Thanks for watching, don't forget to hit the like 👍 and subscribe ▶️, do me a favour and share this video to keep spreading the knowledge! Here's the video of planting the cover crops, it's full of really usefull information - ruclips.net/video/8vQw5Ll5L3w/видео.html
After watching an hour of cover crop RUclips videos, this is the first one with the info I was looking for. Great demo. Now I feel confident in my direction. Thank you from Chicago.
Hi and Blessings to you and your family, thanks for another great video. I'm faced with a bit of a dilemma. I planted a cover crop in my garden beds. Right now they are about 10" tall. After planting and germination, I found a source for leaves so I ordered 18 cubic feet of leaves for my 1100 sq. ft. garden. I have pretty good soil, originally hard clay, as I have taken care of it for years. So, here's my dilemma: Although I am composting a good portion of the leaves, I still have probably 12-15 cubic yards of shredded (once) leaves to deal with. I was thinking about putting the rest of my shredded leaves on my garden walks, letting the cover crop grow in my beds until, terminating it in the spring. Then I could rake shredded leaves onto my beds after I plant. My second option would be to terminate my cover crop right now and cover the beds with shredded leaves. Which option would you choose?
Hi Tom Nice dilemma to have. As well as compost would you be making leaf mould? I'd be tempted to mulch the beds, as good as the paths are for making compost I feel a lot could be lost (appreciate there'll be general soil improvement) it'll keep beds warmer and allow worms to do their thing
@@MyFamilyGarden Thanks for responding and for your suggestion. I appreciate you. I'm also tempted to just put the leaves on the beds where the cover crop is. I suspect that doing that will kill the cover crop but I don't have room on my property to create leaf mold anywhere else except my garden paths. I was hoping that maybe I could get the best of both worlds by trying to create leaf mold on my garden paths, letting my cover crops grow until early may (zone 6), terminating them and then covering them from the leaves in my walks. It's probably not a great idea but I'm hoping that if the leaves are shredded they will be less likely to be blown away in the spring.
Nice work on the chop and drop, with covering in cardboard and compost. It will be a lovely bed to plant in and it will be lovely and warm for your new plants. Take care Becky
I was thinking about green manure in no dig over last couple of days, so this is a great video for me! I'm thinking of sowing this for later in the year I think for next season.
It's a good way of preserving all the nutrients. If you have other things planted around our cover crops you can use things like chop and drop. I did another video on how to encorporate that into the system without the risk of slug dammage
Salaam, brother! I've been getting into cover cropping our garden and really interested in no dig but didn't have a clue how to work the green manure back into without tilling. Fantastic video and explanation. Have a like and a sub.
Wassalaam, thank you. I stopped using cover crops when I started no dig but wanted to get back using them so been using this method for a few years now.
Excellent video. I have just cut down winter tares on one of my beds and covered it with black plastic sheeting and it should all have rotted down into the soil by mid March when I will be ready to use the beds for my first crops.
Thanks Monty, that was just the video I needed to see. I chopped and dropped some of my plants at the end of last season and was just wondering what to do with them. Your video has given me the answer - I am going to cover them with card/paper then put some compost on them and plant straight into them in a couple of months. A very timely video, many thanks :-)
Thank you so much for watching. Depending on what crops you chop and drop around, ive got some similare around my onions that i will just leave as a mulch.
Great info Monty, I will definitely try that next year when hopefully my garden beds are complete. That's seems a very efficient way of doing it, love it. Take care, Bethan 😊
I have just found your channel after following a recommendation by Alternative Smallholding. Very informative and down to earth (please excuse the pun 🤭). Subscribed immediately!
Nice video thanks so much for making and sharing it. I'll check out your other videos! My one worry is the inks and colours from the cardboard packaging leaking into the soil. It's probably not that bad but wouldn't want anyone consuming harmful stuff. Anyway thanks I'll give this a try with my green manures that I've left longer because I've not been sure of the best way to do this. The fact it rots down so quickly is a big plus.
Thank you, i've looked at the inks in modern cardoard and the majority come from non txic sources so they don't contain the heavy metals like they use to. I'm just about to cut my green manures back for this season :)
Great video.... just what I was thinking of doing but wondering if there were any drawbacks. Already use no dig cardboard and compost so I'm going to have a go with this. Thanks.
