Re: Maybe try the No-till way (Was Pioneer Plants)
- Subject: Re: Maybe try the No-till way (Was Pioneer Plants)
- From: T* a* M* R*
- Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 19:34:56 +1200
kgkg1010@aol.com wrote:
>
> The land is near the Sacramento River, lots of river rock. The next street
> over is called Gravel Pit Road! The ground is compacted sand, but I think
> I'll find clay that has been hauled in during the grading of the land. I
> wonder about a green manure that would need to be rototilled - how hard is it
> to rototill rocky ground? Are there plants that help build the soil that
> aren't turned in?
Kathleen
Actually, a lot of work has been done in recent times on improving
difficult soild like sand and clay and the astonishing result has been
that the quickest way to improve such a soil is not to till it at all,
but (following nature's lead) to simply apply as much organic matter as
possible to the surface.
The usual story goes more or less like this " for several years I have
been trying to improve my soil by digging in organic matter, sand etc,
but with little sign of improvement. This time I just put the stuff on
the surface and there has been more improvement in one season than in
the past several years".
Perhaps you might like to try this method for yourself. Rototillimg
rocky ground can be a real pain, as if the rocks are much larger than a
large potato there can be serious risk of damage to the to the tiller. I
speak from my own experience When we set up our little "orchard" around
fifty years ago we got in a contractor to till the area which was just
on the fringe of the main part of our garden, a bit of ancient river
bed. There was no question of tilling most of this, as many of the
stones turned up there were bigger than our heads, but we wrongly
thought the orchard was nearly clear.
Well the contrator did actually succeed in tilling that area but with an
immense amount of grumbling at the "half-head" sized stones which
appeared on the surface and what they might be doing to his machine..
So how would one deal with a cover crop (any cover crop) without
tilling?. The no-till way is to mow it down, augment it if possible with
some well-rotted animal manure or other high-nitrogen organic material
(alfalfa meal, cottonseeed meal or bloodmeal are other possibilities if
manure is hard to come by) and then cover this over with a mulch layer,
such as fallen leaves, straw, sawdust, small hedge clippings or pine
needles, either alone or im mixture, several inches thick - in fact you
can use almost any sort of organic matter highish in carbon you can
easily lay hands on. If you have difficulty in getting a lot of material
for this top mulch you can always augment it by putting beneath it a
layer of newspaper up to about 1/4 inch thick. Overlap the papers well
and give a good watering before laying your mulch on top. Paper being
virtually all carbon is as good a much as any for this use, except it
needs some covering to stop it drying up and blowing away.
The effect of adding so much organic matter to the soil _from the top_,
as would normally happen under natural conditions, is usually to greatly
enhance biological activity, which then leads to very effective
improvement of soil texture and structure extending steadily downwards.
In fact it brings a soil to life.
It is vey important however not to put this improvement in jeopardy by
using any of the highly-soluble chemical fertilizers, as they are likely
to destroy many of the soils most useful organisms, or at the least to
discourage their multiplication, and definitely to retard the buildup of
better texture.
It is a good idea to leave this mulched soil for a month or two for the
good work to get under way, but if you are impatient to get started it
is perfectly possible to grow some crops even in the first season. It
is probably best to confine the initial growing to annual flowers or
vegetables though, moving on to more permanent perennial plantings in
the second year.
When you come to plant you will need to supply some mature compost to
make sure the soil has enough balanced food available to service the
crop. You can either put a continuous layer about an inch thick over
the whole bed or you cna simply put a circular pad about 15" wide
wherever you intend to put a plant. Cover this with more mulch so the
compost doesn't dry up. You can ue a thin layer of any of the
previously-proposed mulches, or you can do what many organic growers
like to do and use a layer of wilted lawn clippings. Start with this
about an inch thick and top it up every week or two. Not only will this
protect your compost but will keep in moisture and even up the soil
temperature and finally, as it rots, will give a small regular boost to
the soil's foood supply. I regularly myself, on my mature garden, use
grass clippings as my summer mulch, particularly for vegetables. No
other feeding should be necessary.
If this method interests you and you have any queries about it, I shall
be happy to try and answer your questions.
Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan
Wainuiomata - at the Southern tip of North Island, NZ,
Lat 41°15'S, Long 174°58'E (Antipodes of Spain/Southern France)
