We operated a small mixed farm with a large market garden component for some years. Your comment about how certain practices that work on a single family or experimental level do not scale to a commercial level is bang-on. Another aspect of no-till methods ("lasagna" gardening for instance) versus tillage that i have never seen discussed is climate. Our large plots were in fertile bottomlands on the high latitude, high elevation great plains. Tillage, along with further piling the soil into raised beds (no borders on the beds) was vital to making sure that in a semi-arid continental climate with nights almost always well below daytime temps., the soil warmed fast enough in the morning to support commercial-level growth. If you did lasagna gardening where we were? Your crops would have been few, late, and stunted for sure. The soil so insulated would have stayed too cool. I'd also mention another item that almost never makes it to these discussions on best farming practices is the most important topic of all, and that is, what powers your farm, that is, what is the source of work? We chose horses. I'm amazed for instance that people whose farms are powered by fossil-fuel burning machinery can get "organic" certification. A glaring oversight there to my eyes, and a fine illustration of an "arrangement of convenience" obscuring a if not the fundamental omission.
the raised bed comment is great. Making permanent raised beds (without borders) in the first year is not a terrible idea at all. this will require massive soil disturbance, but the idea is not have to do it in the future except to maintain the beds. That is how I'd go about it. Did you guys make new raised beds each year?
You are right, heavy mulching, like a I suggest does insulate the soil and can be a problem. It also harbors pests. Mulch management is another topic I'll write on some day.
I like your comment on horses. Thinking about horses powering a farm feels right. And it also feels out of my reach. Impossible, even.
Our raised beds were renewed every year. Spread composted manure, plow (shallow), disc-harrow, spring-tooth cultivate to raise loft, this all with teams, then hoe beds of 5 meters by one. Not hard to do at that point, the soil was very loose. Mulch yes, very thin. Our first veggies of the year were typically up to 3X the size of those of folks planting straight into the ground. Horses, unattainable to many, sadly, but pure poetry to incorporate and work with. Don’t let anyone tell you “you have to grow up working horses to do that” (they will tell you this), i bought untrained Clydesdales having never touched one, and trained them to work myself - successfully - with good manuals as reference and no other help on-hand. I had them up to speed and doing work in a matter of weeks.
Really great info! What about when you’re just breaking ground and have clay heavy soil? Should you maybe till for the first one or two growing seasons, then continue to follow no dig practices afterwards? Right now I have just 2000 square feet of growing space. The amount of compost I would need for no dig, even in a micro scale, feels unattainable.
Rowen, Darryl Wong at UCSC mentioned that his main problem with no-till operations is the sheer amount compost that is needed to maintain fertility is impractical. So you aren't alone in your "unattainable" feeling. I encourage you to trial some areas and see how operations/output compares.
Rowen! I was thrilled to see your comment. I'm enjoying your writing and if I can manage hope to make an herbarium this year as I track and follow the wildflowers blooming here in the Paint Rock Valley. Keep up the great work. I love your page.
As for your questions, let me first say that I am limited by my limited experience. perhaps I have more years under my belt than the average, but perhaps not. But I will of course do my best to answer honestly and how I would go about it if I were in your shoes.
If I had a garden space that was 50'X40' in heavy clay, I would not till it. I'd mark out permanent beds and paths. I'd make the beds 30" wide (market garden standard) and add as much compost/manure as I could find to each bed. I'd add peat/coco to each bed as well. I would mix the peat/compost together on the surface and then I would use a broadfork to aerate the soil. This will be back breaking in heavy clay, but it will be vital. Next I would plant cover crops. It would be a heavy blend of legumes and grasses. I'd choose for crops that are known for penetrating hard soil. I would NOT pull these cover crops up. I would cut them at the surface and let mulch/compost in place. I would use occultation to help with weeds and to speed up decomposition of the cover crops. I'd avoid ever yanking roots out of the ground. Leave them in the soil to decay and open up channels for water and oxygen.
With heavy clay, cover crops will be your friend.
