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"No till" gardening for peppers

Great thread, and thanks for the heads-up, Rodney.

I would only add a couple of thoughts, as this topic applies to my gardens. The native soil in both my gardens has a lot of red or brown clay, along with varying amounts of alluvial sand. The country garden also has irony siltstone nodules, stream gravel, oilfield "artifacts," and Bermuda grass runners. The first year I had no choice but to till down to 6 inches or so, to break up the clay and iron cement and to remove the grass runners. This also allowed me to mix in plenty of hardwood chips, the benefits of which I've mentioned on these boards several times. (See links below). Also, if one is planting in "mounded" rows, it's necessary to till the first year just to build up the rows. (Essential for good drainage when you have a shallow hardpan substrate.)

In my suburban garden, where the surrounding lawn is primarily easily-managed St. Augustine grass, I have been able to maintain tall "no-till" mounded rows. After plant-out every year I add 3-4 inches of chipped hardwood, which continues to build the soil but also adds an absorbent "water blanket." Below is a photo of my suburban garden about one month after plant-out, in early June. The variety is Aji Umba:

umba_row.jpg


And more recently. The Aji Umba row is in back, obscured by Bonda ma Jacques, and the container row of Yellow 7:

Yellow7sBondas.jpg


The large garden in the country is surrounded by highly invasive Bermuda grass. So far I have not found a way to completely eliminate it, so I have been forced to re-till every year. Aside from the extra work, I don't really mind, because it gives me a chance to add more hardwood chips, and I still get very large, productive plants. I have tried using weed cloth, and was not satisfied with the results, but that was very early in my gardening career, so probably I was doing something else wrong. In 2013 I will try cloth again. At any rate, this is what the country garden looked like yesterday. The plants in the back right, Thai Birdseed, are seven feet tall (the reason for the stepladder):

garden.jpg


My goal is to keep both gardens no-till. I believe I will get there next year.

Here's a link to the original Canadian work on rebuilding exhausted soil with hardwood chips, including Prof. Lemieux's thoughts on the advantages of not tilling:

https://dl.dropbox.c...mieux_Paper.pdf

And another, more practical, paper:

https://dl.dropbox.c..._2007_11_27.pdf
 
Very nice Gary, knowing how your garden looks made me think your version of this technique works well in your area.

As said earlier, some area may not lend themselves to this technique.

Gary, no dog pictures?
 
I haven't done much research on the no-till method, but some of the reasons don't make sense to me.
For example, how does mixing organic matter into your soil "kill" it? I till as much compost and aged manure into my soil as I can get my hands on every year, and my soil keeps getting better and better IMO.
I don't buy the worm killing thing either. Seems like a stretch... I've tilled up thousands and thousands of night crawlers, and almost never see one mangled in any way. In fact I seem to have more and more of them every year.

I'm not saying it's all BS, but some of the theories just don't make much sense to me.
 
I believe the thought would be, breaking the ground breaks up the existing soil web. Like breaking a bone, it mends, but it takes time to mend....why break it?

As far as the earthworm question or observation, I cannot comment.

There is a logic to leaving the ground intact and adding organics.
 
Scarlet Fire said:
There is no-till, and there is Conservation Tillage (CT), and both exist for good reason. The dust bowl of the "dirty thirties" resulted largely from poor land management practices by the wheat farmers in the southern plains. It was undeniably caused from over tilling, without putting enough rich organic matter back into the earth, but there is certainly more to it than that. If you think people who consciously practice no-till are lazy, look at what they know to be afraid of:

http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/dustbowl/

This shows what happens when poor soil conservation went rampant on a massive scale.
Click to expand...
Man finds good land and establishes a "civilization". His flocks graze the grass, he tills the soil. He waxes fat a sassy and multiplies in number. Increased populations put more demand on the productive capacity of his land. Overgrazing and over-tilling both follow. plant life becomes too weak to restore itself, and the soil grows yearly more deficient in plant food and tilth. Weak plants can't control erosion, rain and wind do not cause farm erosion, lack of nitrogen and organic matter do.
Would I be called a radical farmer. or a wierd one. If I don't use chemical fertilizer, and just pour up to twenty tons of manure per acre and add a soil ammendment of 0-2-2 TILL it onto the first 8'' of the top soil ? I was called wierd and radical when my boss saw corn produced over 100 bushels per acre last year, though planted a month late. When his hay produced over eight tons per acre. The surprising thing is the farm was rundown land 9 or 10 years ago , the organic matter level was around a 1.5 then and now I am guessing around a 4.7 or 4.9 . We still have lots of other problems at the ranch but soil fertility ain't one of them.
I read some where that ... ''if man took care of the top seven inches of the earth's crust, just about everything else would take care of its self''. I honestly don't think this remark is just an attempt to be cute, or to oversimplify. If we really think about it.. The fall of almost every great civilization is largley an account of raping natural resources until all easy profit goes out of it. The fact that we could not control the past land management of the land we own today, forces us to better our land by TILLING and blending it with organic nutrients or chemical fertilizer. In the end we all make the call .
 
armac said:
There is a logic to leaving the ground intact and adding organics.
Click to expand...

