You could add compost only to the rows instead of the entire plot. As you shift the rows over time the entire plot will get covered. That would reduce the time to get the plot ready for planting and reduce your cost per crop rotation. (Because you need less compost when doing just the rows) The drainage of the heavy rains could be a big advantage where you live. 6" of rain from 1 storm is a lot
Also, I find you don't need as much compost after a few years. In the first few years, you need 3-5 good inches each time. Once the base is set up, I only put down 2-3 inches a year. Making your own compost also cuts cost a lot, if you can do it. I also found that I needed to use fertilizers for the first few years until that base was formed. I still use some fert, but less and less each year --- but I will probably always, since my compost may not be the highest quality.
1. You only need compost for the rows you are planting into 2. Wood chips, or some form of mulch, would work in the rows you are not planting. Like a market garden. 3. Mulch would help with water retention and reduce the need for watering. 4. Spinach will keep growing all season if you harvest the outer leaves only. So you might not need as many spinach plants. And you could let them go to seed. 5. To save on compost, you could do a cover crop bed rotation design. Where you alternate cash crops and cover crops in various beds. Knock down the cover crop and plant into it.
The problem with mulch is that our row spacing is always changing because we're always planting a wide variety of crops with different spacings. That makes it tough to standardize things like the market farmers do.
Hi Travis, your beets look great! I am a small gardener (just grow for myself), but have expanded my garden in the past couple of years. I agree that compost when purchased can get expensive. I started at home with a double roll compost roller, then started a couple of in ground bins, and have more than I need for compost. I only have been adding the oak leaves that fall from my trees and the grass clippings each time I mow the lawn (plus kitchen veggie scraps) = free. I found it makes completed natural compost in about a month or two this way. And once you get there with your overall plot soil becoming healthy, you don't need 5 inches of it on your plots - only about an inch or two. Best part, it's free, and also recycling what people typically view as lawn waste :)
New subscriber. Thanks for the comparison, I just moved from AZ to PA and am working on my no till garden now. (First time trying it) I think that your climate would factor in as well. One Southern gardener I watch hates Hugelkulture, but I don't think he factored in that it was developed in a colder environment. You have to pay attention to what works in YOUR environment and your circumstances.
This is good to know I've found the compost cow mature just brought bunch hog weeds crazy since all the rain here in ky am still on the fense..it's easier clean star fresh soil however I've been kinda mixing the two why dies have be one way or another. Still use organic sprays and fertilizer but sometimes our ground gets so compacted here woth clay u have till in some that loos compost help it out. Idk am still learning but what I've found so far
You might be able to use grass clippings as mulch in your case. They break down pretty fast, maybe fast enough for be able to have multiple plantings and move things around. Slow release nitrogen as well
We are minimal disturbance of the soil farm. No - till beds get better over time. Just compost your rows. Then broad fork each row. Rake them and plant. Or create a system that would include your drip tape. Use 3’ or 4’ landscape fabric to cover your individual rows. Most people, that have problems with this, is because they don’t want or like change. Happy gardening.
I just cut my spinach down with my mower on low and in 3 days the sun’s started to burn up the lower parts that were left. Idk about other greens though. I also second the alfalfa pellet thing if you can find them cheap. I toss a bag over my garden before some heavy rain in early spring and the plants seem to love it.
Glad you stuck out the no-till & didn’t give up! First few yrs it’s tough but after, it only gets better! Especially if you can get a hold of chicken manure & add with the compost! Maybe, with so much rain, you may have to fertilize the squash again as it could have gotten flushed out! Happy Gardening!
Time to start composting all of your cover crops. That's alot of organic material that can be used to build your own compost. Thanks for all the great videos. Hoss and Lazy dog.
Lazy Dog Farm ...I bury mine in the garden bed not used & add compost/woodchips 😱 /dirt/straw etc on to it! It’s gone within that week! Same with my kitchen scraps
In your area Tripsacum dactyloides is a perennial biomass making machine! You could plant them alongside those beautiful pines. And a row of mimosa to coppice for a nitrogen source. In the meantime keep taking advantage of your gin waste source, but create another stream for yourself, just in case.
Great info and breakdown of the pros and cons. For those looking for free or cheap compost, check your city waste management website. Started our small garden in San Diego this year. Fortunately our city collects yard waste curbside and then you can go self load the compost they make from it for free. Otherwise not sure we could afford to garden in this style. Granted it's not organic but it is allowing us to grow our own veggies so I'll take it. I also have 4 compost bins but can't make it fast enough just yet as we have no grass clippings and only avocado leaves from a single tree. I'm sure that will change over the years as we compost the garden. Made 3 trips to the landfill this year filling up (4) 55 gal cans and numerous grow bags each time in my Subaru. So far so good. The garden is looking great and the soil we were starting with wouldn't even hardly grow weeds. I am a believer so far. Loving your content. You are a wealth of information. Also feel very homesick when I watch your videos as I grew up in Jesup, GA and still spend quite a bit of time there each year. Thanks for the work you put into these videos.
Loved your discussion of the evolution of your thought process on no till. Appreciate when people try new methods and are open to change! I myself try to stay open to multiple methods depending on what each bed and crop needs. Love the new channel!
