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Post by paquebot on Jan 1, 2009 1:20:51 GMT -5
If you are not in physical shape to properly change the depth of decent soil in your entire garden, do it one plant at a time. All of my home garden soil has been worked deep but I've also got almost 5,000 square feet of nearly pure silt in the community gardens. Five-gallon holes are dug for each tomato plant. That's replaced with 2½ gallons of my special hole mix and 2½ gallons of the original soil. After 4 years of rotating 12 plants around one 18x25 plot, the biggest share of that one is good to at least 18". Peppers and brassica only get about a 2-gallon hole and about 15" deep. One can do the same for row crops by digging trenches perhaps a foot deep and adding a mix of soil and compost back in. I do that with potatoes, sweet potatoes and carrots. By rotating and changing patterns, eventually everything will have been worked deep in a few years without too much effort. And good rich organic matter that deep is priceless and lasts for years.
Martin
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Post by Rebsie on Jan 3, 2009 18:13:23 GMT -5
Part of the technique is to shout "bastard" systematically as you dig - it helps! Ah, that's what I've been doing wrong all these years! I need to shout more swear words. |
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Post by Alan on Jan 5, 2009 17:51:22 GMT -5
LOL, I have screamed many curse words in my farming time, many of them at myself, some at the tractors and equipment and a few at various animals and insects. It's gardening touretes I believe!
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Kelly
gardener
Posts: 117
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Post by Kelly on Jan 7, 2009 13:11:46 GMT -5
I must say - I'm glad I'm not the only person who sees constant double digging as a waste of time, and probably a lot more hazardous in the long run to the soil's health!
Now, I did double dig my 8x10' plot I put into my back yard last spring, but that was purely because the space I was turning up had been sod (oh, and also a deep-set fire pit), add to the mixture that I'm on VERY clay-laiden soil and it became a necessity.
That small plot also took me, probably, a combined 10 hours over the course of three days. It sucked. A lot.
This year, I'm building two new 12x14' plots, that yes, are of course also lawn that will have to be dug up. This year though, I'm renting a roto-tiller. I'm NOT doing that by hand again! I don't care what it costs me, that soil needs to be busted up, and it was really hard on the back doing a lot smaller of a space.
One of the plots did used to be a garden, since I can still see the outline, so I'm hoping the soil isn't too compacted, but the other space that I'm building in the front yard has always been lawn, so I know it needs to be tilled. Also - it's on a slope, so I'm going to have to build a partial box to level it out anyway (the top of the plot is 10" higher than the back, fortunately there's a cedar mill around here that gives away the sides of the trees it cuts off for free!).
In previous places where I lived I never double-dug, while neighbours always did. I always had healthier and tastier veggies (although that probably had to do as well with the fact they were growing commercial hybrids and I was growing heirlooms) than anybody else on the block, even though I had a lot less room to work with.
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Post by houseodessey on Jan 7, 2009 20:35:20 GMT -5
Most of Fort Worth is black clay. When I moved to East FW, I couldn't even dig into the ground with a spade. So, we tilled and amended heavily and tilled again. Much to my surprise, I had fairly sandy soil. Turns out that I live in part of the "post oak savannah" or some such nonsense and actually have decent soil to work with. Still a lot of clay but very workable.
My soil was simply totally packed down by vehicles, people, and back in the 40's and before, cows and other livestock. The yard is so hard that I've developed plantar fascitis from walking to tend animals and the garden. At any rate, sometimes you need to till, unless you want to wait years for a garden. My garden is just now starting to stop puddling in heavy rains. Three years after I started amending with tilling, too. In the front yard, where I have no sense of urgency, I'm simply putting mulch out and hoping the worms will come and help out. I'm sure they will but I wanted veggies right away and I do have plenty of worms where I didn't before. Like others said, we all have different obstacles and no formula fits them all.
Edited to add, I also do as Martin does and dig giant holes and amend when planting. It seems to work well, as long as I have 6-18 inches of nice loam atop the beds for the roots at the surface.
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Post by Alan on Jan 8, 2009 14:50:12 GMT -5
It's interesting hearing about everyones opinion of double digging as well as how they amend their particular soil conditions and what those native soil conditions are. What really amazes me is just how adaptable that all of these seeds we are sharing with each other are, in that they seem to mostly adapt in some form or another to each individual type of soil and fertility.
Another reason I don't approach double digging other than it is a pain in the ass and because I don't find it neccessary is because on the scale I am farming it would be impossible to do any amount of land in this way without hiring help and I'm stingy and broke so that isn't going to happen. I guess if gas goes back up it will be time for me to buy a mule to plow with and make raised beds with instead of a tractor.
