Re: the "no till" system

loretta gerity jacobs wrote:
> 
> Hello people,
> I have been lurking on this list for some time, with total intimidation
> at the amazingly high level of discussion. You guys are great!

Loretta
Hello and welcome. Please don't feel intimidated. You will notice we all
ask questions from time to time to take advantage of the group wisdom.
And believe me we have all learnt heaps over our time of belonging to
the
list. Group wisdom and particularly  first-hand experience are
marvellous teachers.

> Anyway, I've seen mention of something called no till, adding layers of
> mulch, I believe, instead of digging up the site. I would be interested
> in finding out more about this approach. ... I have  an
> area on top of a retaining wall, that is about 5  -6 ft X 200 ft. This
> is the sunny area. The problem is the soil.  No matter how much compost,
> soil builder, etc. I dig into it in the spring, by the end of the summer
> it is root bound, dry below 4 or 5 inches, in spite of  watering. 

Any garden can benefit from no-till techniques, but the ones which
improve most are those with difficult soils, be they heavy and clayey or
very light and sandy.
This is approximately the story which comes up again and again. "My soil
resisted all my efforts to improive it and no matter what amnendents I
dug in it never got any better. so in despair I just piled everything on
top and  from then on it  began to improve quite miraculously."

If you are an experienced gardener you will be aware of the desirability
of your soil having a good tilth. What you are aiming for is a spongy
texture which is both free-draining and yet retentive of water and is
loose and open enought for roots to penetrate easily, yet not so soft
that an inadvertant footstep sinks right in and leaves a deep hole with
a compressed layer at the bottom.

We who have used no-till for some time are really sold on the idea that
the best way to achieve this is to give up digging all together and
leave the conditioning entirely to nature. It has been well proved that
a live natural, soil is an extremely complex organisation like a large
factory town and digging is no more welcome in it than a series of heavy
bombs would be on a human city.

As you will be aware nature does not normally dig soils, so obviously
there must be another mechanism to ensure the correct structure and when
we study natural soils uncomtaminated by chemical fertilizers, such as
woodland or undisturbed grassland, we find that the whole setup is a
complex recycling machine. Raw materials arrive on the surface and are
gradually broken down by workers such as beetles, pillbugs, springtails
and especially worms  until the are in a fit state to sink into the soil
and be gradually digested and worked on by bacteria and fungi, till they
either become part of the water-holding spongy humus or are prepared as
meals for the plants (which in their turn pay for their meals by
secreting sugars and even amino acids for the friendly neighbourhood
microbes.)

The most basic way to practice no-till (entirely adequate for most
ornamental plntings) is just to  pile a suitable mix of organic
materials on top of the ground and wait for nature to process them. If
you are already familiar with compost making you will know that the
organisms which create humus need both a good food source (nitrogen-rich
"greens) and a good energy source (carbon-rich "browns") in roughly
equal proportions and whatever you put on your soil as mulch should aim
for roughly this balance.

One type of mulch which I particularly favour myself is chippings of
_green_ wood (not dead wood or bark). This is actually a well-balanced
food source for the soil and will break down surprisingly quickly
without anything else being added to it. Other good materials are
deciduous leaves,  cereal straw or untreated sawdust (browns) but they
need to be mixed with green grass or weeds, alfalfa meal or some sort of
animal manure to provide the greens. It would seem to be a major problem
for you keeping the mulch moist, but if thick enough the lower layers at
least should rot quickly and of course the process is on-going and you
may be able to regularly top up .. You could probably ensure the most
rapid processing if you put down your layer at your wettest time of
year.

You can, of course use ready-made compost, as well as leaving the soil
to processs its own. Unless you have huge quantities, this is not
something to spread around but may be put as a topdressing round any
plants which enjoy a rich diet or incorporated in planting holes. One
important  thing about finished compost is that it is teeming with
useful orgnisms which will rapidly die if it dries up completely, so 
when spread on the surface it should always be covered by a layer of
unprocessed mulch material to protect it.

I am a little puzzled about the bed you want help with. You say it is
sunny but also mention it includes an oak tree. Is it perhaps a very
small tree just yet?

Moira
-- 
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata (near Wellington, capital city of New Zealand)
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