Travis, I like that you advise gardeners to garden with what works for them. I've been adding compost to my garden for about 25 years now. I started with a local product called nutri-mulch which comes from the turkey farms. They compost turkey manure, turkey bedding and pine bark from the sawmills. It has worked wonders for my tomatoes. After I retired I started composting all my grass clippings, and fall leaves, now I've added all our kitchen waste, coffee grounds, well composted horse manure , ........ it's amazing how the garden gets better and better each year. Leafy vegetables like Lettuce and spinach produce longer before bolting, insects aren't as much of a problem. My tomatoes rarely get diseases any more and I've grown them in the same bed for over 30 years now. I try to practice no-dig but about every 5-7 years I do have to dig out my neighbors tree roots that are continually coming into our garden from under the fence!! I think you'll find that after a few years you can reduce the amount of compost needed each year in your no dig plot. Just be careful to get good sources of compost as grass clippings and hay treated with weed killers in manure can be detrimental to your garden. I always test the compost by germinating a few seeds using the compost. If the seedlings exhibit unusual growth or leaf curl, I'll allow the compost another 6-12 months of composting and then test it again before adding it to the garden.
LOVE borage!!! The flowers are edible and taste like cucumbers. I don't eat the leaves because they have little prickers. I feed them to my chickens or compost them. The flowers are pretty as garnishes for salads, deviled eggs, and drinks. My grandkids live them in their ice water and lemonade. The reseed like crazy. The bees LOVE them. ❤️
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this HONEST video! Common Sense! You have to figure in your labor and material costs when EVALUTING different systems. Do you Boo, do what you do!
I am so glad I found your new channel! Love the updates on your new no-till plot. My garden is only 30x30 with 15 small raised beds. I grow food all year round like you and I have never tilled THIS garden. I “build” soil fertility by making compost and vermicompost. Also, in part because of you I now put a cover crop in any bed that is not going to be planted in food for awhile. Field peas ( $1.50 a bag at grocery store) or buckwheat in warm weather. Clover and vetch in winter. Having roots of plants in the soil is so important for the micro herds underneath. But finally, I do keep my garden beds mulched. Grass clippings in spring to fall, and leaves ( run over once with a lawn mower) for winter. Oh, and anyone who gets outside and grows some food...no matter what the method should be commended!
Every garden and gardener is different from any other. In my circumstances, others would cringe and be very critical, but it's working for me. I had virtually a 2 to 3 inch layer of somewhat good soil on top of hard, compacted clay in the plot I had for starting my garden. I hired a friend to initially till up the plot. I raked all the grass and weeds I could it off the plot. I pulled up as much "good" soil as I could to form pitiful shallow and thin rows. I topped those rows with bought compost. I used wood chips on top of cardboard in my walk ways to fight weeds and create a good walk way without mud. I planted my tomatoes in trenches because the soil was so shallow. The clay was like concrete. I planted tomatoes, okra, squash, cucumbers, butterbeans, black beans, fields peas, etc. I had a wonderful crop of okra, butterbeans, and field peas. I had a horrible time with squash bugs and vine borer, but I had a good initial crop. I was able to can and freeze a great deal. This year I bought more compost and added to my rows. They are deeper and better this year. I added organic fertilizer this year... had none last year. My garden is absolutely beautiful this year. But I still have that hard clay and a few inches under my good soil and compost. Diakon Radishes couldn't even penetrate the clay. I'm gardening in concrete basically. 8a zone. I'm nearly a 70yo female. I garden differently. I garden to suit my needs and circumstances. There's no single correct way to garden. Find your gardening method and garden on. Growing good food is the important thing. Thanks, Travis, for sharing your experiences and your knowledge with us!
This is a great video. I too have a mixed garden. Two 5 foot by 50 foot no tills I rotate lettuce and brassicas on. The rest is tilled or tilled very little. I also plant through weed fabric.
Definitely want to give the alfalfa chips a try. We're trying a new pelleted feather meal/meat meal/blood meal nitrogen source on our corn this year to see how that works. Video coming on that soon.
I've noticed the catch up phenomena also. Plants sometimes take a while to get established but when then do, they take off. I don't know for sure but I think they take off point is when the plant roots hit and sync up with the native soil below the compost. I dont know if this is right it but I have definitely noticed this with no till as well.
I love your videos!! You seem so much more relaxed when you aren't (pardon the term) pimping hoss tools products. Don't get me wrong, I use Hoss seeds, and many of their products, I just enjoy the info without feeling like it's a sales pitch. Best of luck in your new adventures. God bless.
Glad to see this type video again. I have great success in transplanting by using a portable drill (Dewalt 20v brushless with 5 amp hour battery with a bulb auger) beats he'll out a wheel hoe or any other method I have used. Improves drainage for the transplant and reduces transplant shock. Agree with what works for your situation, everyone's situation is unique, with environment. Wish you the best.
I appreciate you doing some of the experimenting for us. I bought a load of compost/top soil mix about 7 years ago and had 3 small plots that I loaded it on. I had some transplants of tomatoes, cubes, peppers and dukes. I had some early spring direct sow like peas, carrots, lettuce and kale which had already developed leaves and then I had an empty bed that I was waiting for it to get a bit warmer before planting. I let it sit for a week or so so I could check the temp since I had no way of knowing whether the compost had already been fully cooked or not. So I put it on the beds at the same time I was transplanting and direct sowing. No seed came up that was direct down. Many of the transplants and early sown veggies began dying off but maybe 20-30% did survive however if they were growing it was so slow that it didn’t seem to be growing. I didn’t dare replant but I did watch the plants that seemed to survive. Most did seem to slowly die off as time went on. The tomatoes and peppers that did survive never produced a single fruit and none of the survivors ever topped 6 inches in growth. I had one lone surviving carrot that I left in until the end of October just so I could pull and take a pic of to brag about the abundance of my crop. While the carrot had developed the orange color it was about half the length of my pinky finger - it was a nantes that I had planted. The good news? For the first time in my life I had a 100% weed free garden. Those beds were in the best location in my small yard for a garden and now I couldn’t use it. I left it 2 more years before a few weeds started showing up. The last 3 years I have tried planting grass but it is pretty splotchy. The problem with buying compost or a compost mixture is that you are at the mercy of someone else in most cases. I purchased this from a local company with a good reputation who claimed that all their compost was organic. It cost me $235 for a load that I believe was less than a ton. You put 3-5 tons straight compost in the fall & another 5 tons in the spring. Most homestead type farms aren’t able to produce that scale of compost which means they would spend a fortune to build it up (unless using free wood chips). Then you have to gamble on whether there is something in the compost that will kill your plants.
