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Has anyone tried no-till gardening? (thegarden.land)

submitted 2 years ago by admin@thegarden.land to c/gardening@thegarden.land

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I tried it this year but I really bungled it.

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[–] hydrospanner@vlemmy.net 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Most of the sources I'd found on the subject seemed very cultish ("You have to do everything exactly my way or else you're wrong!"), which was also what I found when I looked into the square foot gardening method.

I find this very off-putting, so I rejected both and simply continued using what has worked for me in my raised beds and so far I've been happy with it.

For me, that means adding some compost to the beds each year after scraping off any mulch from the previous year that hasn't started breaking down into soil. After adding the compost (usually just a bag of black cow and a bag of mushroom compost per 4x4 bed) I turn everything over and break it up well with a spade shovel, smooth it out, plant, and re-mulch.

I'm only doing 4 beds and a few containers, so I use starts instead of seeds. As such, I fertilize each one at planting by adding granular fertilizer, bone meal, and crab & lobster meal to the bottom of the planting hole, stir it in with the dirt, and plant over that.

[–] admin@thegarden.land 1 points 2 years ago

Ya with the cultish thing I have wondered that too. I remember when people started talking about permaculture it seemed that way as well. And I guess I don’t hear people talk about that anymore.

Wow that is an incredible amount of amendments you’re adding! Your veggies must be incredible. Blue ribbons! I make my compost and add that, plus granular fertilizer and manure if I have it. I need to step up my game!

[–] glasslyrata@thegarden.land 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I have, with some raised beds. What went wrong with yours?

[–] admin@thegarden.land 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Do you still practice it in those beds? I always wonder how it is after some time. So you yank old plants out or hoe them?

I failed to follow directions. Classic me. I put down dead leaves, then cardboard, then “some” compost and dirt. Well the roots were unable to grow through the cardboard and dead leaves layer. They all got stunted. So I pulled it al up and started over. I still want to try again, but I guess I should skip the cardboard and triple the compost layer?

[–] glasslyrata@thegarden.land 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Disclaimer: I don't have that much experience, this is only my second year.

Last year, when I started, I put cardboard and then a layer of branches and leaves. Then soil on top. The soil layer was still quite thick (12-15 cm). This is inside a wooden garden bed frame to hold the soil. The ones I tried without the frame couldn't hold enough soil and I kept running into the cardboard when planting and the plants seemed also stunted. But the beds with the frame did pretty well. I planted a mix of perennials (strawberry, thyme, chives) and some annuals (carrots, lettuce, beets). I had another bed with tomatoes, basil, maybe cucumber along with thyme, lemon balm and oregano.

I didn't remove anything from the bed over winter. The annuals had been harvested or cut down at soil level (not dug out).

This year I found the vertical height of the soil reduced, probably due to some compaction and decomposition of the bottom layer of compost. There were earthworms in the soil. The reduced soil level allowed me to put some new soil on top. The perennials were still there after surviving winter. I planted some new stuff in the new soil (different from last year but still mixed around) and it seems to be doing well so far.

I am a bit weird in that I don't mind 'weeds' growing now and then, I mostly cut them at the soil level and use them as compost. I let some of them flower like buttercups, oxeye daisies, dandelions, yarrow and others. I'm only strict with invasives (I'm in Sweden so lupines are my nemesis for example).

If you don't have a lot of grass or weeds poking through you can skip the cardboard. Actually, I'm not sure the cardboard is beneficial at all. I mostly did it because I was trying to follow instructions. :)

[–] admin@thegarden.land 1 points 2 years ago

Very interesting. Well it seems to be working well for you then. Glad you said that you’re doing this in raised beds since mine are not raised maybe it wouldn’t work as well. You say lupines are nemesis for you? Crazy! I’m trying to grow some right now. I can’t imagine them being so much of a problem wow

[–] tlwright 1 points 2 years ago

I've been looking at Charles Dowd's method and Ruth Stout's method. We're doing a refurbishment of the raised beds this year, so the only gardening I'm doing is containers and what I already have planted.

By refurbishment, I mean, we're reconfiguring the 2 4x4 beds + the 3x4 bed into one long u shape bed, hopefully by fall, so I can dump compost and mulch and other amendments to the soil and let it sit overwinter for next spring.