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Post by ottawagardener on Apr 3, 2012 9:14:15 GMT -5
As for hardpan underneath the humus level, does it help if you follow a deep rooted crop by a shallow rooted one? Certainly, I have been known to initially change the bed's composition when I first plant either with amendments or by digging but I do this less and less now. I know some people that work on clay build up a bed quite high with organic matter etc...
The old orchard garden here has been tilled repeatedly by previous owners. The texture is very easy to work but it feels like beach sand beneath your feet in the summer and falls out of the hand in the same way. My plan was swaling and berming again and soil coverage. As it is, annual weeds/plants cover the soil rapidly whenever it is bare there.
I have worked on client's gardens with clay though I've always avoided it though there are advantages of course. The bottomlands on our property is clay like most of the farm fields around here.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 3, 2012 9:15:21 GMT -5
Only about 1/3 of Pennsylvania was covered by glaciers, so the earthworms in the rest of the state never got killed, and have been there the whole time eating away at the forest plants. The forest in the hilly (non-glaciated) areas of Pennsylvania seems to have managed to thrived with the presence of earthworms.
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Post by ottawagardener on Apr 3, 2012 9:17:30 GMT -5
Ecosystems are always changing/adapting. As good stewards we have to be aware of and potentially modify our actions but I'm not in a rush to vilify earthworms though I do find the idea of ecosystem without them interesting for observational reasons.
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Post by turtleheart on Apr 3, 2012 9:57:43 GMT -5
earthworms are here to stay the matter now is of adaptation to allow conditions for biodiversity. they are an added stressor to many native species (who's soils are permanently altered and also get eaten up themselves.) and make "invasive" blooms more prevalent because the soils they create are more like their eurasian cradles of evolution. the soil here had no terrestrial worms, there were only aquatic worm species in the lakes. the whole of the continent even that with no glacier had no earthworms prior to contact. we had beetles and fungi and plants and animals that lived in the soil. the majority of species are now extinct largely due to the invasion of earthworms and roman style agriculture as well as the death of the wolf which brought the over-predation of the remaining woodland by dear in conjunction with the earthworms.
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Post by turtleheart on Apr 3, 2012 10:04:45 GMT -5
the species that were not able to survive the invasions of non-native organisms were not maladapted to their surroundings. on the contrary they were so well adapted to them that when the environment changed there was no way for them to continue. now we have a greatly reduced ability to build soils, support mycelium and other microorganisms in the soil, feed human and non-human animals, and yield biomass for fuel. we have less than 10% of our species barely able to survive as it is. that is not to anyone's benefit and the species lost are all sacred.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Apr 3, 2012 10:35:43 GMT -5
. the whole of the continent even that with no glacier had no earthworms prior to contact. Over-simplification. While it appears to be true that areas of the continent that where recently covered by the Wisconsin Glaciation were wiped clean of earthworm species, and the earthworms now present there are introduced, there were and still are many native North American earthworm species. bio-eco.eis.ynu.ac.jp/eng/database/earthworm/American%20Earthworms.pdf |
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Post by steev on Apr 3, 2012 10:44:01 GMT -5
Kind of sounds like "early immigrants good; later immigrants bad". I can well understand that the giant ground sloths must have thought that, as their sacred species was driven to extinction by hungry bipedal invaders. Those poor creatures didn't have enough time to adapt to technology as advanced as spears. Oh, well, I bet they were tasty, while they lasted. I wonder whether any European ever tasted one.
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Post by bonsaioutlaw on May 1, 2012 14:11:04 GMT -5
Hearing that earthworms are bad is a first for me. When I find them around the yard I bring them to my garden.... Silly me. This has been an interesting thread. I have always tilled, but I have experimented with no till over the last year and I am turning more and more of my beds over to this method.
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Post by mnjrutherford on May 2, 2012 15:12:04 GMT -5
I've read that earthworms can be either good or bad depending on the particular eco system. They don't really NEED to be EVERYwhere. I thought it was highly amusing earlier this spring when the guys were searching high AND low for fishing worms! My youngest found a single worm and the three of them went fishing with just that single poor little worm. They were desperate. About 2 weeks later they had to lay a pad for the new puppy kennel and what did they find? Every worm in the state! There they were, happy as clams in the puppy shit. Who knew?
