Gunner wrote:
On Apr 27, 3:48 pm, "David Hare-Scott" wrote:
Gunner wrote:


Yes David.... I agree with you that saying rototillers WILL cause
hardpan is a lie.

Is that easier to understand

So instead of making that plain in one sentence from the start you throw in
a few choice goads about 'eco-fringe' and waste time chiding me because I
wasn't being absolute with remarks like 'MAY, PERHAPS, COULD, MIGHT', which
qualification you subsequently agree with. So 6 or 10 more posts are added
to thread for no good reason. As I said befo weird.

D

In article ,
songbird wrote:

Billy wrote:

...

i've had mixed results with
rototilling.

the most recent round was last summer
when i killed off an invasive plant
species and then leveled a large area
(to eliminate a gully that was forming).

the tilling did help break the soil up
making raking and leveling a much easier
task. it also provided a nice fluffy
seedbed for the spiral design i planted
(too fluffy, i should have firmed it up
a bit before seeding it in).
You mean you should have rolled it?

8 months later... the seedlings have
crowns 3-5cm above the soil.
What kind of seedlings?

i'm not
sure how the deer and bunnies will crop
them, but i'm hoping not too low. and
i'm also wondering how they will do if
we get a cold snap without snow cover.
if that will freeze-dry the crowns and
force them to start over from below.

last winter we had good snow cover and
i didn't lose much of anything. we'll
see how the next winter goes.

the major negative from the tilling
was the spread of a different invasive
plant species seeds through the area.
You will get that from spading the soil as well.

i now have about 20-30 more hours of hand
weeding to get it out and then consistent
weeding to keep it out (probably for a
few years before it will be gone).
luckily i've done this before for this
species so i know it can be done. i won't
resort to spraying again. most of the
seedlings are still alive under the
smothering growth, they just aren't going
to perform as well as i'd like until i
free them up.

the 9 hours of weeding i've already done
is looking nice as the rains have perked
the seedlings up. now a few more days of
sunshine to dry things out so i can finish
the rest. the plants need to get some
more growth on to be self-shading before
the hot and dryer period starts up.

the clay is about as compacted as it
was before i tilled. tilling didn't
accomplish much there.
You didn't blend in sand, and organic material? Are we talking lawn,
ornamentals, or veggies?

once the worms
finished up all the rotted organic
material from before i'm not seeing much
activity, except in the pathway where
i'm piling the weeds.
Do mean that you're not seeing worms, or not seeing the benefit of the
worms? Could it be the vermicide that you committed with the rototiller?
When you dig, do you find earthworms? (How many, and what size?)

the next big project is to terrace the
red patch, i'm turning it into a mixed
garden. i won't till it because it has
hundreds of perennials already that i want
to leave in place as much as possible.
i hope i can start that tomorrow or the
next day. even if i can only get the
top few levels done that would be a big
help and a nice start.

i can't think of any other gardens
i would have to till. the biggest garden
i normally spade wouldn't do as well if i
tilled. i need the larger clumps of soil
to pile up for a long mound i make to
plant the cosmos on. it being a low spot
i use the trench to catch water and the
mound to keep the cosmos high, dry and
the roots happy. if it were tilled the
soil would run down faster and the cosmos
would fall over in the wind.

my other previous uses of tilling has
been mostly to mix amendments.
When soil is first prepped for a garden, rototilling, and double digging
make sense, because it will speed up the development of the soil (still
the hardpan problem created by the rototiller still needs to be
addressed. After the garden is established, both (rototilling, and
double digging) just undo the work that the worms, fungi, and other
members of the soil ecosystem have done.
--

Gaia's Garden, Second Edition: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture
(Paperback)
by Toby Hemenway
http://www.amazon.com/Gaias-Garden-S...culture/dp/160
3580298/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271266976&sr=1-1
(Available at a library near you.)

p 74
The earthworm grabs a leaf chunk and slithers into its burrow. With its
rasping mouthparts, the worm pulverizes the leaf fragment, sucking in
soil at the same time. The mixture churns its way to the worm's gizzard,
where surging muscles grind the leaf and soil mixture into a fine paste.
The paste moves deeper into the earthworm's gut. Here bacteria help with
digestion, much as our own gut flora helps us process otherwise
unavailable nutrients from our food. When the worm has wrung all the
nutrients from the paste, it excretes what remains of the leaf and soil,
along with gut bacteria caught in the paste. These worm castings coat
the burrow with fertile, organically enriched earth. Before long, hungry
bacteria, fungi, and microscopic soil animals will find this cache of
organic matter and flourish in walls of the burrow, adding their own
excretions and dead bodies to the supply.