Right. We wouldn't be able to produce the amount of compost required for this plot. Thankfully, we have a good source locally that has worked well for the last few years, but it's not feasible for everyone.
Serious beet envy, those are stellar. Can't wait to see the roots. If I had to remove a row of spinach like that I would harvest the whole row, scalp it with a lawn mower, then rake the debris to dislodge anything that still might be inclinded to grow. I'd repeat the mow and rake if necessary.
Very fair and balanced comparison on a couple of techniques (though there are many more). I too use the 7Springs Farm 5-4-3+9Ca hen manure meal though I'm using Symphony grade from organic hens. It was just a couple bucks more. You can plant a popsicle stick with that stuff and sprout your own tree.
Didn't know they had a version sourced from organic hens. I also got some Nature Safe 13-0-0 from them that I'm trying on corn for the first time this year. Video coming Monday on that.
First off....i love your attitude of not being pushy or judgemental. That what i like about the guy across the pond. I dont knock others either but i see plenty acting like they know it all. I do like to debate the ones who act like GMOs are purely from satan. I figure we should never shut our eyes and ears from learning from others or new science . Thank you Travis for being thst way. I use no till. I use compost that i make myself basically from kitchen veggie waste, saw dust, and i let my yard grow up and rake my cuttings. I then add some mulch if you want to call it that. I add compost on top. I buy straw every spring and let the bales decompose and use it the following year on the surface. Here are my observations 1. I water less 2. Worms in my garden have increased by 10x at least. 3. I really dont rotate just like the guy across the pond says 4. I dont use fertilizer with the exception when i plant tomatoes i put worm castings and a little bit of organic fertilizer in the hole 5. I do not weed. ....i have another plot i dont till but i dont have the compost and other on top yet and me and the weeds fight...and i lose! This year i am going to weed cloth until i get the resources to cover it the natural way. I think the no till with compost and fast decaying mulch is more like mother nature does it. I wont go back to tilling. I cant taste a difference. I thought insects were less but not true. I still fight the brassica moths, squash beetles. I leave my roots in the ground when i harvest unless its deseased but that hasn't happened yet. I compost everything except tomato vines but I think that would be okay for me because my compost pile gets so hot. I just don't want to put that to the test LOL You have a resource for more compost....that large amount of grass you mow...make it work for you instead of you working on it. I have a small city yard and make over 3 ..40 gallon trash cans full of finished mulch per year.
Thanks for sharing your results Franco. I don't think it reduces overall insect pressure, especially from flying insects. Some folks claim that it increases the plant's ability to resist insect pressure, but I'm not convinced on that one yet. It does seem to help with diseases somewhat.
Great video Travis. You really laid out the information both pros and cons from your experience. You also brought a great point by mentioning that in order to garden this way you need access to compost. I concur with Steve From the Garden's comment about only putting compost in the rows and not in your foot paths. What we did for our no-till experiment was to spread the compost just like you did the first time, but it was about a foot deep over the whole garden plot. Then we put straw down in the foot paths about 8 inches deep to hold moisture and continue to over time add to the soil biology. We continue to put more compost on just the rows where we plant our vegetables. So far, we have observed the same water percolation advantages and weed suppression. We honestly have to do more intensive hand weeding in the beginning because we do not have the advantages of the two growing seasons like you do in the South. When you ask about what to do with spinach, lettuce, and other crops like that when you are done........we just do the best we can with pulling up the entire plant with the last harvest of them. It is not as pretty because you always leave a few stragglers but we just pull them out as they come back up and put them back down on the row to compost down and provide for moisture preservation. You're approach to this method and comparison is much appreciated and look forward to continuing video reports on the results.
Thanks for sharing Randy. Because we grow such a wide diversity of crops year round, I'm not able to adhere to a fixed bed structure with fixed row spacing. Pumpkins will require a much wider row spacing than something like lettuce, so I'm not to the point where I can standardize my row spacing that way.
@@LazyDogFarm Sorry, that flew right by me with your pumpkins. Excellent point. We learned from your videos in the past that with the way things like pumpkins and other vining plants that require room, we either trellis them upwards (cucumbers) or we rotate them through a number of tree stump mini-beds that we fence around. We have a hungry and curious deer population which can not eat all of the vines, but they do keep them "trimmed" back outside of the fence cages. Keep up all of your hard work and I will continue to watch you and adapt it for our farm. Thank you for all of it Boss.
keep up the great work bud,, looking forward to a great new start, i know you'll continue to do fantastic things, just remember to take the time to enjoy it all.
I tried the no till method after watching lots of Charles Dowding videos. I believe one can do it but slowly at first and make our own compost. Dowding has 3 piles going and has been doing it for many years. So far my experience is mixed. I have to apply cardboard and compost and weed quite a bit. Will see the results later I suppose!
It certainly helps if you're starting with a low weed seed bank. Even with no-till practices, a large weed seed bank in a plot can cause issues. Fortunately, our weed seed bank was pretty low due to cover cropping and tapping. So that made our experience a little easier.
