opposed to minimally tilling, then he must choose for the former, because leaving the weeds or roots is in place means that they are in direct competition with your crops.