Rototilling

 I prefer no-till "Lasagna" gardening, or "Sheet Mulching" as others call
it. To my way of thinking it is the best way to garden, and it requires
less exertion.

---

Gaia's Garden, Second Edition: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture
(Paperback)
by Toby Hemenway
<(Amazon.com product link shortened)
3580298/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid71266976&sr=1-1>

p. 81 - 82

To Till or Not to Till

We've seen that organic matter keeps soil light and fluffy and easy for
roots to penetrate. What then about the mechanical methods used for
breaking up soil?

The invention of the plow ranks as one of the great steps forward for
humanity. Farmers know that plowing releases locked-up soil fertility.
Plowing also keeps down weeds and thoroughly mingles surface litter with
the soil. We do all this, too, when we drag our power-tiller out of the
garage and push the snorting beast through the garden beds in a cloud of
blue smoke.

What's really happening during tilling? By churning the soil, we're
flushing it with fresh air. All that oxygen invigorates the soil life,
which zooms into action, breaking down organic matter and plucking
minerals from humus and rock particles. Tilling also breaks up the soil,
greatly increasing its surface area by creating many small clumps out of
big ones. Soil microbes then colonize these fresh surfaces, extracting
more nutrients and exploding in population.

p.82
This is great for the first season. The blast of nutrients fuels
stunning plant growth, and the harvest is bountiful. But the life in
tilled soil releases far more nutrients than the plants can use. Unused
fertility leaches away in rains. The next year's tilling burns up more
organic matter, again releasing a surfeit of fertility that is washed
away. After a few seasons, the soil is depleted. The humus is gone, the
mineral ores are played out, and the artificially stimulated soil life
is impoverished. Now the gardener must renew the soil with bales of
organic matter, fertilizer, and plenty of work.

Thus, tilling releases far more nutrients than plants can use. Also, the
constant mechanical battering destroys the soil structure, especially
when perpetrated on too-wet soil (and we're all impatient to get those
seeds in, so this happens often). Frequent tilling smashes loamy soil
crumbs to powder and compacts clayey clods into hardpan. And one tilling
session consumes far more calories of energy than are in a year's worth
of garden
grown food. That's not a sustainable arrangement.

Better to let humus fluff your soil naturally and to use mulches to
smother weeds and renew nutrients. Instead of unleashing fertility at a
breakneck, mechanical pace, we can allow plant roots to do the job.
Questing roots will split nuggets of earth in
their own time, opening the soil to microbial colonization, loosening-
nutrients at just the right rate. Once again, nature makes a better
partner than a slave.
-----

McGowan's Drinking Guide (Translated from the original German. It's
                          complicated, OK?)
Drinking Problems

Symptom              Fault                    Action to be Taken

Bar is moving        You are being            Find out if you are
                     carried out              being taken to
                                              another pub - if not
                                              protest that you are
                                              being kidnapped by the
                                              Salvation Army.

--

If you like weekends (8 hr./day & 40 hr./week), then thank a labor union.
They paid for it in blood. Real working class heros.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair>

Taxes
Citizen$ ---> Government ---> Corporations ---> Top 1% <--Where the
money went

Are you better off than you were 30 years ago? 10 years ago? Last Year?
--
- Billy

Dept. of Defense budget: $663.8 billion
Dept. of Health and Human Services budget: $78.4 billion


Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in
the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are
cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is
spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of
its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the
clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower, 16 April 1953

 
I composted long before today's "experts" knew what it was and only a
lazy person shies away from rototilling. So how do today's "expert" put
in a lawn. Lay cardboard and newspaper across the empty space for a year
then seed? Todays "experts" have an answer for everything, that is
taking shortcuts to save the environment.




--
bullthistle

 

There are those of a different opinion on rototilling. Why shouldn't
their concerns be allowed to be expressed?

"A lawn in preindustrial times trumpeted to all that the owner possessed
enough wealth to use some land for sheer ornament, instead of planting
all of it to food crops.

And close-mowed grass proclaimed affluence, too:
a herd of sheep large enough to crop the lawn
uniformly short. These indicators of status whisper
to us down the centuries. By consciously recognizing
the influence of this history, we can free
ourselves of it and let go of the reflexive impulse to
roll sod over the entire landscape."

You are in favor of saving the environment, aren't you?
How would you do it differently?

Please, continue.


If you like weekends (8 hr./day & 40 hr./week), then thank a labor union.
They paid for it in blood. Real working class heros.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair>


Taxes
Citizen$ ---> Government ---> Corporations ---> Top 1% <--Where the
money went

Are you better off than you were 30 years ago? 10 years ago? 1 year ago?

Thank Reaganomics/Thatcherism, a.k.a. Voodoo economics :O(
--
- Billy

Dept. of Defense budget: $663.8 billion
Dept. of Health and Human Services budget: $78.4 billion


Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in
the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are
cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is
spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of
its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the
clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower, 16 April 1953

 
I till a new bed the first year and then turn it over the following
years with a spading fork.  A tiller chops up way too many earthworms
which I like in my beds.

Rich

 Tilling is a good way in my book for first time ground prepping. After that
no more tilling is needed ever. Be it for new lawn or garden.

--
Enjoy Life... Nad R  (Garden in zone 5a Michigan)