Hi Frogleg,

There is no such thing of best approach to solve a problem in all
short of situation/environment, what I will do are choose the approach
that come out the best result with resource available for me.

No-till system got it weakness, but other system do so. So I'm not a
purist of any system. I just pick one that is best for the job on
hand.

Many gardeners/famers don't have time to wait.

In a bussiness, if we got time and money, we can go to long term
investment. If not, do other way.

In my case, I prepare my land for retirement and for experimental
purpose.

For retirement, I ask myself what should I do on this land now to give
me a comfortable life, when I'm old, no income, no one to depend on.
So I plan it for not depend of any input from outside, included man
power.

For experiment to commerciallise, I need to try out a way that can
work for my targeted market segment. Up to now, for what I know,
organic no-till do work best for my plan.

Improving soil almost always means introducing
organic matter. Unless "no-till" has some very tricky definitions,
some sort of soil disturbance is necessary to accomplish this.

Dead body of life form(plant root, earthworm, fungus...) in soil are
organic matter, this does not till in by man. For soil contain high
organic matter, tillage can avoided by the first day. For those soil
void of organic matter, planting cover crop and mulch can work, but do
take long time. So I choose to till in organic matter before
implement no-till system.

Around here, the soil is primarily clay and 'topsoil'
is a very thin 'frosting' on the ground. Suitable for weeds and wild
grasses in the upper level, and trees with tough, penetrating root
systems. *Not* suitable for most food crops.

My soil are worse, when the time I just come here, most part of my
land no tree can found, and except a fern, no other weed can survive.
By now, it's a good land for agriculture.

I do not know what 'clitter' is.

Thanks for you pointing out, it should be critter(creature).

Tilling certainly kills plants
(weeds) and buries the remains, but that means *more* organic matter
in the soil

Most weed are succulent, the organic matter in a form(starch...) that
will not last long. Tillage do cause lost of those(humus...) that can
last long. So most of the time, organic matter introduce by tillage
does not compensate the lost cause by it. In my case, I till in a lot
of lignin(rice hull), and lost non(soil void of organic matter).

For home garden, I will mow weed and left it there, on top of the
weed
residue add some more organic matter. Make a hole put in my
transplant.

I have nothing against mulch. However, if the mown weeds contain
seeds
or parts that easily root, I don't see how this is any 'solution' to
the problem of weeds competing with desired plants.

Weed can regrow from root, weed can grow from seed... But there is
mulch to suppress there grow. A transplat in polythene bag provide a
good start. By the time weed push through the mulch, the transplant
already establish, can compete better than weed. Without weeding, the
harvest are satisfactory. Of course I can weeding and make it look
like a normal garden, but just don't feel the need. I prefer spend my
resource on other thing.

This is a lovely plan. However, it rarely happens in real life
unless
the meat-eating critter gets out there and picks the beetles off the
tomato plants. And this has little to do with whether or not to till
a
garden.

An organic no-till land do support more life form than land under
other system. This will support those predator when there is no pest
available, some predator do eat beetles(bird, preying mantis,
frog...). I use *meat-eating critter* instead of predator are because
I don't know how to spell predator and lazy to look up in dictionary.

No hand tillage mean reduce back pain.

Well now, that *is* a happy thought. :-)

Just imagine you are an old mand now. What do you choose, tilling soil
or mulching with your *old* man power? ;-)

I'm a practical guy, result oriented. Most of the time just do
practical thing use the proven, tested method that will bring good
result. Will explore different approach before stick to one way...
( self praise g )

Cheers,
Wong

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Latitude: 06.10N Longitude: 102.17E Altitude: 5m