Fueled by the leaf's nutrients, the worm tunnels deeper into the ground,
loosening, aerating, and fertilizing the soil. Rain will trickle down
the burrow, threading moisture deeper into the earth than previously.
The soil will stay damp a little longer between rains. In spring, a
growing root from the oak tree will find this burrow, and, coaxed by the
easy passage and the tunnel's lining of organic food, will extend deep
enough to tap that stored moisture. The worm, with its fertile castings
and a burrow that lets air, water, and roots penetrate the earth, will
have aided the oak tree and much of the other life in the soil. Worms
are among the most beneficial of soil animals: They turn over as much as
twenty-five tons of soil per acre per year, or the equivalent of one
inch of lopsoil over Earth's land surface every ten years.

p 75

Soil invertebrates such as worms and mites don't really alter the
chemical composition of the leaf‹their job is principally to pulverize
litter. Their scurrying and tunneling also mixes the leaf particles with
soil, where the fragments stay moist and palatable for others. In some
cases, the animals' gut microbes can break down tenacious large
molecules such as chitin, keratin, and cellulose into their simpler
sugarlike components. The real alchemy‹the chemical transformation of
the leaf into humus and plant food‹is done by microorganisms.

As the soil animals reduce the leaf to droppings and microscopic
particles, a second wave of

p.76
bacteria, fungi, and other microbes descends on the remains. Using
enzymes and the rest of their metabolic chemistry sets, these microbes
snap large
molecules into small, edible fragments. Cellulose and lignin, the tough
components of plant cell walls, are cleaved into tasty sugars and
aromatic carbon rings. Other microbes hack long chains of leaf protein
into short ammo acid pieces. Some of these microbes are highly
specialized, able to break down only a few types of molecules, but soil
diversity is immense‹a teaspoon of soil may hold 5,000 species of
bacteria, each with a different set of chemical tools. Thus, working
together, this veritable orchestra of thousands of species of bacteria,
fungi, algae, and others fully decompose not only our sample leaf but
almost anything else it encounters.

Besides breaking down organic matter, these microbes also build up soil
structure. As they feed, certain soil bacteria secrete gums, waxes, and
gels that hold tiny particles of earth together. Dividing fungal cells
lengthen into long fingers of hyphae that surround crumbs of soil and
bind them to each
other. These miniclumps give microbially rich soil its good "tilth": the
loose, crumbly structure that gardeners and farmers strive for. Also,
these gooey microbial by-products protect soil from drying and
allow it to hold huge volumes of water. Without soil life, earth just
dries up and blows away or clumps together after a rain and forms
clay-bound, root-thwarting clods.

In a sense, humus is the end of the road for organic matter: By the time
our leaf's remains have reached the humus stage, decomposition has
slowed to a snail's pace. Since organisms can't easily break down humus,
it accumulates in the soil. It will eventually decompose, but in healthy
soil, freshly composting debris arrives at least as fast as the old
humus is broken down, resulting in a slow turnover and constant buildup
of humus.

When pushed, soil organisms can decompose humus, but only grudgingly and
usually if there is nothing else to eat. If humus levels are dropping,
it's a sign that the soil is in very bad shape. It means that all of the
easily digestable organic matter is gone, and the inhabitants are, in
effect, burning down the house to keep warm. Humus is critical to soil
health; thus, wise gardeners keep their soil rich in humus. For now
we'll see why; later we'll learn how.

Of all the ingredients of soil, humus is by far the best at holding
moisture and will absorb four to six times its weight in water.
---

Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web
Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis
http://www.amazon.com/Teaming-Microb...l/dp/088192777
5/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206815176&sr= 1-1
(Available at a library near you.)

Ch. 1

Worms, together with insect larvae and moles and other burrowing
animals, move through the soil in search of food and protection,
creating path-ways that allow air and water to enter and leave the soil.
Even microscopic fungi can help in this regard (see chapter 4). The soil
food web, then, in addition to providing nutrients to roots in the
rhizosphere, also helps create soil structu the activities of its
members bind soil particles together even as they provide for the
passage of air and water through the soil.
----

Which is to say that mulch makes the soil. Turning the soil will kill
it. Aerating the soil will cause a bloom of bacteria which will feed on
the humus in the topsoil. The food runs out, the bacteria die releasing
their contents into the soil to feed the plants. Unless it is replaced,
eventually the humus runs out, and you have barren soil.