Definitely agree garden how you want. Just grow your own food !! Travis what organic fertilizer did you sprinkle along the no till rows, please. I just love your honesty. Have an awesome day.
I agree with you. Do what works for you. Compost can act as a mulch anyway. Ive found that you dont need to rotate your crops and No Till means less weeds and those than grow pull up very easily. Glad you're giving No Till a try x.
We still plan on rotating because many pests will overwinter in the soils down here, but we'll see if the pest pressure continues to be reduced. That may allow us to shorten our rotations a bit.
If you are able in your area, you will notice much better results from direct seeding into the mulch. Also as far as termination, spinach can be pulled with minimal soil disturbance. Or string trimmer.
Excellent video as always. Good info for us, looks like there are pros and cons to each way of gardening. One day we will all see there is always room for improvement, no matter how we do it. Knowledge is Power, never stop learning. Thanks!
Have you tried seeding winter rye late in the fall, waiting for it to reach the "dough" stage the following year, crimping it and laying it down, then planting into the resulting thatch? Fold a tarp into a long strip...easy-peasy. Research some of the other "no-till" gardening methods that don't use tons of compost. There's lots of other ways of growing without a roto-tiller.
I have not tried that with winter rye, but have read several case studies on it. Seems like it suppresses weeds initially, but doesn't do that great suppressing them as the new crops grow. I'm not opposed to trying it, but I've heard mixed reviews on the success of it.
@@LazyDogFarm - I imagine that would depend on what is planted into the winter rye. Anything that canopies well is going to do well, I would think. Some of your forbs or brassicas, which have a more vertical growth form, might not shade out competing weeds before the rye stems dry and are consumed. The soil-building attributes of rye are pretty impressive, though...and way cheaper than tons of compost.
Thick compost IS a mulch :) Agree there is too much dogmatism. I use chickens. Some say they till. So do buffalo then. My philosophy, at the moment, until I learn better, is feed the microbes in the soil, let them feed the plants. Compost does that. But more important is just keeping plants growing, preferably not a single crop but a mix of different crop families. Still figuring out how best to do that though, while considering what's practical and what isn't. The figuring is the fun, for me. :)
Travis, you commented that some people say that you are not doing true no till because you are not using mulch. They seem to forget that thick layers of quality, finished compost are in fact mulch. I do this quite successfully in my own garden. My only difference from your no till plot is that I use a 30 inch bed system (six beds in each of my three 1000 sq. ft. plots) to save on compost as I leave the 18 inch wide walkways between beds bare. Perhaps you should try a no-till plot using the 30 inch bed system for a comparison.
I'm familiar with the 30" bed system, but not sure it would work for all the crops we grow. How do you grow pumpkins with just an 18" walkway? Our pumpkins usually sprawl 8-10' feet on each side of the row.
@@LazyDogFarm With large vining crops I simply skip beds as needed to create the extra space between rows. The unused beds are given a thick layer of compost and covered with 3 foot wide weed fabric so that they effectively are tarped for the duration of that crop. That way the skipped beds are weed free and in great shape when the next crop is ready to be planted.
That is very good video. I really like how you are experimenting with different seeds, techniques, different soil and such. I appreciate how you show the positives and negatives from your point of view. The best part is not preaching to folks what to do how to do it and what to use. Because they would cuss you up and down if it didn't work. That's why I say you do you.
I have all raised beds so mine are basically no till but I do pull some stuff up by the roots . I also use mushroom compost. Sometimes I use other organic fertilizer if needed. I also use organic pest deterrents if needed. We just do the best we can with what we have and we all get some harvest . I always have all I can preserve by the end of my main season. Your information is always spot on , I learn so much from you .
On your question, for removing bedding plants like spinach without pulling, a weeding sickle, sometimes called a Cape Cod, works great to slice them off at the surface. My garden is small, so I use a hand-held Nejiri-Kama. I think you hit the nail on the head regarding scaling. I think no till would be very difficult on a large scale, but it sure works great for home gardeners.
I would just save my Amazon etc boxes, strip off the tape and cut strips of cardboard to lay on top of the spinach to terminate them. Plus you're still adding organic matter to the bed. :) I treasure each and every cardboard box I get! LOL As far as the cost of the compost, start layering leaves from the fall, grass clippings, etc as you get them. I have a friend with a large backyard that has a ton of trees and he just piles them up in a corner of his backyard that has some light fencing around it and each fall, I go and load up the large black trash bags up with his leaf compost. A little work but basically free leaf mold.
this is a great video , shared it to my face book and twitter, great info and it got me wanting to give it a try in part of my garden, thanks Travis another great job!!!!!!
Glad I found you again on YT. I've been following your no-till experiment with interest. I've been doing no-till for years, and 3 years is how long it's taken to really see the results. I use permanent beds and I would also say just use compost on the rows, not the whole plot.
Cheapest compost I can find is 20 per yard. Its usually hot, not well broke down and full of wood mulch. Also its 20 miles each way and I can only haul 1 yard at a time in my truck. Then I have to unload by hand. Good compost is 80 or more per yard plus delivery. Would love some tips or resources for finding local affordable compost.
Most compost places aren't online, so they can be quite hard to find. Start by asking around any local cotton gins if you have them nearby. Check with dairies and chicken farms as well.
@@LazyDogFarm we have a few small old cotton gins around still in operation. I was thinking of talking to them about cotton seed meal too. Thanks for the tip.
