I want to do no-till gardening, but I'm confused

Okay. We bought this farm last summer. (almost 80 acres) It had been neglected for some years, as the previous owner was quite aged and kinda gave up on keeping up with the farm. Last summer, it was full of thistles and other noxious weeds. The county came out and sprayed to get rid of the thistles a couple of weeks before we closed on the farm (they are wonderful for butterflies, but awful for all else!)

Anyway, the soil is pretty much clay, as is most soil in the Northeastern part of Kansas. I have decided to use a couple of acres that was pasture for cows and my horses. It has been grazed, and pooped upon, but I really want to do no-till gardening.

I want to grow many, many veggies and flowers - and I mean many. I have been building raised beds, and from what Susan has been saying, I put cardboard on the bottom of each bed, and then I'm putting metro-mix pro (but that's getting a little pricey).
I have chicken poop and horse poop and some old, bad hay and wood shavings and coffee grounds and straw in the big old pile, but II do not think it has composted yet, and I'm not totally sure how to make it turn into compost - I do have a tractor with a front loader, should I use that to mix the stuff up?

And then, I see Susan's lasagna method, but can I do that and plant veggies and/or flowers in that right away?

I have a whole lot of walla walla onion plants that I need to plant tomorrow - and potatoes and green onion sets. The more I read, the more confused I get. I have been a "city girl" for most of my life, so I don't have a ton of knowledge on this stuff - if any of you out there can steer me in the right direction, I would so appreciate it!

I am going to try to sell veggies and melons and berries at the Farmer's Market, and I really do need help!

Beth in Kansas

beth, i would just spread the manures,straw,wood shavings coffee grounds etc. and just till it in the soil and plant.
I can't imagine doing 2 acres with all this lasagne, cardboard method and no till. i wouldn't waste all my energy on that, you are gonna need it for the planting,weeding and harvesting. The no till that farmers do is to spray, and then use a seed driller to plant seeds.
if you mix the manures with the soil, it will dilute them so they don't burn your plants.

Beth,

I don't know anything about farming on a large scale. I wanted to bring your attention to the farm life discussion form. They may be better able to answer your questions.

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/f/farmlife/all/

Good luck with your new farm.

Oh, gosh, I think I must have misled you! I don't want to farm on a large scale. I want to be a truck farmer, and I want to be as eco-friendly as I can be, because we can have such winds here - I don't want to lose what topsoil we have. I was thinking of raised beds, no more than 4 feet wide, because then, I would not have to worry so about the quality of the soil that is there currently.

I quit my job so I can devote time to this. So far, I have built a couple of chicken coops and a chicken run, I have hatched guineas and I have built stalls for my horses.

I have joined the local farmer's market. I do keep an eye on the Market Growers forum, but they are more about what sells, what doesn't, etc. I need to understand that I'm properly helping my soil while growing stuff.

I have the time to do this right.

Beth, check with your local extension office for help with this. And do do a soil test. I don't know what they sprayed on the thistle, but you sure don't want to grow food there until you find out what it was. No reason, you can't use that loader to flip the pile if it's large. Also you can add shredder wet newspaper (not the colored stuff), coffee grounds, grass clippings, leaves, that sort of thing, layer things so you have air circulation and water soaking in in the rain. You might also check with your local dump, sometimes they have mulch, top soil and other goodies for nothing, you haul. You can use almost anything in a compost pile with the exception of meat and dairy. You don't want to attract varmints.
If you are doing raised beds, put several layers of wet cardboard (not the waxed) or wet newspaper down that will keep down weeds and the earthworms love it and start filling it with compost.
You might also give some consideration to doing some cover crops on the areas you're not planting. It will help build the soil, and keep down the weeds.

beth, the first thing is to have your soil tested. your county extension service should be able to do that. I think you will find that your soil is very fertile. if you will be tilling and then planting, there shouldn't be much worry of the soil blowing away. with all of your poultry and horse poo, you should be adding more to the soil than you are taking away. The raised beds are going to have to be watered more than the plants in the ground. I live south of kc about 80 mi, 8 mi east of ks line. You live in the grain belt. Your soil should be even more fertile than mine because you are on the glaciated plains, the glacier stopped and pulled back at the mo river.
or you could maybe do 1 acre with the lasagne, no till, raised bed, expensive metro-mix,and the other acre, where you could spread amendments, till in, plant, and see which one gives you better results.

To put it in very basic and simple terms, if you add organic matter to the soil it will break down, nurish and replenish the soil. If you use chemical fertilizers instead you deplete the soil and the amount of soil available lessens with each plowing/tilling.

No till means leaving the ground undisturbed and allowing the crop remnants to decay in place. Cover crops are planted when the area is not in use and they too are cut and left to decay in place. Plantings are done by drilling a hole and planting in it without turning the surrounding duff into the soil.
Wikipedia has a pretty easy to understand write up on it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-till_farming

edited to add: at the bottom of the wikipedia article they give a lot of links to other sources of information on the subject that you may find to be very helpful.

This message was edited Mar 28, 2008 10:48 PM

Beth, I don't care what you do - good luck, I'm proud of you and looking forward to many stories!!!

