No Till Garden

Since last spring, I have used a modified no till garden which has worked out surprisingly well.  The start of the no till garden was to remove the tallest weeds after a long dormant period.  I did not use a shovel to dig down into the soil and turn it.  Instead, I loosened the dirt enough to make designated rows for my vegetables.

In the rows, I made a shallow farrow for, say, potatoes and covered them.  Eventually I hilled up the soil and weeds around the potatoes to give them room to grow.  I also used a lot of pine chips for mulch to keep weeds out and keep the soil moist.  Once the greens of the potatoes started to grow, the weeds didn't.

Often I prefer to buy plants e.g. kale and mustard greens and I loosened the dirt where the transplant would go, set them in the soil, covered, and mulched.  There was no need to dig up a whole row but a spot for each of the plants.

I basically did the same for seeds for green snap beans and other vegetables that grew from seeds.

The no till garden didn't eliminate the weeds completely but it was easy to pull the weeds and let them fall down onto the soil from where they had been pulled.  The weeds served as green manure.

Also, I leave the mustard greens to come to a full bloom for the pollinators.  The bees seem to like the yellow blooms.

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