Hey, Travis. Here are my thoughts on this. If over a year or two I put 8 tons of primo compost on my 1000 sq ft garden plot, I wouldn't need any additional fertilizer, either! I say that because the second and third year I had my suburban garden at my previous home, I was lucky enough to have a big, strapping guy friend with a heavy-duty work truck. That first Spring, we drove to a mushroom growing facility where I could purchase a ton of compost for $10.00. Don't get too excited here - That $10/ton compost also cost me gas for his truck to get there and back, and a good lunch on the way back, so money-wise, it actually cost me about $60.00. He also helped me move the compost to my garden in wheel barrow loads (Remember - I was a whole lot better looking back in 2013/2014!). I then would spread this out and use a Mantis tiller to incorporate it into the garden. By the second truck load, I had a fantastic garden! I had very little weed pressure, everything grew well. So, is the garden doing well because you're not tilling it, or is it doing well because you're planting in a crap-load of compost? Then circumstances happened and my guy friend had to move about two states away. So, instead of spending about $120/year to put down 2 tons of compost, I now would have to contract and pay someone to get it and deliver it. Then, I'd have had to pay them to haul it to the back yard, so that $60.00 ton of compost would have cost me $210 or more!! Nope. Not feasible. About the 4th year, I had the worst weed and bug pressure and the following year, I almost quit gardening. It was about that time that I bought my first wheel hoe. Don't get me wrong - I now have a property with a gate wide enough for a dump truck to fit through and dump a load of compost. If I can find a good source that I know won't contaminate my garden with aminopyralids at a reasonable price, I might consider having a load or two delivered if the budget can handle it. However, I'll most likely continue using my wheel hoe when weeds start popping up after a rain. Just sayin'.
Carol, I think you are absolutely right.......If compost cost and the means to deliver and spread it were more affordable I may be on board, but with a 3,000 square foot garden with limited space for a dump truck, it is gonna be a challenge.
It's definitely hard to tease out the causation of some of the results. And I completely agree about the cost of the compost. If you can't get it affordably, time to change your practices a bit.
We have heavy red clay soil in our area and our home is surrounded by forest that hasn't been touched for 40+ years, and yet that dark brown rich layer on the forest floor is only a few inches deep before hitting that heavy red clay. That's like 40 years of compost or leaf mold for a few inches of nice dirt. I'm a big fan of adding a layer of compost to the top of my garden soil each year, and I don't turn the soil any longer BUT ... what I think works best for clay soils is to do one VERY BIG TILL then go to NO TILL. In our garden, we added a large layer of compost and turned it deep (double dug) into the soil, and from then on we only do compost layering.. It works great and it is a pleasure to work in. Working in red clay is lousy! And our soil is full of mycorrhizal fungi. If we bury the edges of Agribon on the ground, it will weave itself into the fibers soon after. Congrats on your new channel. I'm glad I found you! I miss your hilarious banter on RbR, but we have to follow our dreams! Best wishes to you, Travis!
No till all the way for me. 😁 Use a broadfork in the start of beds and have had such monster sucess with mulching with grass cut with scythe. Just found you on your own channel! 👍
It took me a while to figure out you were missing from my RUclips feed. So glad I found you. It took some doing. Love the content. I’ve learned a ton this year following you. How can I help support your channel?
Also, I’m growing several varieties of determinant tomatoes this year after learning about them last year from you and your dad. I can already see the huge difference is growth and vigor. Looking forward to a tighter canning season. And also, we grew onions from seed this year and they’re out pacing the bulb onions I planted last fall like I normally do. Thanks again.
Glad you found us Adam. Just keep watching, giving us a thumbs up on the videos, and help spread the word. We hope to have a website in the next few months where we'll carry merch and hopefully a few more things.
I've heard the no-till, no-synthetic fertilizer way of growing, forces the plant to search for nutrients and have stronger and longer root systems instead of being lazy plants that lay around and wait for it's next feeding of synthetic fertilizer. I do the no-till method with wood chip pathways. My setup is pretty close to JM Fortier's in his book "The Market Gardener". I terminate my rows with a sickle. I would use a flail mower if I had one. I then cover with a tarp for 2 weeks then come back with a mulching lawnmower to scalp the plants down to the soil level and cover the beds up for 2 more weeks. After this month long period, the worms and bugs have eaten all the plant matter, and I can go back with about an inch or even less compost and plant right into it again. Nice video.
Could be. I don't care for the bed system because we grow such a wide variety of crops. While the fixed bed size works great for some things, it wouldn't work very well for the pumpkins and winter squash we have growing in this plot currently.
All the compost certainly has contributed. To what degree, I guess we'll never really know. It did take a while for it all to start "converting over" so that it was available to the plants.
I have both till and no till gardens. Kind of. Raised beds are no till lol. I don't have a tractor so I hire someone every 3-4 years. But I double dig selective beds as needed. The more I expand my growing area the more I lean towards till. I'm in the market for a rototiller.
I really like the Grillo tiller we have. Would highly recommend. They're a little more pricey than what you get at the big box stores, but well worth it.
@@LazyDogFarm my brother has been piling up the left over hay and cow manure from feeding cows all winter. It has been there for probably 7 years or more so good compost
Definitely two different mindsets when it comes to home gardening. For us, we really could care less about the no till methodology certain people seem to be a cult of, it's not practical in our gardening applications. We will continue gardening the way that is most practical for our family by using whatever is needed to grow our food as quickly and abundantly as possible, definitely not no till for us.
To terminate the crop I would consider cutting the crop at soil level and then instead of smothering it with a tarp smother it with 3-4 inches of compost.