Hi Monty another great video, I've gone no dig a year ago and was wondering how to build my soil up. I bought my over wintering green manure and you have answered my next question on what to do in a no dig situation. I would be interested what can be planted into these woodchips.
Hi Les, all the beds i grow in are covered in woodchips like this, so most things do fine some of te tender salads don't do great to start unless they're planted in a pocket of compost
Im going to try mowing it! My Spring cover is about to flower now. Im told itcwill continue growing but not sure about the ensuing slug issue but my woodchips arent composted enough - unless I leave it unplanted till next year. Im bringing a large area slowly back to fertile soil but then wondered, without veg growing, will I have just wasted my nutrients from the cover crop?
Mowing it will work really well if you have a larger patch. If you're going to leave it then i wouldn't worry about the woodchips being broken down or not. most of the wood chips on my veg beds are not broken down some even fresh. I don't thing you'll lost the nutrients you'll also be adding lots of organic matter
@@MyFamilyGarden thanks! I heard recently that if you havent got a crop taking up those nutrients you've just produced from your green manure, that they're wasted. But I thought it gets stored via the roots anyway so will be available as & when you do grow something.
This is great, in principle and I was planning to follow this his myself, but this year I have been infested - and I mean infested! - with mice all over my plot. they love the cardboard and the black landscape tarp I had down where I hadn't yet managed to sow the Summer green manure, so I have no plans to give them more cover from now. I was planning to resow the whole area anyway with a winter manure crop but am now at a loss what to do with all the roots. By the way, I initially cut the crop first time in stages (following the sequence I had sown the crop) with a scythe (hard work!) half way down to remove flowering stalks and let it grow some more before mowing it down. the rotary blade did turn it into a mush which covered the soil nonetheless and now the rain has been helping ( hope) all the critters doing the hard work, but the roots are re-sprouting now for a 3rd time and I'm concerned they will get all woody which I have been warned not to allow. So I'm stumped and thinking of buying a mattock to chop into the roots rather than dig it all in but still - its a lot of work for just one person.
Bad luck with the mice, I used to have a rat problem when I first moved here so I encouraged the stray cats to stick around, they quickly sorted the rats out. You could use a hoe to cut the plant just below the soil level then cover with mulch without the cardboard. I did that with some Swiss chard recently so the big fat roots will rot underground.
@@MyFamilyGarden Thanks- but what mulch? I have nowhere near sufficient compost yet abd am usung the green manure with semi-composted ramial bark chippings as a soil building method- plus bark as mukch. But the mice just love it so dont want to put any more down. Anyway- need to sow it again in Autumn as an over-winter crop. So Im at a loss what to do now
Salaam brother. Thanks for the informative videos. Out of interest, do you incorporate charcoal/biochar into your garden? If so, how have you found the results? Inshallah I'll be creating new hugelkutur no dig beds in the coming weeks incorporating biochar. All the best Ammar
Walaikum salaam, I do use bio char, I've done a video on homemade bio char. It'll be the first full year this year so will be interesting to see the results.
Yeah the "traditional" way of working it in is quite dumb and a lot of back ache. But even the chop and drop isn't ideal. Using cover crops at their fullest is by letting them flower. I use a mixture of rye, winter wheat, spelt, vetch, fava beans and winter pea, and I squash it down with a wood pallet in early May. It grows up to 1.5-1.8 m tall. That's when the roots have done their job of tilling the soil and feeding the words. Also, it won't grow back at this stage if you squash it down. Cutting it would let the rye throw some leaves again, which can be annoying. Once squashed down, I'll add spent grain (for nitrogen if I plant squashes or pepper in that bed) and wood chips, and I can plant in that 2 weeks after. Yes, there are still some thick stems on the ground, you need to pull them appart to plant in, but the roots have died, and the soil is quite aerated. Of course it's not good for sowing carrots and stuff, it's mainly to transplant summer veggies from pots, or to sow big seeds like squashes, beans etc.. I've compared it side by side with beds where I've put wood chips over winter, and then tilled it a bit with a broad fork and added spent grain and wood chips again in February. It works better with cover crops, which needs no tilling and shelters so many insects in the spring... Coz in winter with my clay soil, the soil gets waterlogged and worms don't work well to break down the wood chips. Whereas with living roots, it drains that water and everything works fine...
I planted cover crops late summer and early fall. Birds, voles etc. ate the seeds. Even after repeated sowings and sufficient irrigation. Any suggestions how to get my cover crop off to a good start?