The plow was the beginning of global warming.

for larger
areas now i've just mixed it by hoe in
the wheelbarrow and then spread it out.
for smaller already established gardens
i don't do that any more. if something
needs to be added, i put it in the mulch
and the worms, rain and gravity do their
thing to incorporate it. peaceful that
way...
Much more :O)



songbird
"A weed is a plant that is not only in the wrong place, but intends to
stay."
- Sara Stein, author of 'My Weeds: A Gardener's Botany'
--
- 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/

In article
,
Billy wrote:

In article ,
songbird wrote:

Billy wrote:

Oops, besides tilling, the "N" in NPK also stimulates microorganisms to
devour the organic material (carbon) in the soil. The best balance of
carbon to nitrogen is the 25/1 ration, I've been yammering on about.
The up-shot of it all is that your soil will be better aerated, and will
drain better if the tunneling by insects, and worms isn't destroyed with
a shovel, or that "vermicidal apocalypse" called the rototiller. But,
hey, if someone doesn't want to preserve aerated and better draining
soil, it's no skin off my nose.

...

i've had mixed results with
rototilling.

the most recent round was last summer
when i killed off an invasive plant
species and then leveled a large area
(to eliminate a gully that was forming).

the tilling did help break the soil up
making raking and leveling a much easier
task. it also provided a nice fluffy
seedbed for the spiral design i planted
(too fluffy, i should have firmed it up
a bit before seeding it in).
You mean you should have rolled it?

8 months later... the seedlings have
crowns 3-5cm above the soil.
What kind of seedlings?

i'm not
sure how the deer and bunnies will crop
them, but i'm hoping not too low. and
i'm also wondering how they will do if
we get a cold snap without snow cover.
if that will freeze-dry the crowns and
force them to start over from below.

last winter we had good snow cover and
i didn't lose much of anything. we'll
see how the next winter goes.

the major negative from the tilling
was the spread of a different invasive
plant species seeds through the area.
You will get that from spading the soil as well.

i now have about 20-30 more hours of hand
weeding to get it out and then consistent
weeding to keep it out (probably for a
few years before it will be gone).
luckily i've done this before for this
species so i know it can be done. i won't
resort to spraying again. most of the
seedlings are still alive under the
smothering growth, they just aren't going
to perform as well as i'd like until i
free them up.

the 9 hours of weeding i've already done
is looking nice as the rains have perked
the seedlings up. now a few more days of
sunshine to dry things out so i can finish
the rest. the plants need to get some
more growth on to be self-shading before
the hot and dryer period starts up.

the clay is about as compacted as it
was before i tilled. tilling didn't
accomplish much there.
You didn't blend in sand, and organic material? Are we talking lawn,
ornamentals, or veggies?

once the worms
finished up all the rotted organic
material from before i'm not seeing much
activity, except in the pathway where
i'm piling the weeds.
Do mean that you're not seeing worms, or not seeing the benefit of the
worms? Could it be the vermicide that you committed with the rototiller?
When you dig, do you find earthworms? (How many, and what size?)

the next big project is to terrace the
red patch, i'm turning it into a mixed
garden. i won't till it because it has
hundreds of perennials already that i want
to leave in place as much as possible.
i hope i can start that tomorrow or the
next day. even if i can only get the
top few levels done that would be a big
help and a nice start.

i can't think of any other gardens
i would have to till. the biggest garden
i normally spade wouldn't do as well if i
tilled. i need the larger clumps of soil
to pile up for a long mound i make to
plant the cosmos on. it being a low spot
i use the trench to catch water and the
mound to keep the cosmos high, dry and
the roots happy. if it were tilled the
soil would run down faster and the cosmos
would fall over in the wind.

my other previous uses of tilling has
been mostly to mix amendments.
When soil is first prepped for a garden, rototilling, and double digging
make sense, because it will speed up the development of the soil (still
the hardpan problem created by the rototiller still needs to be
addressed. After the garden is established, both (rototilling, and
double digging) just undo the work that the worms, fungi, and other
members of the soil ecosystem have done.
--

Gaia's Garden, Second Edition: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture
(Paperback)
by Toby Hemenway
http://www.amazon.com/Gaias-Garden-S...culture/dp/160
3580298/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271266976&sr=1-1
(Available at a library near you.)