Im also going no till if you think about it nature doesnt till but leaves fall and become compost, plants die stay in place and become compost it just makes sense when you add compost every season you are fertilizing new organic material ( and no im not brilliant somebody else pointed that out)😄😄😄love watching your comparison 👍👍👍👍
I've been doing a version of no till for a few years. My theory on transplants taking longer to get going is that they're spending time initially putting out really strong root systems in order to take maximum advantage of the high soil fertility. The lack of soil fertility In traditional cultivated plots stresses plants into growing faster in order to produce the next generation faster because the parent plants don't live very long in that non-beneficial environment. I have no idea whether this explanation is "scientific"; it's just something I've observed every growing season.
Happy your back on New RUclips Travis ! You never mention the PH levels on either plot. As you know PH is very important particularly using organic fertilizers. Thanks for your video(s)..
I grow my plants in a no till garden. The reason that the plants seem more yellow and sickly at first is due to the compost. The wood fibers in the compost use nitrogen to break down, leave less available for the plants until their roots reach the actual soil. As the worms and other bugs mix the compost with the soil, that part should improve over the years. I used a 12” thick layer of straw and i actually did better planting seeds directly into the straw than already started plants.
I think a mulch is something you put on the soil to cover it. Organic or not. Five inches of organic matter sure seems like five inches of cover to me. Ask them what is, and what is not mulch.
I have a small plot that I go no till and a larger one that I till and fertilize, because I have a limited amount of compost, and I fill up the small plot first.
Hi! Q: About how much acreage do your ten plots take up? Or how big are they, in feet, like 30x30, or what? Just trying to think about how much room it would take to bring in the amount of grub you do.
You could try a biochar test too. Have you thought about making your own compost on site? With a bay system you can get a couple tons every few months. If you're going to continue the no dig bed, maybe try mulch on part to see the difference.
Besides food scraps, I don't really have any carbon sources to make my own composts. We only have a couple pecan trees, so not many leaves. And we don't bag our grass.
Hi Travis, the beet greens are luscious but I wonder how the bulbs look. Are they comparable? Also, it’s a waiting game on the pumpkins. You can have great greenery that bears no fruit. Keep us informed. Cannot wait to see them in the coming weeks.
In theory you are adding more compost after you harvest the spinach, so yiu would just cut it off at the base and leave the roots in place. I have had mixed success leaving plant roots in place. Some things just take too long to break down and they get in my way for subsequent plantings (ex. Tomatoes, sunflower, brassica stems....) So I cut at the base and wait as long as I can before I pull the rest out if it's in my way.
No till, to make it more cost effective, needs the gardener to make their own compost. I’m in my second year of composting but finally order a better chipper shredder & it may be another year before I can meet all my compost needs.
Man alive, I’m glad I found you again!
Glad you found us too!
You could add compost only to the rows instead of the entire plot. As you shift the rows over time the entire plot will get covered. That would reduce the time to get the plot ready for planting and reduce your cost per crop rotation. (Because you need less compost when doing just the rows) The drainage of the heavy rains could be a big advantage where you live. 6" of rain from 1 storm is a lot
Might start doing that since we have a good base of compost there now.
Also, I find you don't need as much compost after a few years. In the first few years, you need 3-5 good inches each time. Once the base is set up, I only put down 2-3 inches a year. Making your own compost also cuts cost a lot, if you can do it. I also found that I needed to use fertilizers for the first few years until that base was formed. I still use some fert, but less and less each year --- but I will probably always, since my compost may not be the highest quality.
Whadaya say we spend a little time in the garden today? Alright, alright, alright!!!!! Glad I found you again. Great video with the comparison.
Glad you found us J R! Welcome to the channel!
Totally agree that one should garden in whatever way works for them.
Absolutely
Travis, very well spoken You covered everything very thoroughly.
Glad you enjoyed it!
1. You only need compost for the rows you are planting into
2. Wood chips, or some form of mulch, would work in the rows you are not planting. Like a market garden.
3. Mulch would help with water retention and reduce the need for watering.
4. Spinach will keep growing all season if you harvest the outer leaves only. So you might not need as many spinach plants. And you could let them go to seed.
5. To save on compost, you could do a cover crop bed rotation design. Where you alternate cash crops and cover crops in various beds. Knock down the cover crop and plant into it.
The problem with mulch is that our row spacing is always changing because we're always planting a wide variety of crops with different spacings. That makes it tough to standardize things like the market farmers do.
Hi Travis, your beets look great! I am a small gardener (just grow for myself), but have expanded my garden in the past couple of years. I agree that compost when purchased can get expensive. I started at home with a double roll compost roller, then started a couple of in ground bins, and have more than I need for compost. I only have been adding the oak leaves that fall from my trees and the grass clippings each time I mow the lawn (plus kitchen veggie scraps) = free. I found it makes completed natural compost in about a month or two this way. And once you get there with your overall plot soil becoming healthy, you don't need 5 inches of it on your plots - only about an inch or two. Best part, it's free, and also recycling what people typically view as lawn waste :)
We don't have many leaves and we don't bag our grass, so compost is pretty much the only "mulch" we can use.
Compost can be used as mulch, especially if it isn’t 💯 broken down, you’re doing it right
Woohooo! I found you! Love the positivity on the High Road! Thank you for sharing your family and your gardening adventures with us all!
Welcome!!
New subscriber. Thanks for the comparison, I just moved from AZ to PA and am working on my no till garden now. (First time trying it) I think that your climate would factor in as well. One Southern gardener I watch hates Hugelkulture, but I don't think he factored in that it was developed in a colder environment. You have to pay attention to what works in YOUR environment and your circumstances.
For sure climate is a huge factor. That's why we wanted to test it ourselves here to compare to what others are saying about the technique.
