I just read in my local paper that tilling the garden every years is NOT a good idea! I have a small community garden which a neighbor dutifully tills for us, does an amazing job, but the article said that too much tilling upsets the eco-system of the soil.Any thoughts and advise on this before we till for spring (we live in Cleveland, OH)
As a retired farmer and avid gardener here in North Dakota I've seen big changes with no till agriculture but it's use in the home garden is slow to catch on. When I moved in to this home it was barren blow sand over hard pan. For the first five years I used a tiller to mix the sand, clay and tons of amendments to the soil for raised beds and then I sold the tiller. I now practice no till techniques on all my gardens and my soil now looks like premium potting soil. In fact I use my soil to start seeds after it's been pasteurized. I leave all my garden debris to be overwintered. In the spring I cut the stems off at the soil line and leave the roots in the ground to slowly decompose and create water channels and provide some breathing room for earthworms. When I first moved the ground was full of worms and night crawlers but tilling reduced their numbers dramatically, now they have returned. Soil becomes sterile if you pound it into dust all the time. My next goal is to sell my lawnmower. RScott
Besides reducing erosion and using less diesel fuels (big advantages, of course, to farmers), there are other considerations such as the vegatation left on the surface decomposes and feeds nutrients back into the soil. PLUS Excerpt from the site article (below link): “As a result of us keeping crop residue on the ground, we have a new foraging opportunity for wildlife,” says U.S. cotton, corn and soybean farmer Jay Hardwick. “So we’re seeing a new happening on the landscape in terms of wildlife emergence. Not only top of it, but underneath. Earthworms are coming back to play, and earthworms are strategic in getting water into the soil structure.” Our own experience: Because we have heavy clay soil, it is difficult to even keep the soil 'tillable.' (We don't have the lovely rich black soils of the midwest.) For areas we plant annually (our veggie garden), we have built raised beds and doubledug the soil before we filled them with native soil and massive amounts of compost. Yearly, we dig in (with a fork) our compost from our compost bins and worm bins and required soil amendments for the crop we will be planting. We haven't had to till since then...over 15 years. We've actually given our tiller away.
Continual tilling can create a hardpan at the depth of tiller blades depending on soil type and depth. Every few years either double dig or use a deep plow to break hardpan, this is mainly for drainage but continual tilling can batter soil structure to death and if you dont have good soil structure you have dust Adding compost etc will help alieviate this issue
tilling does foul up some stuff..... the microbial activity, (mycorrizhae/mycelium) for one....they're not made for being exposed to air... and like was said, the worms ain't much happy about it either..... now, the big difference between what the farmer does when he tills and what you do in a home garden, is the biggie.... the farmer goes once across the field, right?... whether he has mule/horses or tractor or HUGE monster dealie, it's ONCE across and bingo. he's got furrows..... at home, with the little Mantis tiller or a hand steered motorized tiller, folks tend to go over and over and over the ground till it's nice and soft and crumbly... am I right?.... it's those more than once passes that do the damage...... once you have tilled a bed, like last year when you started that one....you tilled, added ammendments and it should only need turned with the shovel this year.... actually, only where you intend to plant.... just cover the whole area with fresh compost and let the wormies do the 'tilling'.......they'd rather work, eat and poo, than get cut to bits.....
we live in Ashland Ohio and have tilled our gardens every year since I remember. My grandfather was a farmer and he tilled his 500+ acres every year too! I have personally never heard of not tilling every year, I get great crops every year and all we do is put composted manure on the garden and till. We don't use any chemicals or fertilizer other than when we first put the composted manure on. In all reality our garden has over produced! The only thing that didn't do well in our garden was the corn which got a mold on the silks and damaged the whole crop.
