Thread: No till organic
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Old 06-03-2021, 03:01 AM posted to rec.gardens.edible
songbird[_2_] songbird[_2_] is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Jun 2010
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Default No till organic

Bob F wrote:
On 3/4/2021 7:45 PM, Frank Miles wrote:
What's the magic trick to dealing with weeds if you want to garden
'organically' _and_ are trying to go 'no-till' ? That is, without
spending all your time manually pulling them? And with limited
space I can't solarize without losing a year.


I just pull them as soon as I see them, and never let them go to seed.

If you are starting from lawn, use a sod cutter to remove all the grass,
and you can end up with a fairly weed free bed.


except that sod has a huge nutritional value,
what i do is dig a deep enough hole and bury it
so the worms eat it up. a layer of cardboard
or newspapers over the sod will help keep a lot
of the roots from coming back up. just do it
again if a second or third time is needed. i've
had some gardens where i've skimmed and buried
them a few times just because i had injuries and
could not keep all the gardens clear. so they
were allowed to go to weeds and then got cleared
again. the worms love it all when you can bury
it. don't waste it.

if you get a seedy plant that has dropped a lot
of seeds on the surface, again, dig a hole and
then scrape all the surface area in the hole and
bury it again. if you put it down deep enough
and don't disturb that area again for years then
the worms may take care of those weed seeds or
not, but if you keep after it with the stirrup
hoe they won't be a major issue again.


songbird