This is good to know I've found the compost cow mature just brought bunch hog weeds crazy since all the rain here in ky am still on the fense..it's easier clean star fresh soil however I've been kinda mixing the two why dies have be one way or another. Still use organic sprays and fertilizer but sometimes our ground gets so compacted here woth clay u have till in some that loos compost help it out. Idk am still learning but what I've found so far
You might be able to use grass clippings as mulch in your case. They break down pretty fast, maybe fast enough for be able to have multiple plantings and move things around. Slow release nitrogen as well
We are minimal disturbance of the soil farm.
No - till beds get better over time.
Just compost your rows.
Then broad fork each row. Rake them and plant.
Or create a system that would include your drip tape.
Use 3’ or 4’ landscape fabric to cover your individual rows.
Most people, that have problems with this, is because they don’t want or like change.
Happy gardening.
I have a broadfork, but it's not my favorite tool to use. Lol. I do find it useful when planting leek transplants.
I just cut my spinach down with my mower on low and in 3 days the sun’s started to burn up the lower parts that were left. Idk about other greens though. I also second the alfalfa pellet thing if you can find them cheap. I toss a bag over my garden before some heavy rain in early spring and the plants seem to love it.
Might have to try that with the spinach once it gets hot. Definitely want to try the alfalfa pellets.
Glad you stuck out the no-till & didn’t give up! First few yrs it’s tough but after, it only gets better! Especially if you can get a hold of chicken manure & add with the compost! Maybe, with so much rain, you may have to fertilize the squash again as it could have gotten flushed out! Happy Gardening!
Our pumpkins and winter squash are looking pretty good right now. We're very dry here. Could use some rain.
Lazy Dog Farm ...yes, I’m in zone 8b as well! Here ya on the dry weather. More dry in the next week & a half 🥵
Time to start composting all of your cover crops. That's alot of organic material that can be used to build your own compost.
Thanks for all the great videos. Hoss and Lazy dog.
We usually like to add all that back to the soil, but composting it isn't a bad idea either.
Lazy Dog Farm ...
.
Lazy Dog Farm ...I bury mine in the garden bed not used & add compost/woodchips 😱 /dirt/straw etc on to it! It’s gone within that week! Same with my kitchen scraps
In your area Tripsacum dactyloides is a perennial biomass making machine! You could plant them alongside those beautiful pines. And a row of mimosa to coppice for a nitrogen source. In the meantime keep taking advantage of your gin waste source, but create another stream for yourself, just in case.
Thanks for the tip!
Great info and breakdown of the pros and cons. For those looking for free or cheap compost, check your city waste management website. Started our small garden in San Diego this year. Fortunately our city collects yard waste curbside and then you can go self load the compost they make from it for free. Otherwise not sure we could afford to garden in this style. Granted it's not organic but it is allowing us to grow our own veggies so I'll take it. I also have 4 compost bins but can't make it fast enough just yet as we have no grass clippings and only avocado leaves from a single tree. I'm sure that will change over the years as we compost the garden. Made 3 trips to the landfill this year filling up (4) 55 gal cans and numerous grow bags each time in my Subaru. So far so good. The garden is looking great and the soil we were starting with wouldn't even hardly grow weeds. I am a believer so far.
Loving your content. You are a wealth of information. Also feel very homesick when I watch your videos as I grew up in Jesup, GA and still spend quite a bit of time there each year.
Thanks for the work you put into these videos.
Thanks for watching Erica! And thanks for providing the good tips on acquiring compost.
Loved your discussion of the evolution of your thought process on no till. Appreciate when people try new methods and are open to change! I myself try to stay open to multiple methods depending on what each bed and crop needs. Love the new channel!
Never stop learning - that’s our goal.
Travis, I like that you advise gardeners to garden with what works for them. I've been adding compost to my garden for about 25 years now. I started with a local product called nutri-mulch which comes from the turkey farms. They compost turkey manure, turkey bedding and pine bark from the sawmills. It has worked wonders for my tomatoes.
After I retired I started composting all my grass clippings, and fall leaves, now I've added all our kitchen waste, coffee grounds, well composted horse manure , ........ it's amazing how the garden gets better and better each year. Leafy vegetables like Lettuce and spinach produce longer before bolting, insects aren't as much of a problem. My tomatoes rarely get diseases any more and I've grown them in the same bed for over 30 years now. I try to practice no-dig but about every 5-7 years I do have to dig out my neighbors tree roots that are continually coming into our garden from under the fence!! I think you'll find that after a few years you can reduce the amount of compost needed each year in your no dig plot.
Just be careful to get good sources of compost as grass clippings and hay treated with weed killers in manure can be detrimental to your garden. I always test the compost by germinating a few seeds using the compost. If the seedlings exhibit unusual growth or leaf curl, I'll allow the compost another 6-12 months of composting and then test it again before adding it to the garden.
Thanks for sharing Charlie. I definitely think I won't have to add as much compost as the plot progresses.
LOVE borage!!! The flowers are edible and taste like cucumbers. I don't eat the leaves because they have little prickers. I feed them to my chickens or compost them. The flowers are pretty as garnishes for salads, deviled eggs, and drinks. My grandkids live them in their ice water and lemonade. The reseed like crazy. The bees LOVE them. ❤️
Thanks for the tips!
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this HONEST video! Common Sense! You have to figure in your labor and material costs when EVALUTING different systems. Do you Boo, do what you do!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I am so glad I found your new channel! Love the updates on your new no-till plot. My garden is only 30x30 with 15 small raised beds. I grow food all year round like you and I have never tilled THIS garden. I “build” soil fertility by making compost and vermicompost. Also, in part because of you I now put a cover crop in any bed that is not going to be planted in food for awhile. Field peas ( $1.50 a bag at grocery store) or buckwheat in warm weather. Clover and vetch in winter. Having roots of plants in the soil is so important for the micro herds underneath. But finally, I do keep my garden beds mulched. Grass clippings in spring to fall, and leaves ( run over once with a lawn mower) for winter. Oh, and anyone who gets outside and grows some food...no matter what the method should be commended!