I can buy that, but there is also logic to mixing organics into the soil. One takes several months or years to actually improve the soil (talking about adding solid materials here), and the other takes hours.

I strictly grow organically in raised rows. I could till and mound a row without adding anything at all (but I always add something). That tells me I just increased the oxygen in my soil because it doubled in volume without adding anything. Oxygen is good for roots. Also, the looser the soil, the faster plants grow, in my experience. That goes for everything I grow, not just peppers.

Not arguing BTW, just my thoughts...

windchicken said:
umba_row.jpg
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That's a giant raised row. It's so big the roots probably don't have much reason to grow into the actual ground at all. More like your own custom growing medium just sitting on top of the ground than no-till gardening. I'm not ripping on it. It looks great, and similar to what I do. The only difference is I mix mine up with a tiller and incorporate it into the native soil every year.
 
Mark this day on the calendar, folks! :P

I'm trying out the no till method with wood chip mulch next season. I have been tilling in organic amendments to my Kansas clay for about 10 years now, and finally have the soil loosened up to the extent it is no longer suitable for making pottery. I will let you know how it turns out.

armac said:
Nice to able to agree with someone, about differing ideas.

Very refreshing. Need more of that on the board.
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muskymojo said:
That's a giant raised row. It's so big the roots probably don't have much reason to grow into the actual ground at all. More like your own custom growing medium just sitting on top of the ground than no-till gardening. I'm not ripping on it. It looks great, and similar to what I do. The only difference is I mix mine up with a tiller and incorporate it into the native soil every year.
Click to expand...

MM, thanks for looking and for your thoughts. I should have made it more clear that these tall rows were originally built in 2010 by mixing the native clay with plenty of hardwood chips. I tilled, by hand with a regular hoe, down to 6 inches, and gathered soil from the surrounding area to build the rows that tall. There is no bagged soil there, only native clay and chipped hardwood. The point I'm trying to make in this thread is that, for me, once I have tilled up my big rows the first year, subsequent years are no-till.

I like what you said about the roots liking plenty of loose, aerated soil. My thoughts exactly, and that is how I roll!

I look forward to following your grow.

Gary
 
This was my raised bed early October before tilling in the Happy Frog Soil Conditioner, some manure, and a little top soil.

100_2314.jpg


This is after the tilling.

100_2329.jpg


A week ago I layered some leaves on top.

100_2334.jpg


A couple of days ago I layered on some "green waste matter" that I bought from the local BIOMASS ONE.

100_2337.jpg

100_2338.jpg


Now, my intention is to keep top dressing with organic matter as necessary, and no tilling. We'll see how she goes in May 2013.
 
Yeah, no till doesn't exclude the addition of organic matter. It just means not disturbing the soil food web. You can feed the soil all year, just avoid disturbing the web except locally at each planting hole. :)
 
Thanks for looking, and for all the responses. Do you think it would be overkill to scatter some rabbit manure on top now?
 
Pepper-Guru said:
Yeah, no till doesn't exclude the addition of organic matter. It just means not disturbing the soil food web. You can feed the soil all year, just avoid disturbing the web except locally at each planting hole. :)
Click to expand...

How do you not disturb the soil when you plant?
 
windchicken said:
MM, thanks for looking and for your thoughts. I should have made it more clear that these tall rows were originally built in 2010 by mixing the native clay with plenty of hardwood chips. I tilled, by hand with a regular hoe, down to 6 inches, and gathered soil from the surrounding area to build the rows that tall. There is no bagged soil there, only native clay and chipped hardwood. The point I'm trying to make in this thread is that, for me, once I have tilled up my big rows the first year, subsequent years are no-till.

I like what you said about the roots liking plenty of loose, aerated soil. My thoughts exactly, and that is how I roll!

I look forward to following your grow.

Gary
Click to expand...

Excelent job there buddy !
Honesly I think no man should ever be cursed with such a soil, a potter's dream perhaps, but a nightmare to a gardner or farmer. So it just goes to show that with hard work and alot of motivation plots of gardens or fields can be very fertile.
I think the important part of evaluating a particular soil is not deciding whether it is "rich" or "poor", but rather in assessing accurately the cost of producing a good crop on it. Almost any soil can be made productive." A" -"rich" soil is one that can be improved and maintained in high productivity at much less expense than "poor" soil. In a commercial gardening venture.. for example, the expense, amout of time and money spent is crucial. If soil "B"- demands twice the expense to produce the same amount of vegetables as soil "A", or work twice as hard, or both.
 
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