Wassalaam, Did you see this one, this is the first in the series ruclips.net/video/8vQw5Ll5L3w/видео.html And this is the third ruclips.net/video/rg38ZeUkORk/видео.html
i'm over the whole compost and loads of wood mulch...which mostly end up in the atmospehere in short order. also, it's expensive and not as environmentally friendly as we imagine, with lots of wood being used to create the woodchip products...which end up as C02 in near future. i stopped wasting my time and pulled apart my large compost bays, which almost inevitably didnt produce finished compost, and i dont really need extra soil. made room for longer growing beds and no more back breaking turning of compost required. If I can, I will dry excess plant residue and burn it for ash or charcoal, otherwise for landfill. i do still plan to do cover crops during any garden bed downtime, and to do minimal till but not zero till. i think some very surface tilling doesnt do much damage to soil biota when it requires crust break-up, as soil tends to crust with all the watering. i've also got rid of the raised bed boxes, in lieu of standard (75cm) not edged rows. didnt realize how much boxes tend to box you in :) in terms of planting and layout and ability to setup watering and trellising, or to even use standard tools. having said all that and side-tracked....i think you are indeed enriching the soil with your methods.
I'm not a no dig puritan by any means, sometimes I do think it's necessary to dig. I agree that a little disturbance is no big deal, if we look around us in nature we see so many animals digging and borrowing. I make pretty much all my own compost from prunings and waste from my home and garden, I do believe it's an important way to reduce waste being sent off my property. The woodchips all come for free, I'm not a fan of paying for stuff if I can avoid it lol 😂😂
My Family Garden : definitely, the original need for composting comes from having farm waste, especially manures, and using it for soil improvement rather than expensively carting it away. manures, spoilt hay, outhouse toilet...all re-use. i'm always refining from what i see works for others and me and follow up with research, as there's too many airy-fairy pretend organic afficionados out there "feeding" [sic] soil with bannana peel, egg/oyster shell or dumping loads of shredded wood onto soil. i know you have more wits about you than i used to. i followed all the advice with regard to compost, went bigger and bigger, added fertilizer into it etc and turned it, which is hard work. i know it's probably wrong season (winter here) and i probably had still too much wood in my piles (expensive shredder) but in the end was a cold unfinished mess, loads of it. so, personally i think we get hooked on doing "good" things and before we know it, we spend all our time doing other things and wasting space and not getting particularly good results. this is especially so here as the soil is very poor and needs good fertilizer. cover crops will help on top of that. i'm going back to basics, using standard rows. instead of for years doing raised bed boxes and squeezing plants in all over the place, both in the beds and other places. i think rows should be easier to manage than the hodge-podge i had. i do have good seed starting trays and a heat mat. waiting for warmer weather in a couple of months. got some hooks to do "lower and lean" tomato growing method. see how goes. tired of having a mess with stakes and ties everywhere. all the best..i see you have lots of garlic growing in background?
i think we're onto something? surface tilling may actually be a positive thing, whilst only deep tillage has soil structure detrimental effects? i just received some tools and having cultivated quickly the in-between rows soil, which was compacted and wet, the tillage openned it up to aerate.
You can see what I'm talking about in this video, not digging the entire surface but some disturbance/loosening the row that I'm planting ruclips.net/video/TNH9D1xeXJA/видео.html
A lot of.cotton.crops are also used as lures..they can spray chemicals on it to kill pests that they.can.can not use on food...idea developed in Africa and quickly. Spread around the world..other are use to hold soil in place..or the roots are nitrogen fixers where they do not mix but mow...actually i have never seen a cover crop mowed by successful farmers.
*Behold the Christian Race* ... Cush (Greek: Ethiopia), means sun-burnt face Phoenicians described by the Greeks, as fair-haired, fair-skinned people Persia means Lord of the Aryans now renamed IRAN Zimbabwe once known as Rhodesia Chicongo once known as Chicago ... 12 Tribes passed through the Caucasus Mountains (i)ssac's Sons / Saxons / Anglo-Saxons / Europe / Australia / New Zealand / North America / Christian First World / "We the People" ... 38 For as in those days before the flood, *they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,* until the day when Noah entered the ark, 39 and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, *so will be the coming of the Son of Man.*
@@MyFamilyGarden Hmmm not much cardboard in the woods and forests where I live, plus oxygen can still access the green manure cardboard or no cardboard.....
