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Re: rotilling

Not Jeff - and this may stray too far into "gardening" (apologies,
Lon, if so), but FWIW, there are several methods of creating top soil
that do not involve digging or rototilling.  

I have, in recent years, simply piled a foot of rotted humus on top
of clay and planted into it.  Plants love it, but it does tend to
stay too soft and dry out fast during summer heat.  Have more
recently been doing a bit of forking over, mixing some of the
underlying clay with the humus which, I think, works better in the
long run.  Humus I'm using comes from piles of rotted wood chips
obtained from assorted tree service companies and dumped free, which
saves them the dump charge and a trip to the landfill.  

Another method is the "lasagna" gardening method where you put down
several layers of newspaper and pile whatever organic material you
can get your hands on on top and let it rot for a season and plant. 
If your organic material is thoroughly decomposed, you can plant
immediately.  In a couple of seasons, this type of bed will sink
level with surrounding soil....keep that in mind when you plant.  Of
course, you still have to dig into the whole thing to plant large
woody plants with extensive root balls.

Jim McClements posted to one list that he has been using the method
described over 10 years ago by John Neumer, a member of the Delaware
valley Chapter of NARGS. Its main distinction is that one starts with
a fairly deep pile of leaves, either whole or mulched, onto which are
placed successive layers of sand, peat moss and more sand.   He says
that this works very well in his shady woodland garden.

You can collect leaves in the fall - massive quantities - and pile
them 2 or 3 feet thick. Make sure they layers are watered well.  Dry
leaves take forever to rot.  By spring, they will have rotted down to
the point where you can plant into the bed.  Best to incorporate a
bit of native soil in the planting "holes" IMO.  Even better and
faster rotting is to shred the leaves before you pile them.  If you
have no shredder, run a lawn mower over them.

Of course, this takes a fair amount of said organic material for
large areas....one good reason to maintain several piles of rotting
wood chips if you have the space. If you do not, you can often obtain
composted leaves by the truck load from municipalities with such
programs.  Sawmills often have piles of rotted sawdust _ it does need
to be thoroughly rotted.  You can even simply use shredded hardwood
mulch.  This needs the addition of some nitrogen in my experience. 
Pile it a foot or more deep; best if you can mix in some leaf mould
or compost.

Actually, the clay layer, if there is no underlying drainage problem,
when under a layer of "topsoil", becomes the subsoil.  Roots
penetrate to use the minerals if they want to and worms and other
critters drag the top organic layer down into it somewhat tho' it
does not ever become incorporated with the organic material unless
dug or forked into it.  There are many different types of clay soil
around.  Mine is red-orange and heavy but drains well.  It's actually
a pretty rich soil, just lacking organic material.

I garden in root infested woodland, so adding to the top is one heck
of a lot less labor than digging.  If you're working with ground not
infested with tree roots, double digging will create topsoil out of
orange clay, if you incorporate enough organic material.

I am aware of the theory that one should not disturb the soil, but
have to say that some 30 years of double digging has created decent
beds of happy plants where there was originally nothing but
backfilled clay subsoil.  Seems to me that if you add organic
material, the earthworms, microbes and other soil critters will come.

One final note on adding a humus layer.  If you have existing trees,
keep it away from their trunks - min. a foot; feather it down toward
the trunks.  Organic material piled against tree trunks leads to
trunk rot.

Tom Clothier explains how he makes soil (for those of you who do not
know his site, he maintains excellent resources on seed germination,
among other things)

http://users.anet.com/~manytimes/page4.htm

Marge Talt, zone 7 Maryland
mtalt@hort.net
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----------
> From: Catriona Tudor Erler <cterler@cox.rr.com>
> 
> Dear Jeff,
>     Fascinating about rototilling, which I didn't know.  If you
have 
> heavy clay soil and you need to incorporate organic material and
the 
> space is too big to dig by hand, what do you do?  I know organic 
> mulching (hurrah Ruth Stout) makes a huge difference, but it takes 
> several years to get even a few inches of top soil out of that. 
What do 
> you do in the mean time, and what do you do about the heavy red
layer of 
> clay underneath?  
>     Looking forward with eagerness for your response.
>     Catriona Tudor Erler

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