ANYway... on the topic of "no till".... I think the notion is fabulous but difficult to implement particularly when it goes against popular methods. I DID score a win in a SMALL battle today though. I told Mike I was going to lay down pine needle mulch around the wax corn so that it could be as protected and babied as possible this year since we really need to increase the seed better than we did last year. When I told him this last night he said, "OK". Typically when folks speak while looking you in the eye they are actually comprehending that you are speaking, right?
So I get home this morning, ready to put in garden time. I load up the wheelbarrow with the pine needles and get to work. He comes over and starts freaking out.... I WANT TO TILL THESE ROWS!
DUDE! Chill out! If that's what you want then let me just mulch these two rows and I'll stop. Call it an experiment. Less work for you to do in the end and hey, I just might be right??
It's 80 degrees at 9 a.m. so 2 rows was about all I was ready to do anyhow. When I'm done he comes over and decides it's gonna be ok for me to do the rest of the wax corn. ::rolls eyes:: good grief!
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Post by raymondo on May 2, 2012 16:19:22 GMT -5
After a long spell of no mulch, in an attempt to reduce the slug population, I've given up and am going back to mulching everything. Too many weeds without it. This time however, I'm taking a leaf out of Paul Gautschi's book (see the online film Back to Eden) and using wood grindings as my mulch. As I apply it to the beds, once I've slogged it out removing the damn weeds, I'm thinking that slugs probably won't enjoy this mulch as much as they did the straw I used to use. Here's hoping. I'll post an update in a few years on how the experiment works out.
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Post by johno on May 2, 2012 16:43:17 GMT -5
I've always wanted to go no-till, but with this clay and rock mix here, it's a looong wait for tilth. Last year I went from minimum till to no till on the top half of the garden, as it has been under cultivation the longest. Not great results yet, but I have faith...
I am using cardboard for killing the winter cover crops. The idea is to have all the good biomass left in place without having to turn it in. I cast a little sawdust on the cardboard to weigh it down. I've been drilling holes through it with my trusty cordless Ryobi where I want to sow seeds. So far so good.
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Post by mnjrutherford on May 2, 2012 17:11:28 GMT -5
We have to use what we can get. For the corn it's a pile of pine needles that was given to us by a neighbor. It's filled with grubs in the moist middle, but I'm hoping the guineas will short work of these tender morsels.
We had clay and rock in California. If we didn't till and amend there, we would never have had anything. That was great for tomatoes, chard, and lettuce. But very little else did well. Here we get incredible corn, potatoes, peanuts, onions, and garlic. But the tomatoes!?!?!?!?!? GRRRRRR
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Post by bluelacedredhead on May 2, 2012 17:33:13 GMT -5
I just have a tiny urban garden now so I barely use my Mantis. But even the last year we were on the farm I quit using a large tiller and went to using the Mantis to save my back when weeding those long rows. Unlike a large machine that digs down and stirs in the harder earth underneath, tiny tillers just take care of the immediate. Jo, stir up those needles and let them see the grubs; that should be all the incentive they need  Are there not any farms around where you could get a garbage or feed bag full of manure? Even a bag or two a year, worked into the garden as you plant your tomatoes and vine crops would help. I was going to suggest composting but you've got birds now so if you are like me, you feed them the kitchen scraps instead of turning them back into the soil. |
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Post by Drahkk on May 2, 2012 21:19:05 GMT -5
Mine is all in raised beds that I try not to walk in; I generally use the Mantis once a year, a few weeks before my main season stuff goes out when I'm turning in some extra compost (along with whatever grew there during the winter, planted or not).
Nathan, that Ryobi attachment is universal fit. You can probably find a different power head to put it on and get a little more oomph out of it. I'm sure it will fit Toro, Craftsman, and Husqvarna, and probably a lot of others.
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Post by oxbowfarm on May 3, 2012 4:37:13 GMT -5
Johno, there is a woman in Kentucky that does some interesting no-till methods you might want to copy. The farm is called Salamander Springs Farm and its run by a woman named Susana Lein. She does some pretty sophisticated no-till with grain and beans. I saw her give a talk and one of the things she does is grows a wheat cover crop that she mows when it is in the boot stage in spring to kill it, then she plants through the resulting mulch.
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