p 74
The earthworm grabs a leaf chunk and slithers into its burrow. With its
rasping mouthparts, the worm pulverizes the leaf fragment, sucking in
soil at the same time. The mixture churns its way to the worm's gizzard,
where surging muscles grind the leaf and soil mixture into a fine paste.
The paste moves deeper into the earthworm's gut. Here bacteria help with
digestion, much as our own gut flora helps us process otherwise
unavailable nutrients from our food. When the worm has wrung all the
nutrients from the paste, it excretes what remains of the leaf and soil,
along with gut bacteria caught in the paste. These worm castings coat
the burrow with fertile, organically enriched earth. Before long, hungry
bacteria, fungi, and microscopic soil animals will find this cache of
organic matter and flourish in walls of the burrow, adding their own
excretions and dead bodies to the supply.

Fueled by the leaf's nutrients, the worm tunnels deeper into the ground,
loosening, aerating, and fertilizing the soil. Rain will trickle down
the burrow, threading moisture deeper into the earth than previously.
The soil will stay damp a little longer between rains. In spring, a
growing root from the oak tree will find this burrow, and, coaxed by the
easy passage and the tunnel's lining of organic food, will extend deep
enough to tap that stored moisture. The worm, with its fertile castings
and a burrow that lets air, water, and roots penetrate the earth, will
have aided the oak tree and much of the other life in the soil. Worms
are among the most beneficial of soil animals: They turn over as much as
twenty-five tons of soil per acre per year, or the equivalent of one
inch of lopsoil over Earth's land surface every ten years.

p 75

Soil invertebrates such as worms and mites don't really alter the
chemical composition of the leaf‹their job is principally to pulverize
litter. Their scurrying and tunneling also mixes the leaf particles with
soil, where the fragments stay moist and palatable for others. In some
cases, the animals' gut microbes can break down tenacious large
molecules such as chitin, keratin, and cellulose into their simpler
sugarlike components. The real alchemy‹the chemical transformation of
the leaf into humus and plant food‹is done by microorganisms.

As the soil animals reduce the leaf to droppings and microscopic
particles, a second wave of

p.76
bacteria, fungi, and other microbes descends on the remains. Using
enzymes and the rest of their metabolic chemistry sets, these microbes
snap large
molecules into small, edible fragments. Cellulose and lignin, the tough
components of plant cell walls, are cleaved into tasty sugars and
aromatic carbon rings. Other microbes hack long chains of leaf protein
into short ammo acid pieces. Some of these microbes are highly
specialized, able to break down only a few types of molecules, but soil
diversity is immense‹a teaspoon of soil may hold 5,000 species of
bacteria, each with a different set of chemical tools. Thus, working
together, this veritable orchestra of thousands of species of bacteria,
fungi, algae, and others fully decompose not only our sample leaf but
almost anything else it encounters.

Besides breaking down organic matter, these microbes also build up soil
structure. As they feed, certain soil bacteria secrete gums, waxes, and
gels that hold tiny particles of earth together. Dividing fungal cells
lengthen into long fingers of hyphae that surround crumbs of soil and
bind them to each
other. These miniclumps give microbially rich soil its good "tilth": the
loose, crumbly structure that gardeners and farmers strive for. Also,
these gooey microbial by-products protect soil from drying and
allow it to hold huge volumes of water. Without soil life, earth just
dries up and blows away or clumps together after a rain and forms
clay-bound, root-thwarting clods.

In a sense, humus is the end of the road for organic matter: By the time
our leaf's remains have reached the humus stage, decomposition has
slowed to a snail's pace. Since organisms can't easily break down humus,
it accumulates in the soil. It will eventually decompose, but in healthy
soil, freshly composting debris arrives at least as fast as the old
humus is broken down, resulting in a slow turnover and constant buildup
of humus.

When pushed, soil organisms can decompose humus, but only grudgingly and
usually if there is nothing else to eat. If humus levels are dropping,
it's a sign that the soil is in very bad shape. It means that all of the
easily digestable organic matter is gone, and the inhabitants are, in
effect, burning down the house to keep warm. Humus is critical to soil
health; thus, wise gardeners keep their soil rich in humus. For now
we'll see why; later we'll learn how.

Of all the ingredients of soil, humus is by far the best at holding
moisture and will absorb four to six times its weight in water.
---

Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web
Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis
http://www.amazon.com/Teaming-Microb...l/dp/088192777
5/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206815176&sr= 1-1
(Available at a library near you.)