Hi Beth,
I have done raised beds 4 feet wide using 3 in pvc for the stakes every 4 feet 2X12" for the sides. You can then get the 1/2 in PVC pipe to use as hoops over the beds to spread plastic when frost threatens or that white lightwht. landscape fabric to keep off noxious pests. But what I really wanted to say is Lagsagne gardening would work well. Search Lasagne here and google it and I don't think you will need the book. The basics are on the web the only weed I have had come through 12 inches is wild onions. I have done three beds all of which I planted in immediatly: April July and Labor day in North Carolina. Everything looks great so far this spring. Peonies are sprouting, Hydrageas, showing green, Daylillies 5" tall and Daffodills at peak. Cut grasses 2 weeks ago and they are showing new growth, had some cold nights this past winter (a weeks of the teens) so not sure about the elephant ears and cannas. Herbs are fine. Veggies should do fine. Hope this helps. Adonika

Pagancat - thanks, you are very kind!

adonika1 - I like that idea a lot, thank you! I am definitely going to try the lasagna gardening for my flowers. For my veggies, I'm going to do raised bed - but I suppose, you can do a raised bed with lasagna gardening?

I quickly found that trying to use a pro-mix in a 4x4 raised bed is way too EXPENSIVE!!! Yikes!

I'm going to get the tractor out and see if I can figure out how I can perhaps move stuff around with the front loader and the landscape box.

Beth..I'd suggest you read anything you can on the Mittleider Method..it sounds like it would work well and would tie in with your using raised beds like adonika1 is suggesting. I bought the Mittleider CD's and they have been very enlightening...although they can get technical sometimes, they also kind of break it down in basic language too. There is a lot of info on soil and irrigation methods too.

Good luck to you, wish I had more acres to really work with!

That's very interesting wolflrv, I googled their site and got on their e-mail list. What exactly are they advocating to improve soil, etc?

I'm not sure, but they do talk about tilling stuff into the soil, and I want to avoid that, but they also talk about gardening by the foot, which is a bit too fussy for me, I think.

I am going to try the lasagna gardening, mostly - though I have a few raised beds - I did one like gardening by the foot, but my gosh, marking out the squares was super tedious. I want a large variety of things to grow that may or may not be salable at the market this summer. I need it to be simple, like me - LOL!!

I have bought and read books and books and books, which is why I'm a bit confused.

But I'll figure it out, I'm sure of it!

Beth

As you start to do hands on, you'll be surprised at how all of sudden it makes perfect sense. :) and you can always ask questions on here for help. I like the square foot method, but it requires a little to much fussy detail to suit me. I did however incorporate some of the spacing ideas on different plants into my wide row raised beds. Since I do do succession planting with many seeds, I found I could use his methods but more eyeball and plant. I'm not that rigided. LOL

We use the tiller for the big stuff and I use the lasagna method for some of my rose beds and other new flower beds I'm preparing closer to the house. I have no problem "adapting" different methods to make it easier to do what I want to do. LOL

Thanks, doccat5 - may I ask how big is your tiller? I have a small one, and I don't know if I need to buy a larger one, or if I can use the landscape box on my tractor to do some of it, or what?

We have an 8 hp Troybult Horse. It's a big one What is a landscape box? Not familiar with that term with tractors?

i thought they just moved dirt around, and leveled it.

Well, I was thinking I could move the dirt around and then use my little tiller. I was really thinking of doing completely no-till farming, but gosh, that requires a whole lot of material. I have plenty of horse manure and chicken manure and straw and hay, but no leaves or grass clippings (my mower mulches).

Now that it is coming down to it, I am finding that the soil in the old garden plot (about 1 1/2 acres) looks pretty good - very loamy. So now, I think I might want to go ahead and till some of the plot. Oh, gosh, I'm so new to this! I wish I was rich and could fly one of you here to get your advice - LOL!!!

LOL, just get going on it. I'm sure you'll do just fine :)

beth i agree with doccat, you'll do just fine. I would just start tilling it to start. you will get an idea of what else you might try if anything. you may decide after you start that you would like a bigger tiller or you might decide you would rather have another implement or two for your tractor. It's probably more about how much time and effort you want to put into it. But i would say a couple of acres is quite a big plot of land. You will become more efficient as you gain more experience. good luck.

If you decide you need more info on no-till, you might want to stop by the Sustainable Alternatives forum - there's a few folks who know a lot about it.

Good luck whatever you decide to do!

Question about lasagna beds. Is it supposed to still have paper, etc in it when you plant. Everything composted really good but the newspaper is still there on the bottom Do you just plant through it?

Just tear a hole trough the paper and plant away. It will continue to act as mulch until it breaks down.

Thanks, didn't want to do the wrong thing. Next time I willl do it thicker, There's still red clay 3 or 4 inches down. But it's a start!!!!

If you continue adding layers each fall the worms will eventually turn a that clay into lovely soil as they pull the composting mulch down into the ground. So 3-4 inches now will soon become 6-8 inches of beautiful planting soil.

Cool. I made a mistake this year though and tilled it up so I kind of will have to start over, but I did get some benefit from it, even if I did mess it up!!

I don't think you messed it up tilling it so much as you made yourself work harder than you needed to ☺

Agree with zany......you didn't hurt a thing by tilling the amendments in. That's actually the least labor intensive way of doing soil amendments and adding good stuff to your soil.

I'm lazy, so I wish I hadn't!! My poor grandson came over and dtilled it for me, so I'll be buyin pizzas for 10 years. What do ya'll do about when to do it? I wait till fall right,

From what I understand, if you till in materials that aren't composted, it will deplete nitrogen from the soil. Uncomposted materials work much better as mulch.

That depends on the uncomposted material you're talking about. Wood is very slow to decompose and will deplete nitrogen to break it down. But not all materials do that. You need to pay attention to what you are working with.

i like to till it into the top soil because i think it makes the amendments decompose quicker

I don't know that it makes them decompose faster, but it does make for a better distribution of the nutrients present in the amendments.