Thanks for watching, don't forget to hit the like 👍 and subscribe ▶️, do me a favour and share this video to keep spreading the knowledge!
Here's the video of planting the cover crops, it's full of really usefull information - ruclips.net/video/8vQw5Ll5L3w/видео.html
After watching an hour of cover crop RUclips videos, this is the first one with the info I was looking for. Great demo. Now I feel confident in my direction. Thank you from Chicago.
Really glad it helped
Same here. I had no idea what to do with the cover crop and now I do! Hello from a gardening neighbor in Gurnee 😊
I love seeing the happy chickens in the garden!
Cheecky chickens were quite well behaved for a change lol
Hi and Blessings to you and your family, thanks for another great video. I'm faced with a bit of a dilemma. I planted a cover crop in my garden beds. Right now they are about 10" tall. After planting and germination, I found a source for leaves so I ordered 18 cubic feet of leaves for my 1100 sq. ft. garden. I have pretty good soil, originally hard clay, as I have taken care of it for years. So, here's my dilemma: Although I am composting a good portion of the leaves, I still have probably 12-15 cubic yards of shredded (once) leaves to deal with. I was thinking about putting the rest of my shredded leaves on my garden walks, letting the cover crop grow in my beds until, terminating it in the spring. Then I could rake shredded leaves onto my beds after I plant. My second option would be to terminate my cover crop right now and cover the beds with shredded leaves. Which option would you choose?
Hi Tom
Nice dilemma to have. As well as compost would you be making leaf mould?
I'd be tempted to mulch the beds, as good as the paths are for making compost I feel a lot could be lost (appreciate there'll be general soil improvement) it'll keep beds warmer and allow worms to do their thing
@@MyFamilyGarden Thanks for responding and for your suggestion. I appreciate you. I'm also tempted to just put the leaves on the beds where the cover crop is. I suspect that doing that will kill the cover crop but I don't have room on my property to create leaf mold anywhere else except my garden paths. I was hoping that maybe I could get the best of both worlds by trying to create leaf mold on my garden paths, letting my cover crops grow until early may (zone 6), terminating them and then covering them from the leaves in my walks. It's probably not a great idea but I'm hoping that if the leaves are shredded they will be less likely to be blown away in the spring.
Nice work on the chop and drop, with covering in cardboard and compost. It will be a lovely bed to plant in and it will be lovely and warm for your new plants.
Take care
Becky
Thanks Becky, hopefully should be ok for this year
Great video and very informative!
Thanks you
Great...finally explained so well, I understand and went and got some. Great video
Thank you for a really helpful video.
You're very welcome, glad you enjoyed it
Just found your channel and a great video on what i needed to see. Thank you.
Excellent information Monty. That bed will be great to plant in the spring. Take care. Nick
Thanks Nick, I hope it turns out to plan lol
Nice one Monty and something I will consider on my new no dig raised beds in the Autumn.
♻️Happy Gardening........🥕Terry King🥕
Cheers Terry, It's a good little trick to incorporate cover crops into a no dig sustem
@@MyFamilyGarden 👍 😆
Nicely prepared bed Monty.
thanks Mags hopefully it will work out this year
Thanks for demonstrating how you follow up with the cover crops that you planted 😊👍
Thanks Katherine, I've got some more i want to just chop and drop
I was thinking about green manure in no dig over last couple of days, so this is a great video for me! I'm thinking of sowing this for later in the year I think for next season.
It's a good way of preserving all the nutrients. If you have other things planted around our cover crops you can use things like chop and drop. I did another video on how to encorporate that into the system without the risk of slug dammage
waalaikumsalam... greeting from indonesia my brother
Salaam, brother! I've been getting into cover cropping our garden and really interested in no dig but didn't have a clue how to work the green manure back into without tilling. Fantastic video and explanation. Have a like and a sub.
Wassalaam, thank you. I stopped using cover crops when I started no dig but wanted to get back using them so been using this method for a few years now.
That looks happy and ready for planting
Hopeful will be good once the green rots down
Brilliant Mate! Great ideas here. I use raised beds and your experience has given me some ideas. I appreciate you work!
You've just reminded me I had some cover crop seeds to you... It might be to late now. Thanks for explaining how to do it the no dig way.
