No Till Gardening

[s2man]

I, too, am a no-till gardener. For decades I have broken new ground by putting down a layer of cardboard, held down by mulch. Give it a couple of months for the grass/weeds to die and rot, then peel back the mulch to find the worms having a heyday. A bit of scratching to produce a seed bed is all that is needed.

At our new place, I splurged on 20yds of compost to jump-start the garden. I put 4" of compost on top of the cardboard, last year. I added 2 more inches to each bed this spring, and I am about out of compost. That's 4' by 128' of beds.

Admittedly, the results the first year, in a bed built like this, are marginal. But I've done the double-dig routine, and would rather give the worms a year to frolic in the compost than till it by hand. I've not seen the problem of clay recompacting under my continuous layer of mulch and compost; I find the soil just keeps getting more and more loose from the worms and the repeated growing and dieing of plant roots. By the third year, at my last place, I could plunge my hand into the soil past my wrist with no effort.

This has worked fine for me for creating 4 foot wide beds. Now that I am in the country, I wonder if I can smother a large enough area to grow grains. I scoped out the dumpster at work, yesterday, and getting enough cardboard will not be a problem. I'll give it a shot this fall. If it does not work on that scale, I'll have to rent a rototiller to aid in the initial grass removal (I live in a former hay field).

As to mulch; I agree with OP that leaves and grass clippings were so easy to come by in the city, with everyone putting out their yard waste for collection on the same day. Out in the country, I'm getting spoiled hay to use for mulch. I hope I am not importing weed seeds. I don't know the source of the old hay I am getting, but in the fields around me grass and clover rule, with very few weeds.

This post is getting long, but I have to add a mulch story; I happened to have my trailer behind the car when I stopped by a friend's house in the suburbs, last spring. I came upon a house with 20+ bags of leaves out by the curb. As I was loading them the lady came running out and told me I didn't have to take them because the city would do it. LOL. I told her I wanted to take them for mulching my garden. She pondered that and said she uses straw for mulch in her garden. I thought, fine, you pay to import straw from Kansas and I'll use the free leaves. She opened her garage and brought me two more bags of leaves. One stop, trailer full.

[RpR]

Will you get weeds, yes, you are out in the country.
Some hay or straw bales can be real nasty. All it takes is one bale with a thistle nested inside and poof, you will be dealing with thistles for awhile.

You would be better off to find a farmer with a small plow and plow the patch-up.
Do any amending you will do on top of the tilled soil, as it will give you richer base under your garden and looser soil, at least for a while.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Jul 28, 2012 7:17:02 GMT -5 s2man said:

Out in the country, I'm getting spoiled hay to use for mulch. I hope I am not importing weed seeds. I don't know the source of the old hay I am getting, but in the fields around me grass and clover rule, with very few weeds.

There are plenty of weed seeds in even the cleanest hay. In my garden, I consider grass and clover to be weeds as well.

[s2man]

Well, we've got two separate topics, here: Breaking new ground, and mulching the garden. I could smother the grass/clover with cardboard and more compost again, to expand my garden. But ongoing mulching of the garden with hay will still be an issue. I guess I could drive my truck to work during the fall and bring home as many leaves and grass clippings as possible...

I'll try to stay away from the hay as mulch, and just use it in the compost bin. Thanks for the warnings.

[steev]

I don't know where you are, but if you have access to any quantity of non-awful grass clippings (not Bermuda, for instance) you are indeed fortunate, as there is hardly a better "green" for either soil-building or mulch.

Those Autumn leaves are also riches for both amendment and mulch, but "brown".

Hay or straw are problematic physically, due to relative difficulty of incorporation to the soil.

Myself, I find a bale of spoiled hay or straw is a good producer of a species of Coprinus mushroom that when I catch it in flush is excellent sauteed in butter, on toast. After a few months out in the rain, I find such a bale isn't very weedy when used as mulch.