Ch. 1

Worms, together with insect larvae and moles and other burrowing
animals, move through the soil in search of food and protection,
creating path-ways that allow air and water to enter and leave the soil.
Even microscopic fungi can help in this regard (see chapter 4). The soil
food web, then, in addition to providing nutrients to roots in the
rhizosphere, also helps create soil structu the activities of its
members bind soil particles together even as they provide for the
passage of air and water through the soil.
----

Which is to say that mulch makes the soil. Turning the soil will kill
it. Aerating the soil will cause a bloom of bacteria which will feed on
the humus in the topsoil. The food runs out, the bacteria die releasing
their contents into the soil to feed the plants. Unless it is replaced,
eventually the humus runs out, and you have barren soil.

The plow was the beginning of global warming.

for larger
areas now i've just mixed it by hoe in
the wheelbarrow and then spread it out.
for smaller already established gardens
i don't do that any more. if something
needs to be added, i put it in the mulch
and the worms, rain and gravity do their
thing to incorporate it. peaceful that
way...
Much more :O)



songbird
"A weed is a plant that is not only in the wrong place, but intends to
stay."
- Sara Stein, author of 'My Weeds: A Gardener's Botany'

"Tickle the earth with a hoe, it will laugh a harvest."
- Mary Cantell
--
- 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/

Billy wrote:
songbird wrote:
Billy wrote:

...

i've had mixed results with
rototilling.

the most recent round was last summer
when i killed off an invasive plant
species and then leveled a large area
(to eliminate a gully that was forming).

the tilling did help break the soil up
making raking and leveling a much easier
task. it also provided a nice fluffy
seedbed for the spiral design i planted
(too fluffy, i should have firmed it up
a bit before seeding it in).


You mean you should have rolled it?

dude, whitespace, it helps, thanks.

or packed it down a little.


8 months later... the seedlings have
crowns 3-5cm above the soil.

What kind of seedlings?

birdsfoot trefoil, alfalfa and
maybe delphiniums (haven't seen
them yet, but i've not gotten that
far in the weeding).


i'm not
sure how the deer and bunnies will crop
them, but i'm hoping not too low. and
i'm also wondering how they will do if
we get a cold snap without snow cover.
if that will freeze-dry the crowns and
force them to start over from below.

last winter we had good snow cover and
i didn't lose much of anything. we'll
see how the next winter goes.

the major negative from the tilling
was the spread of a different invasive
plant species seeds through the area.

You will get that from spading the soil as well.

somewhat, but i don't think as badly.
for one thing i sure wouldn't have moved
as much soil around if i'd spaded it.
that would have kept the weed seeds more
in one location. of course, if i'd known
they were there i'd have done things
differently... they didn't sprout until
late fall, by then it was too wet to
weed them out and i sure didn't want to
spray weed killer again to start over.
these can be hand weeded with some
persistent effort, so i'll do that. i
needed a new weed project anyways now
that i got it out of the the front (joke).


i now have about 20-30 more hours of hand
weeding to get it out and then consistent
weeding to keep it out (probably for a
few years before it will be gone).
luckily i've done this before for this
species so i know it can be done. i won't
resort to spraying again. most of the
seedlings are still alive under the
smothering growth, they just aren't going
to perform as well as i'd like until i
free them up.

the 9 hours of weeding i've already done
is looking nice as the rains have perked
the seedlings up. now a few more days of
sunshine to dry things out so i can finish
the rest. the plants need to get some
more growth on to be self-shading before
the hot and dryer period starts up.

the clay is about as compacted as it
was before i tilled. tilling didn't
accomplish much there.

You didn't blend in sand, and organic material? Are we talking lawn,
ornamentals, or veggies?

i'd already spent my budget for the
next few years redoing the enclosed
tulip gardens (many feet of trenching,
many tons of pea gravel, sand, and then
topsoil and sand mixed to raise it a
foot and a half). so no, no extra organic
or sand added. this is meant to be a
test plot to see what will happen when
legumes are the top dog in clay.

we're talking about what was left of an
old farm field that had scrubby weeds
growing on top of it and a mix of perennials
we've let run around back there for years
(yarrows, clovers, hollyhocks, geraniums,
two kinds of flax, wild strawberries,
butterfly weed, milkweed, grasses, hedge
mustard, pigweed (invasive and hard to
get out of clay once it gets going) and
many others i've never figured out names).
sometimes we've weeded it, sometimes we've
burned stuff there and other times we just
let it go.