If cultivation is necessary, I'd save up and purchase a power harrow. It doesn't beat the soil and it doesn't invert the soil.
If I didn't have the resources for compost/coco mixture, I'd look hard for manure from a local farmer. Watch out for weed seeds and an herbicide with the market name of "graze on". It is persistent in manure and will harm your plants.
Laverne, here on substack will likely have some great insight too. I'd tag him, but the function isn't working on my laptop.
Lastly, mulch, mulch, mulch. Try to never leave your soil without protection.
I really hope this helps and doesn't overwhelm. Keep me updated :)
Very good article! I think it depends. And at least till initially once. In both of our gardens we didn't do it and it was a big mistake. In our small garden the husband said it's not necessary because it's all sand which wasn't true and the big one we planted with trees and we should have tilled the whole place first. The whole question depends also on the climate. I live in warm temperate (some say subtropical) climate the soils are fragile infertile and rains can be very strong so tilling each season would be a really bad idea.
Hey Nicola, thanks for commenting. I'm curious about how you came to the conclusion that not tilling in your gardens to start was a "big mistake". What happened?
OK, we have two gardens one is a little house garden and after digging out a peach tree seedling (we didn't want peaches they get the fruit fly) he told me don't worry it's all sand. Was not true 20 below there was a layer of compacted clay with gravel (it's suburban after all). I developed the garden bit by bit and therefore I could only hand dig little bits and pieces. Our big garden is 3/4 of an acre infertile non-draining clay with sand. And we should have gotten a big rototiller and till the whole thing and till gypsum in. Tilling once at the beginning is a good thing!
Yup, we went no dig (and no mow) about ten years back and the garden is an extraordinary wee habitat by now with wildlife and healthy fruit n veg galore.
We operated a small mixed farm with a large market garden component for some years. Your comment about how certain practices that work on a single family or experimental level do not scale to a commercial level is bang-on. Another aspect of no-till methods ("lasagna" gardening for instance) versus tillage that i have never seen discussed is climate. Our large plots were in fertile bottomlands on the high latitude, high elevation great plains. Tillage, along with further piling the soil into raised beds (no borders on the beds) was vital to making sure that in a semi-arid continental climate with nights almost always well below daytime temps., the soil warmed fast enough in the morning to support commercial-level growth. If you did lasagna gardening where we were? Your crops would have been few, late, and stunted for sure. The soil so insulated would have stayed too cool. I'd also mention another item that almost never makes it to these discussions on best farming practices is the most important topic of all, and that is, what powers your farm, that is, what is the source of work? We chose horses. I'm amazed for instance that people whose farms are powered by fossil-fuel burning machinery can get "organic" certification. A glaring oversight there to my eyes, and a fine illustration of an "arrangement of convenience" obscuring a if not the fundamental omission.
the raised bed comment is great. Making permanent raised beds (without borders) in the first year is not a terrible idea at all. this will require massive soil disturbance, but the idea is not have to do it in the future except to maintain the beds. That is how I'd go about it. Did you guys make new raised beds each year?
You are right, heavy mulching, like a I suggest does insulate the soil and can be a problem. It also harbors pests. Mulch management is another topic I'll write on some day.
I like your comment on horses. Thinking about horses powering a farm feels right. And it also feels out of my reach. Impossible, even.
Our raised beds were renewed every year. Spread composted manure, plow (shallow), disc-harrow, spring-tooth cultivate to raise loft, this all with teams, then hoe beds of 5 meters by one. Not hard to do at that point, the soil was very loose. Mulch yes, very thin. Our first veggies of the year were typically up to 3X the size of those of folks planting straight into the ground. Horses, unattainable to many, sadly, but pure poetry to incorporate and work with. Don’t let anyone tell you “you have to grow up working horses to do that” (they will tell you this), i bought untrained Clydesdales having never touched one, and trained them to work myself - successfully - with good manuals as reference and no other help on-hand. I had them up to speed and doing work in a matter of weeks.