Thanks for watching, depending on the type of cover crops you might be able to get a sowing down next moth
Excellent video. I have just cut down winter tares on one of my beds and covered it with black plastic sheeting and it should all have rotted down into the soil by mid March when I will be ready to use the beds for my first crops.
Thanks Mike, the black plastic should really help warm up the beds as well.
Your video was very helpful! Thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
Salaam Brother ,
May Allah give barakah in your rizq.
Ameen
Walaikum salaam, ameen, Allahumma barik feek.
Thanks Monty, that was just the video I needed to see. I chopped and dropped some of my plants at the end of last season and was just wondering what to do with them. Your video has given me the answer - I am going to cover them with card/paper then put some compost on them and plant straight into them in a couple of months. A very timely video, many thanks :-)
Thank you so much for watching. Depending on what crops you chop and drop around, ive got some similare around my onions that i will just leave as a mulch.
Great info Monty, I will definitely try that next year when hopefully my garden beds are complete. That's seems a very efficient way of doing it, love it. Take care, Bethan 😊
Thanks Bethan, you're right it stops the loss of the maximum nutrients, and saves the back from digging lol
Great video. Like the natural way
thanks Carolyn
Love your videos!! This is so useful.
Glad you like them!
Just found your chanel and suscribed immediatly 👍🏻
Great job on the cover crops pizza boxes and wood chips be good bed for planting in another great informative video
thank mate, hopefully the soil should turn out ok
Excellent job mothin 👍👍
Thanks for watching
Randomly came across your channel, new subscriber here! Thank you for sharing some really valuable info
Randomness is so awesome, thanks so much for stopping by
I have just found your channel after following a recommendation by Alternative Smallholding. Very informative and down to earth (please excuse the pun 🤭). Subscribed immediately!
Thanks Izzy really appreciate you stopping by, Jas and the Gang are absolutely brilliant.
Nice video thanks so much for making and sharing it. I'll check out your other videos! My one worry is the inks and colours from the cardboard packaging leaking into the soil. It's probably not that bad but wouldn't want anyone consuming harmful stuff. Anyway thanks I'll give this a try with my green manures that I've left longer because I've not been sure of the best way to do this. The fact it rots down so quickly is a big plus.
Thank you, i've looked at the inks in modern cardoard and the majority come from non txic sources so they don't contain the heavy metals like they use to. I'm just about to cut my green manures back for this season :)
Thank you! I intend to use green manure this year. Elizabeth.
They're brilliant, anytime you have a patch of bear earth get some down
My Family Garden I will. Which are your favourites?
Great video.... just what I was thinking of doing but wondering if there were any drawbacks. Already use no dig cardboard and compost so I'm going to have a go with this. Thanks.
I like to use cover crops in autumn as a living mulch rather than anything else, depending on the type of plant used it breaks down quite fast
Hi Monty another great video, I've gone no dig a year ago and was wondering how to build my soil up. I bought my over wintering green manure and you have answered my next question on what to do in a no dig situation. I would be interested what can be planted into these woodchips.
Hi Les, all the beds i grow in are covered in woodchips like this, so most things do fine some of te tender salads don't do great to start unless they're planted in a pocket of compost
Thanks
Im going to try mowing it! My Spring cover is about to flower now. Im told itcwill continue growing but not sure about the ensuing slug issue but my woodchips arent composted enough - unless I leave it unplanted till next year. Im bringing a large area slowly back to fertile soil but then wondered, without veg growing, will I have just wasted my nutrients from the cover crop?
Mowing it will work really well if you have a larger patch. If you're going to leave it then i wouldn't worry about the woodchips being broken down or not. most of the wood chips on my veg beds are not broken down some even fresh. I don't thing you'll lost the nutrients you'll also be adding lots of organic matter
@@MyFamilyGarden thanks!
I heard recently that if you havent got a crop taking up those nutrients you've just produced from your green manure, that they're wasted. But I thought it gets stored via the roots anyway so will be available as & when you do grow something.
Thank you for the great video! Could I use leaf compost and/or horse manure instead of wood chips?
Absolutely both are really good to use, I just have access to a lot of woodchips for free
This is great, in principle and I was planning to follow this his myself, but this year I have been infested - and I mean infested! - with mice all over my plot. they love the cardboard and the black landscape tarp I had down where I hadn't yet managed to sow the Summer green manure, so I have no plans to give them more cover from now. I was planning to resow the whole area anyway with a winter manure crop but am now at a loss what to do with all the roots.