[raymondo]

My father only ever used grass clippings, from his manicured lawns, and fallen leaves as dressing on his garden beds. His gardens were the envy of the neighbourhood. My mother could never stand mulch as she thought it looked untidy. Needless to say, their marriage didn't last!

[mountaindweller]

I have a always a bit of stability problems with my no till beds. I use the technique Sepp Holzer describes as "Hügelkultur", in theory the beds have a triangle shape in their cross section. He uses timber as the first layer. I used long cut grass from a council mowing as a second layer and leaves. But my soil would never stick on the sides of a triangle so I shape it flat on the top. That means instead of gaining space I lose it. I managed to form a triangle once for perennials, but I included stones. I am not sure weather I use sufficient dirt on the top of it. That is in short supply. what would you consider the minimum amount of dirt?
Something else: in the chicken run I mulch trees with stones. That helps to preserve moisture too.

[raymondo]

I wouldn't worry about a triangular cross-section. I have only one small Hügelkultur type bed and it's a low mound with a very flat top. I dug out soil, put wood in then put the soil back on top. Really it's just a raised bed.
Sensible to use stones in the chook run. There would be any mulch left if it was straw or whatever.

[mountaindweller]

I don't make a triangular shape something like a raised bed, but for the stability it is less wide on the top than on the bottom, so I do not gain but lose space. But this is still the best possibility given our soil.
I am a bit afraid though that stong winds take my newly sown bed apart.

[raymondo]

I'm widening an existing bed by about 6' but have decided to do it a little differently to what I usually do. The area is lawn, mostly kikuyu (Pennisetum clandestinum) and couch (Cynodon dactylon). Both of these grasses spread quickly both above and below ground. Being the end of winter here, the above ground parts are completely dead so I intend covering the area with a deep layer of wood mulch, at least 6" thick, more if can. Before laying the mulch I'll slice through the sod making squares about a foot across. This should reduce the viability of the stolons so I'm hoping they won't have the energy reserves to be able to put up any greenery through the mulch layer. If any do surface, I'll burn them off with vinegar. The underground parts should quickly starve.
Well, that's the hope anyway. I'll post some pics, and a summer update.

[raymondo]

Well, both grasses are more resilient than I thought. At least once a week since warm weather started I'm having to nip off grasses that peek through the mulch. The edges are particularly bothersome.

[synergy]

I have begun mulching my largest garden area of about 60 x60 with a grass ,buttercups and other weeds in the perimeter , with layers of cardboard and chipped green mulch on top to keep the cardboard from culring up and being blown away as s2man did. Mine is placed around the perimeter of the garden to hold back weeds from growing in from a swale on one side and three other sides used as pasture. I am sure there is more I need to be doing about the buttercup but this is my start.

[raymondo]

Did you lay the cardboard wet or dry synergy? I've found that when sheet mulching this way that wet works better than dry. Unless of course you lay the mulch then have a nice downpour.

I'm abandoning my experiment. The grasses are too vigorous. I'll remove the mulch and cover it for a season with weedmat. Lift the weedmat next spring, mulch and plant.

[synergy]

After the cardboard has been wet and it dries again in the wind and sun, it curls , so I have been spreading chipped materials on lightly to help weight it down and also I have been resorting to laying the recycled coconut coir matting from off of bedframes down as additional mulch. Where I have been working that garden a few years the tilth is not bad and there is a light cover of lambsquarters sprouted but a new section has been double dug by hand adding manured horse bedding (yes I know it has weed seeds but I need to lighten the soil) and I am again adding to that section again with more ammendment where I think my first crop I plant in spring will be potatoes so it is ammended with more cover and dug again during harvest . I can always just chop and drop the lambsquarters when it gets too high , I eat them as well so I don't think of them as too oppressive.

[raymondo]

I lay wet newspaper/cardboard and then a thick layer of mulch, wood chip if I can get it, but whatever's to hand. I lay it on at least 6" thick. The newspaper stays moist this way I find. Mind you, I wouldn't be able to cover very large areas this way as I simply wouldn't have access to that much mulching material.