"Marie Dodge" wrote

"Pat Kiewicz" wrote

Marie Dodge said:

My husband has a leaf-vac of the "same brand" (pulled by a large mower)
but a different model. He picks up all the fallen leaves and has for
years.

Why not pull it around in the spring too, when grass is growing well?
It'll give you green stuff for your pile. Collect spoiled produce thrown out
from a commercial establishment or 2.

He had another one before this one, but it was too small.
We dump them on the gardens to rot down over the winter with kitchen
waste, weeds etc. In spring we start tilling the rotted leaves under.

I'm not in favor of this, uncomposted carbon will steal vitality
from your garden for at least 3 months.

We do it twice and
something I do it a third time by hand with a spade shovel. Despite the
impression some have here we don't use insecticides unless there is a
real problem organics fail to handle... like the WF and SP
invasion this year.

I think one of your problems may be you are tilling too much.

I think you're right, but I have much the same problem and tilling is the
only way to get the material into the hard clay. It gets better each year
and my sight is toward the day I can do less to none.

That alone will
lead to increased loss of organic matter in the soil.

It does, but the ultimate goal is increased carbon, which is accomplished.

http://soils.usda.gov/sqi/publicatio...s/sq_fou_1.pdf

Tilling too much or too little has no effect on insect pests.

Yes it does, less is better. It's said that recently disturbed soil
requires twice the nematode count per square foot to be effective.

The recent soil test showed plenty of organic matter. OM isn't the
problem.

Have you asked the earth worms?

Resistant insects and spiders are. Pests are becoming resistant to
everything we're throwing at them.

They're not resistant, you've simply cultivated an inviting environment,
rather than an environment that's hostile because of natural beneficial
predators, i.e. BT, nematodes, beneficial microbes & funguses, or any of
these handy helpers:
http://www.basic-info-4-organic-fert...alinsects.html

I never even do any tillage (and for me, that's gentle forking) of the
soil without adding organic material.

Then you don't have the heavy poor fine clay soil we do.

Or has been working the soil long enough to have arrived.

The only upside of sandy soil is that once broken into cultivation, it's
easy to handle afterwards. I've created enough of an oasis of fertility
that we found (when digging for the second row of raspberries
a few year back) that a neighbor's tree had managed to send one
large root over 50 feet straight for the vegetable garden.

ah, just as I thought

Steve Young