By the way, I initially cut the crop first time in stages (following the sequence I had sown the crop) with a scythe (hard work!) half way down to remove flowering stalks and let it grow some more before mowing it down. the rotary blade did turn it into a mush which covered the soil nonetheless and now the rain has been helping ( hope) all the critters doing the hard work, but the roots are re-sprouting now for a 3rd time and I'm concerned they will get all woody which I have been warned not to allow. So I'm stumped and thinking of buying a mattock to chop into the roots rather than dig it all in but still - its a lot of work for just one person.
Bad luck with the mice, I used to have a rat problem when I first moved here so I encouraged the stray cats to stick around, they quickly sorted the rats out.
You could use a hoe to cut the plant just below the soil level then cover with mulch without the cardboard. I did that with some Swiss chard recently so the big fat roots will rot underground.
@@MyFamilyGarden
Thanks- but what mulch? I have nowhere near sufficient compost yet abd am usung the green manure with semi-composted ramial bark chippings as a soil building method- plus bark as mukch. But the mice just love it so dont want to put any more down. Anyway- need to sow it again in Autumn as an over-winter crop. So Im at a loss what to do now
Salaam brother. Thanks for the informative videos. Out of interest, do you incorporate charcoal/biochar into your garden? If so, how have you found the results? Inshallah I'll be creating new hugelkutur no dig beds in the coming weeks incorporating biochar.
All the best
Ammar
Walaikum salaam, I do use bio char, I've done a video on homemade bio char. It'll be the first full year this year so will be interesting to see the results.
@@MyFamilyGarden good stuff, I'll check it out and look forward to your updates. 👍
Yeah the "traditional" way of working it in is quite dumb and a lot of back ache. But even the chop and drop isn't ideal. Using cover crops at their fullest is by letting them flower. I use a mixture of rye, winter wheat, spelt, vetch, fava beans and winter pea, and I squash it down with a wood pallet in early May. It grows up to 1.5-1.8 m tall. That's when the roots have done their job of tilling the soil and feeding the words. Also, it won't grow back at this stage if you squash it down. Cutting it would let the rye throw some leaves again, which can be annoying. Once squashed down, I'll add spent grain (for nitrogen if I plant squashes or pepper in that bed) and wood chips, and I can plant in that 2 weeks after. Yes, there are still some thick stems on the ground, you need to pull them appart to plant in, but the roots have died, and the soil is quite aerated. Of course it's not good for sowing carrots and stuff, it's mainly to transplant summer veggies from pots, or to sow big seeds like squashes, beans etc.. I've compared it side by side with beds where I've put wood chips over winter, and then tilled it a bit with a broad fork and added spent grain and wood chips again in February. It works better with cover crops, which needs no tilling and shelters so many insects in the spring... Coz in winter with my clay soil, the soil gets waterlogged and worms don't work well to break down the wood chips. Whereas with living roots, it drains that water and everything works fine...
I like those chickens
Thanks mate
I planted cover crops late summer and early fall. Birds, voles etc. ate the seeds. Even after repeated sowings and sufficient irrigation. Any suggestions how to get my cover crop off to a good start?
It's quite late to get them sown now, if birds are a problem covering them with something like a net will help
Salam
Have you got after video for this
Wassalaam,
Did you see this one, this is the first in the series ruclips.net/video/8vQw5Ll5L3w/видео.html
And this is the third
ruclips.net/video/rg38ZeUkORk/видео.html
Never done this before. Is it too late in mid October in London to sow a cover crop
you might still get away with it, i didn't get a chance to sow mine this year
What a sound bloke.
i'm over the whole compost and loads of wood mulch...which mostly end up in the atmospehere in short order. also, it's expensive and not as environmentally friendly as we imagine, with lots of wood being used to create the woodchip products...which end up as C02 in near future. i stopped wasting my time and pulled apart my large compost bays, which almost inevitably didnt produce finished compost, and i dont really need extra soil. made room for longer growing beds and no more back breaking turning of compost required. If I can, I will dry excess plant residue and burn it for ash or charcoal, otherwise for landfill.
i do still plan to do cover crops during any garden bed downtime, and to do minimal till but not zero till. i think some very surface tilling doesnt do much damage to soil biota when it requires crust break-up, as soil tends to crust with all the watering. i've also got rid of the raised bed boxes, in lieu of standard (75cm) not edged rows. didnt realize how much boxes tend to box you in :) in terms of planting and layout and ability to setup watering and trellising, or to even use standard tools.
having said all that and side-tracked....i think you are indeed enriching the soil with your methods.