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Post by plantsnobin on Jan 9, 2009 10:24:46 GMT -5
OK, I know you are half-joking about the mule, but have you ever read the Small Farm Journal? I only came across this excellant publication in the past six months or so. I think it is 4 issues a year, dealing with real horse/mule power. Sources of equipment, gatherings, etc. I really enjoy it. And, I think that it might be an idea whose time has come-around again. Last issue had artcle onr a raised bed maker............
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Post by Alan on Jan 9, 2009 10:47:16 GMT -5
I have never read it Karen, but I will now! No, seriously, no joking about the Mule, I have considered it in all honesty, and one day I may just go in that direction.
The only factor that might stop me from going in that direction is if the current walk behind solar tractors become a bit more refined and powerful, should they get the horsepower where it needs to be for the applications I would want to use it for, that is where my attention will head for better or worse. Right now the horsepower is crap and the technology isn't there and the price is crazy!
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Post by plantsnobin on Jan 9, 2009 13:24:12 GMT -5
Believe me, I know you weren't kidding about the mule!!! My FIL has had mules, he is as stubborn as they are, so it is a good fit. When Mike was little they were going to be in the town parade. Something went wrong while Mike was in between the pair, and they ended up dragging him just about all the way home, I think. He survived anyway. The last issue of that mag had a letter from a solar power tractor advocate. He was also talking about an electric chain saw that was powered with a portable solar panel. Now that is something I could get interested in...
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Post by woodchuck on Jan 13, 2009 23:08:56 GMT -5
If I had a chance, I'd till the soil 3' deep. I've made soil that deep by trench composting large piles of rabbit and pigeon manure. Many plants which appear to have roots only a foot or so deep may actually be going down 6 to 8 feet. Mulching, compost, or no-till gardening is fine as long as there is a great base. Otherwise it may take years for the surface nutrients to get down to where they are available to the plants. Martin I agree 100% Martin. At least for my kind of soil. Time is the key factor - you can do in a day what would take nature centuries to accomplish; from then on a little mulch on top takes care of the rest. That's the way it is here, double digging isn't absolutely essential, but you do see a difference....a remarkable difference in most cases. The double digging only needs to be done once, yeah, it's a lot of work...I've found that smothering the sod for several weeks...covering it with mulch or whatever to set it back, makes a HUGE difference...it's so much easier!!!! My double dug raise beds perform amazing well, well beyond what's common here, sos much so as to attract the attention of the neighbors! It makes a huge difference!!!! <Woodchuck> |
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Post by johno on Jan 14, 2009 14:43:46 GMT -5
You just have to understand the root zone to see why it makes such a big difference. Roots need air; in hard packed soil, they just don't get it, and they can't roam as they'd like to. If you garden where the soil is already rich, deep and loose, you don't need to double-dig. In soil like mine - rocky gravelly clay - it makes a huge difference. Martin's method of doing it one hole at a time where it's most needed helps tremendously with the aching back and time restrictions. Just move the spots where your heaviest feeders will be every year, and eventually the whole area will be double-dug.
I saw an article somewhere - maybe Mother Earth News? - about a man who modified his tractor to solar. He put a solar panel on top that was big enough to shade the entire tractor - not a bad side effect in the summer. He said that since the tractor depended on torque, the electric motor did fine.
Short of doing that - which is likely cost-prohibitive at this time - I'm thinking seriously about a mule, myself.
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Post by plantsnobin on Jan 14, 2009 16:58:36 GMT -5
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Post by johno on Jan 15, 2009 3:05:27 GMT -5
That's a cool site, but not the one I saw. They do have a good example of what I was talking about with the electric Ford 8N, though. Thanks Karen.
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Post by canadamike on Jan 15, 2009 19:40:44 GMT -5
One thing I do that can't be qualified as double digging, but is close, and much easier on my back, is passing over and over again with the tiller at the same place, moving the soil on the side as I do it ( front tines tiller ). It ends up being deeper and deeper at each pass....I then add whatever I have in the hole to lighten and aerate the soil, and mix as I go.
Usually, when I am 12 feet under ground level, I find gold ;D
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Post by Alan on Jan 16, 2009 16:51:50 GMT -5
I've seen those solar tractors on the net before and it is something that I am seriously considering. I wish those little sunhorse walk behinds had just a little bit more power than what they do because if they did I would be all over one of those things. You would be really suprised what could be done with one of those old David Bradley walk behind tractors, my grandfather plowed, tilled, and terraced almost all 12 acres of tillable land on this farm with nothing but one of those when he and my grandmother moved up here in the fifties! That is reliability there!
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