Re: No-till gardening.
bett mctigue wrote:
>
> When we moved we discovered that our garden was twice the size we thought,
> our bonus was a piece of ground that had been used as a sort of builders
> tip for over 40 years. We had to initiate procedures with a visit from a
> JCB to level things out a bit, then get rid of bags of concrete that had
> gone solid, broken cement sills, metal window frames, rusty sheets of
> corrugated iron etc. There are some patches of good soil but they were
> infested
> with shoulder high nettles - in fact we have a Jack Russell who is an
> enthusiastic Nettle Hound, she digs furiously and pulls at the roots with
> her teeth! The rest was (is) blue or yellow clay of such vileness, we
> used to take huge
> lumps of it and cut it up to mix it with organic matter. In desperation
> we cut holes in it and planted roses like pot plants in soil taken from the
> de-nettled loam - then mulched a couple of feet deep with farmyard manure,
> rotting bales of straw and the contents of two huge compost bins. The
> holes filled up with water the first winter. Its working now - you can
> even dig - but we're not -just adding more mulch. The roses are doing
> well.
Bett
A success story which bears out the contention that no-till methods do
not need an initially good basic soil to succeed, butwork in the most
unprepossessing circumstances.
Did you know, by the way, nettles are supposed to be indicators of good
intrinsic fertility, which your no-till approach will doubtless
gradually tap into and hopefully exploit?
Moira.
--
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata, New Zealand. (on the "Ring of Fire" in the SW Pacific).
Lat. 41:16S Long. 174:58E. Climate: Mediterranean/Temperate