I'm not a no dig puritan by any means, sometimes I do think it's necessary to dig. I agree that a little disturbance is no big deal, if we look around us in nature we see so many animals digging and borrowing.
I make pretty much all my own compost from prunings and waste from my home and garden, I do believe it's an important way to reduce waste being sent off my property. The woodchips all come for free, I'm not a fan of paying for stuff if I can avoid it lol 😂😂
My Family Garden : definitely, the original need for composting comes from having farm waste, especially manures, and using it for soil improvement rather than expensively carting it away. manures, spoilt hay, outhouse toilet...all re-use.
i'm always refining from what i see works for others and me and follow up with research, as there's too many airy-fairy pretend organic afficionados out there "feeding" [sic] soil with bannana peel, egg/oyster shell or dumping loads of shredded wood onto soil. i know you have more wits about you than i used to.
i followed all the advice with regard to compost, went bigger and bigger, added fertilizer into it etc and turned it, which is hard work. i know it's probably wrong season (winter here) and i probably had still too much wood in my piles (expensive shredder) but in the end was a cold unfinished mess, loads of it. so, personally i think we get hooked on doing "good" things and before we know it, we spend all our time doing other things and wasting space and not getting particularly good results. this is especially so here as the soil is very poor and needs good fertilizer. cover crops will help on top of that.
i'm going back to basics, using standard rows. instead of for years doing raised bed boxes and squeezing plants in all over the place, both in the beds and other places. i think rows should be easier to manage than the hodge-podge i had. i do have good seed starting trays and a heat mat. waiting for warmer weather in a couple of months. got some hooks to do "lower and lean" tomato growing method. see how goes. tired of having a mess with stakes and ties everywhere.
all the best..i see you have lots of garlic growing in background?
i think we're onto something? surface tilling may actually be a positive thing, whilst only deep tillage has soil structure detrimental effects?
i just received some tools and having cultivated quickly the in-between rows soil, which was compacted and wet, the tillage openned it up to aerate.
You can see what I'm talking about in this video, not digging the entire surface but some disturbance/loosening the row that I'm planting
ruclips.net/video/TNH9D1xeXJA/видео.html
A lot of.cotton.crops are also used as lures..they can spray chemicals on it to kill pests that they.can.can not use on food...idea developed in Africa and quickly. Spread around the world..other are use to hold soil in place..or the roots are nitrogen fixers where they do not mix but mow...actually i have never seen a cover crop mowed by successful farmers.
You must work hard in your garden, prepare for spring. WHEN WILL START YOUR BOTTLE GOURD AND BITTER MELON
Thank you so much for watching. I'll start them indoors next month
and your chickens will not scratch this whole thing up?
They scratch everything up lol , in a few weeks they won't be allowed down this end of the garden as much
ink cardboard adds chemicals to the soil
One thing though,you should only use plain carboard,yours is full of chemicals
Cardboard...lol u must not have bermuda...IN THE ENTIRE STATE
*Behold the Christian Race*
...
Cush (Greek: Ethiopia), means sun-burnt face
Phoenicians described by the Greeks, as fair-haired, fair-skinned people
Persia means Lord of the Aryans now renamed IRAN
Zimbabwe once known as Rhodesia
Chicongo once known as Chicago
...
12 Tribes passed through the Caucasus Mountains
(i)ssac's Sons / Saxons / Anglo-Saxons / Europe / Australia / New Zealand / North America / Christian First World / "We the People"
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38 For as in those days before the flood,
*they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,*
until the day when Noah entered the ark, 39 and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away,
*so will be the coming of the Son of Man.*
Chop and drop in 6" or 15cm pieces if you can, it will break down quicker, no real need to mulch over the chopped green manure though...
Just chop and drop is not as effective as a lot of the breakdown is via oxidisation, this reduces the carbon lost to the atmosphere
@@MyFamilyGarden Hmmm not much cardboard in the woods and forests where I live, plus oxygen can still access the green manure cardboard or no cardboard.....