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Old 30-04-2011, 06:41 PM posted to rec.gardens
Billy[_10_] Billy[_10_] is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Mar 2010
Posts: 2,438
Default to till or not to till?

In article
,
Billy wrote:

In article ,
songbird wrote:

grasses and other weeds can come back via
roots from the side if there is no barrier.
and almost any barrier can fail or be in
the way or ...

then there are seeds still left behind
that will sprout, or birds, wind, rain,
deer, moles, ants, etc can move seeds.

perennials can take several years to get
to full size.

overall, i'd guess that it's unlikely you'll
get satisfactory results from this. it
will take a lot of effort and you'll probably
only end up with a few species amid a lot of
grass and weeds.


Your attitude sounds like you have failed already. Tell you what. Until
your ready to plant, feed the soil. If you plant, feed the soil. If you
don't want weeds; cover with newspaper and mulch, and feed the soil.
It's not that hard.
---

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...1_notill15.htm
l

Should your garden be a no-till zone?
Marty Kraft is on a mission to spread the word about no-till gardening.
By Edward M. Eveld
McClatchy Newspapers

KANSAS CITY, Mo. ‹ "All through the long winter, I dream of my garden.
On the first warm day of spring, I dig my fingers deep into the soft
earth. I can feel its energy, and my spirits soar." ‹ Helen Hayes
So go ahead and dig your fingers into the soil. But put down the shovel
and park the tiller. Here's a different plan that will seem almost
sacrilegious to backyard gardeners: Don't till.

Marty Kraft, a Kansas City, Mo., environmentalist, says it's better all
around ‹ for the soil, your plants, the planet ‹ if you completely
refrain from that satisfying habit of turning over the soil in the
spring.

Make holes in your garden bed only for planting, he says.

"When you till, when you turn the soil over, you expose the organic
material, which becomes more vulnerable to bacterial attack," Kraft
says. "You're breaking down your organic material and sending it up into
the atmosphere as carbon dioxide."

Kraft is on a mission to spread the word about no-till gardening and has
launched a website at www.organotill.org.
It's going to take some persuasion.

Ben Sharda, executive director of Kansas City Community Gardens, said
the organization doesn't teach no-till gardening. He's not opposed to
the practice but sees some drawbacks.

"You can have a great garden both ways," Sharda says. "People have been
tilling for thousands of years, and it works."

Kraft knows that the prospect of not tilling, although less work, could
also be seen as disappointing: "Just looking at that dark earth feels
good, it smells good."

But, he says, "You deplete your soil in the process. Some people say
tilling makes as much sense as if we threw our cities in a blender every
year and rebuilt them."

While fans of garden tilling say that turning over the soil loosens it,
which is better for new plants, and breaks the weed and insect cycles,
no-tillers say those reasons are overblown.

Tilling can bring buried weed seeds to the surface, making it easier for
them to sprout. And mechanically loosening the soil is only temporary,
they say. Bad soil will reharden quickly.

Gardeners can make real improvements to their soil by not disturbing it
and by layering it with mulch and other organic material, such as
compost and manure, Kraft says. Water and microorganisms pull the good
stuff down into the soil. It's the natural way soil is improved.

In organic, no-till gardening, Kraft says, weeds are controlled by
covering the garden bed with layers of newspaper and maintaining a thick
layer of mulch, such as leaves and straw. Don't use landscaping bark, he
says.

Sharda worries that no-till can require a lot of attention, more than
beginning or even average gardeners may want to devote to their garden
bed.

No-tillers particularly like the nexus of creating locally better soil
while sequestering carbon, however small the individual impact.

"This is an opportunity for us to have an effect on global warming,"
Kraft says, "and in the process to learn something about soil biology.
You can't help but become a better gardener."



"So many seeds -- so little time."
--
- Billy

Bush's 3rd term: Obama plus another elective war
Bush's 4th term: we can't afford it

America is not broke. The country is awash in wealth and cash.
It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the
greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks
and the portfolios of the uber-rich.
http://theuptake.org/2011/03/05/michael-moore-the-big-lie-wisconsin-is-broke/