Re: offering tilling as part of community garden services

**"Tom Dietrich" t*@metroparks.org**

Libby:

How big is your garden and how many gardeners do you have?  How did you make
the transition to no-till, because I love the idea esp. to preserve soil
structure and organic matter, not to mention time and fossil fuels?  I am
afraid if I suggested it, I either wouldn't get a good response from the
gardeners or I would end up with a lot of weedy plots that nobody spent the
energy to hand dig.

Tom

Tom Dietrich
Grow With Your Neighbors
Dayton, OH

Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 20:16:34 -0500
To: Alliums <garlicgrower@earthlink.net>
From: "Libby J. Goldstein" <libby@igc.org>
Subject: [cg] Re: offering tilling as part of community garden services
Cc: community_garden@mallorn.com

Our garden has been going since 1976, and the only time we till (or
threaten to) is in August if a garden has been abandoned or allowed
to go to weeds. After tilling the garden is turned over to another
gardener for fall crops.

We've generally found that hand tillage is sufficient unto the day,
and many of us do no-till entirely.

In the beginning we had to use picks to turn the soil, but after all
these years of adding organic matter, I just use a trowel when
transplanting. Otherwise, I add amendments on top of the soil and let
the worms and other beasts do my work for me.

Happy Holidays,

Libby

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