until last year when i wanted to reshape it
to get rid of a gully that was forming and i
put in an overflow drain tube for the horseshoe
pathway (a third line of overflow area for
when we get more than two inches of rain in a
short period of time). also i wanted to reseed
it with legumes to liven things up and give the
bunnies and deer a different place to mingle
instead of 25 ft from where i'm sleeping.

all three are ornamentals, but the delphiniums
are poisonous, i'm doubtful they even sprouted,
but won't know until i get back to weeding.

the clovers and stray alfalfa seedlings i'm
weeding out of the birdfoot trefoil (the whole
area is planted in a spiral pattern, trefoil
for the border, to the right of the pathway --
alfalfa to the left). and when i get to the
alfalfa i'll take the stray birdsfoot trefoil
out too. some i'm harvesting into a small
container and drying them to feed to the worms
(extra green stuff). it is young and has no
flowers or seeds yet, so it's perfect green
manure. eventually when the worms are done
with it it's going back onto a veggie garden
someplace. the rest of the weeds i'm piling
on the pathway so the worms can feast (they
are too).


once the worms
finished up all the rotted organic
material from before i'm not seeing much
activity, except in the pathway where
i'm piling the weeds.

Do mean that you're not seeing worms, or not seeing the benefit of the
worms? Could it be the vermicide that you committed with the rototiller?
When you dig, do you find earthworms? (How many, and what size?)

when i tilled last summer it was very dry.
i didn't see a single worm the entire area.
so i know i didn't harm many of them -- they
were down deeper. later on when the rains
came back i saw a lot of worm activity as
they finished off all the decayed material
that was mixed in.

now they are still around, but not as much as
last fall, i'm hoping they'll improve once the
seedlings shade the soil more and start providing
leaves for them to munch on. i'll probably be
hand thinning or weeding all summer off and
on so that should help encourage them too.

i know that the leveling and last round of
drainage i put in will help them a lot too
because now they won't be drowned in large
areas (unlike before).

when i was digging last fall to move some
rhubarb along the edge of the new patch it
had plenty of worms. i'm sure things will
pick up if the worms under the decaying weeds
in the pathway is any sign.


the next big project is to terrace the
red patch, i'm turning it into a mixed
garden. i won't till it because it has
hundreds of perennials already that i want
to leave in place as much as possible.
i hope i can start that tomorrow or the
next day. even if i can only get the
top few levels done that would be a big
help and a nice start.

i can't think of any other gardens
i would have to till. the biggest garden
i normally spade wouldn't do as well if i
tilled. i need the larger clumps of soil
to pile up for a long mound i make to
plant the cosmos on. it being a low spot
i use the trench to catch water and the
mound to keep the cosmos high, dry and
the roots happy. if it were tilled the
soil would run down faster and the cosmos
would fall over in the wind.

my other previous uses of tilling has
been mostly to mix amendments.

When soil is first prepped for a garden, rototilling, and double digging
make sense, because it will speed up the development of the soil (still
the hardpan problem created by the rototiller still needs to be
addressed. After the garden is established, both (rototilling, and
double digging) just undo the work that the worms, fungi, and other
members of the soil ecosystem have done.

no new prepping going on here now.
i got too many other fish to fry (as
soon as it gets dry enough to get a
fire going)...


....
for larger
areas now i've just mixed it by hoe in
the wheelbarrow and then spread it out.
for smaller already established gardens
i don't do that any more. if something
needs to be added, i put it in the mulch
and the worms, rain and gravity do their
thing to incorporate it. peaceful that
way...

Much more :O)

the experiments continue... ha. no
shortage of things to keep me busy here.

i see that Amy Stewart has a new book on
bugs out. or i should say i heard as i was
listening to her being interviewed on the
radio.

i didn't know that tapeworm larvae can
move around the body (and can even get into
the brain and are a big cause of epilepsy
around the world). how's that for an
unsettling thought? that your noodscape can
be gnawed by a vagrant tapeworm...


songbird

On Apr 27, 11:55*pm, "David Hare-Scott" wrote:
Gunner wrote:
On Apr 27, 3:48 pm, "David Hare-Scott" wrote:
Gunner wrote:

Yes David.... I agree with you that saying rototillers WILL cause
hardpan is a lie.

Is that easier to understand

So instead of making that plain in one sentence from the start you throw in
a few choice goads about 'eco-fringe' and waste time chiding me because I
D

Recognizing sarcasm is not a strong suit huh?

David, what is weird is all this pretentious self righteous
indignation of your most precious time being wasted after you give
your "position" lecture. Next time just say you all ****y because I
said eco-fringy.