Very cool. “Pure poetry” I love that. I want to hear more.
I may write about it some, thanks!
Really great info! What about when you’re just breaking ground and have clay heavy soil? Should you maybe till for the first one or two growing seasons, then continue to follow no dig practices afterwards? Right now I have just 2000 square feet of growing space. The amount of compost I would need for no dig, even in a micro scale, feels unattainable.
Rowen, Darryl Wong at UCSC mentioned that his main problem with no-till operations is the sheer amount compost that is needed to maintain fertility is impractical. So you aren't alone in your "unattainable" feeling. I encourage you to trial some areas and see how operations/output compares.
Rowen! I was thrilled to see your comment. I'm enjoying your writing and if I can manage hope to make an herbarium this year as I track and follow the wildflowers blooming here in the Paint Rock Valley. Keep up the great work. I love your page.
As for your questions, let me first say that I am limited by my limited experience. perhaps I have more years under my belt than the average, but perhaps not. But I will of course do my best to answer honestly and how I would go about it if I were in your shoes.
If I had a garden space that was 50'X40' in heavy clay, I would not till it. I'd mark out permanent beds and paths. I'd make the beds 30" wide (market garden standard) and add as much compost/manure as I could find to each bed. I'd add peat/coco to each bed as well. I would mix the peat/compost together on the surface and then I would use a broadfork to aerate the soil. This will be back breaking in heavy clay, but it will be vital. Next I would plant cover crops. It would be a heavy blend of legumes and grasses. I'd choose for crops that are known for penetrating hard soil. I would NOT pull these cover crops up. I would cut them at the surface and let mulch/compost in place. I would use occultation to help with weeds and to speed up decomposition of the cover crops. I'd avoid ever yanking roots out of the ground. Leave them in the soil to decay and open up channels for water and oxygen.
With heavy clay, cover crops will be your friend.
If cultivation is necessary, I'd save up and purchase a power harrow. It doesn't beat the soil and it doesn't invert the soil.
If I didn't have the resources for compost/coco mixture, I'd look hard for manure from a local farmer. Watch out for weed seeds and an herbicide with the market name of "graze on". It is persistent in manure and will harm your plants.
Laverne, here on substack will likely have some great insight too. I'd tag him, but the function isn't working on my laptop.
Lastly, mulch, mulch, mulch. Try to never leave your soil without protection.
I really hope this helps and doesn't overwhelm. Keep me updated :)
This is immensely helpful, thank you, Taylor!
Very good article! I think it depends. And at least till initially once. In both of our gardens we didn't do it and it was a big mistake. In our small garden the husband said it's not necessary because it's all sand which wasn't true and the big one we planted with trees and we should have tilled the whole place first. The whole question depends also on the climate. I live in warm temperate (some say subtropical) climate the soils are fragile infertile and rains can be very strong so tilling each season would be a really bad idea.
Hey Nicola, thanks for commenting. I'm curious about how you came to the conclusion that not tilling in your gardens to start was a "big mistake". What happened?
OK, we have two gardens one is a little house garden and after digging out a peach tree seedling (we didn't want peaches they get the fruit fly) he told me don't worry it's all sand. Was not true 20 below there was a layer of compacted clay with gravel (it's suburban after all). I developed the garden bit by bit and therefore I could only hand dig little bits and pieces. Our big garden is 3/4 of an acre infertile non-draining clay with sand. And we should have gotten a big rototiller and till the whole thing and till gypsum in. Tilling once at the beginning is a good thing!
Yup, we went no dig (and no mow) about ten years back and the garden is an extraordinary wee habitat by now with wildlife and healthy fruit n veg galore.
Isn’t it wonderful!?
An excellent piece!
Well done, Taylor. I think this statement is key...
"The green flush is ephemeral. The damage to the soil-food-web is not."
No-till is a long game. You can't accurately compare no-till and tillage side by side until a no-till soil has been properly cared for for many years.
Excited for the updates on the terraced garden. That’s going to be so neat.