Re: tiller recommendations

**"* G* <d*@gmail.com>**

Margaret - thanks for the letter.  Let me try to deal with each of your
points.
No-till systems in horticulture and agriculture clearly use chemicals -
that's how they were designed.  My understanding is that they were renamed
"no till" from "chemical farming" to improve the p.r. view of the system.

 You say that "They usually use lasagna layers to kill weeds".  My
understanding is that the lasagna method is a layered bed construction
process and not a weed prevention one.  Certainly I read about layered
garden construction on Alpine-L sometime in the early-90's and many of us
adopted it to grow specialist shade perennials.    I've even written about
Dr. Jim Waddick and his system - and he gives credit for it to someone else
that he learned it from.  (again, I'd have to do some research to pull up
those names and specific dates)  I give full marks to modern garden writers
who publicize old systems and can market them in new ways for new audiences
- kudo's to Pat Lanza for this.

My experience is that if properly constructed, these layered systems will
restrict the growth of established weeds from the bottom-up, they will not
stop the establishment of new weeds within the beds.  For example, Mayo and
I built a 24'x32'' vegetable garden using a layered system this spring for
our vegetable garden - a stopgap measure before the gardens can be
constructed.  We have no grass but we do have an excellent crop of annual
weeds courtesy of our windy isle.

And thanks for the chuckle about your perception of me as a non-gardening
garden writer.  It made my day.   But then again, it's always interesting to
find out what people think about you.

And you're right - we do indeed move in different circles.

Doug

On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 10:40 AM, margaret lauterbach <
melauter@earthlink.net> wrote:

>
> >
> >I think the first reason is that no-till ag systems use chemicals as weed
> >control and I tend to be an organic gardener - certainly not interested in
> >no-till systems like this nor am I interested in promoting no-till.
>
> I don't know where you got that notion that no-till uses
> chemicals.  None of the no-till gardeners I'm in contact with use
> chemicals, and frankly, I've not heard of anyone using them prior to
> no-till.  They usually use lasagna layers to kill weeds, but then,
> Oh!  Your deep mulch already prevents weeds, so you don't have that
> to worry about anyway.  I must say that I'm frankly surprised that
> you do garden because the few posts I've seen from you sound as if
> you're one of the non-gardening garden writers.  It's my
> understanding that tilling does bother mycorrhizae.  But we obviously
> move in different circles.  Margaret Lauterbach
>
> >Having said that - if you're talking about deep mulch systems, I've been
> >doing that for years a la Ruth Stout and indicated my use of mulch in my
> >request for tiller suggestions.   And I've written about different systems
> >of these deep mulch practices and trials over the years in both my books
> and
> >columns so my readers get pretty tired about hearing about mulch and
> compost
> >etc.
> >
> >My understanding is that tilling isn't going to bother mycorrhizae too
> much
> >but it is going to really chew up established fungal strands and may, on
> >some soils, contribute to soil compaction issues.  I'm sure Jeff L can
> weigh
> >in here better than I after reading his book.    But as I said in my note,
> I
> >was interested in a tiller for general bed making and some general work.
> >  I'm equally disinterested in creating this 8 acre estate-sized garden
> with
> >a shovel as my main tool. ;-)  With the deep mulch systems I use for weed
> >control and water preservation the soil microorganisms are established and
> >preserved quite nicely in the majority of my beds.
> >
> >So thank you for your suggestion about no-till but I've explored that -
> >rejected it because of the chemical component.
> >
> >And thanks for the other suggestions about which machine has worked for
> you
> >folks.
> >
> >Doug
>
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-- 
Doug Green
Editor-in-Chief
SGF Publishing www.simplegiftsfarm.com
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