Sounds like you've got a great plan and rotation! Glad you found us!
Every garden and gardener is different from any other. In my circumstances, others would cringe and be very critical, but it's working for me. I had virtually a 2 to 3 inch layer of somewhat good soil on top of hard, compacted clay in the plot I had for starting my garden. I hired a friend to initially till up the plot. I raked all the grass and weeds I could it off the plot. I pulled up as much "good" soil as I could to form pitiful shallow and thin rows. I topped those rows with bought compost. I used wood chips on top of cardboard in my walk ways to fight weeds and create a good walk way without mud. I planted my tomatoes in trenches because the soil was so shallow. The clay was like concrete. I planted tomatoes, okra, squash, cucumbers, butterbeans, black beans, fields peas, etc. I had a wonderful crop of okra, butterbeans, and field peas. I had a horrible time with squash bugs and vine borer, but I had a good initial crop. I was able to can and freeze a great deal. This year I bought more compost and added to my rows. They are deeper and better this year. I added organic fertilizer this year... had none last year. My garden is absolutely beautiful this year. But I still have that hard clay and a few inches under my good soil and compost. Diakon Radishes couldn't even penetrate the clay. I'm gardening in concrete basically. 8a zone. I'm nearly a 70yo female. I garden differently. I garden to suit my needs and circumstances. There's no single correct way to garden. Find your gardening method and garden on. Growing good food is the important thing. Thanks, Travis, for sharing your experiences and your knowledge with us!
Thanks for sharing your experiences Pat. Sounds like you're doing a great job improving that "concrete" soil.
This is a great video. I too have a mixed garden. Two 5 foot by 50 foot no tills I rotate lettuce and brassicas on. The rest is tilled or tilled very little. I also plant through weed fabric.
Thanks Mike! Good to hear you're experimenting as well.
I am enjoying your comparison. I have raised beds.
Thanks for watching Jeanie!
Was watching all the garden tours on other channels today and it hit me - why haven’t we gotten an update on the no till garden?
Glad I found ya!
Glad you found us too!
Add some alfalfa chips this fall! We use Mushroom Compost and alfalfa chips with good results. Enjoying the new series!
Which size alfalfa chips work best?
@@WinsomeWinslet Pellets work well. www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/standlee-premium-western-forage-premium-alfalfa-pellets-40-lb-bag
@@paulreiche2746 Thanks!
Definitely want to give the alfalfa chips a try. We're trying a new pelleted feather meal/meat meal/blood meal nitrogen source on our corn this year to see how that works. Video coming on that soon.
What are alfalfa chips?
I've noticed the catch up phenomena also. Plants sometimes take a while to get established but when then do, they take off. I don't know for sure but I think they take off point is when the plant roots hit and sync up with the native soil below the compost. I dont know if this is right it but I have definitely noticed this with no till as well.
We see it every single time we plant something in these no-till plots. Happened this year with our watermelons as well.
I love your videos!! You seem so much more relaxed when you aren't (pardon the term) pimping hoss tools products. Don't get me wrong, I use Hoss seeds, and many of their products, I just enjoy the info without feeling like it's a sales pitch. Best of luck in your new adventures. God bless.
Thanks Gail!
The compost is the mulch.
I agree.
I agree ,you should garden whichever way is best for you. Thank you for the great information and for having a test garden.
Thanks for watching Shirley!
Travis wondered whst hsppened.Glad i found you.Great video
Glad you found us too Charles! This is where we'll be.
Glad to see this type video again. I have great success in transplanting by using a portable drill (Dewalt 20v brushless with 5 amp hour battery with a bulb auger) beats he'll out a wheel hoe or any other method I have used. Improves drainage for the transplant and reduces transplant shock. Agree with what works for your situation, everyone's situation is unique, with environment. Wish you the best.
I like that idea!
Love your videos. The best gardening site
Wow, thank you!
I agree with you. Every ones situation is different, what works for some may not work for others. Great Video 👍
Thanks 👍
I appreciate you doing some of the experimenting for us.
I bought a load of compost/top soil mix about 7 years ago and had 3 small plots that I loaded it on. I had some transplants of tomatoes, cubes, peppers and dukes. I had some early spring direct sow like peas, carrots, lettuce and kale which had already developed leaves and then I had an empty bed that I was waiting for it to get a bit warmer before planting. I let it sit for a week or so so I could check the temp since I had no way of knowing whether the compost had already been fully cooked or not. So I put it on the beds at the same time I was transplanting and direct sowing. No seed came up that was direct down. Many of the transplants and early sown veggies began dying off but maybe 20-30% did survive however if they were growing it was so slow that it didn’t seem to be growing. I didn’t dare replant but I did watch the plants that seemed to survive. Most did seem to slowly die off as time went on. The tomatoes and peppers that did survive never produced a single fruit and none of the survivors ever topped 6 inches in growth. I had one lone surviving carrot that I left in until the end of October just so I could pull and take a pic of to brag about the abundance of my crop. While the carrot had developed the orange color it was about half the length of my pinky finger - it was a nantes that I had planted. The good news? For the first time in my life I had a 100% weed free garden. Those beds were in the best location in my small yard for a garden and now I couldn’t use it. I left it 2 more years before a few weeds started showing up. The last 3 years I have tried planting grass but it is pretty splotchy.
The problem with buying compost or a compost mixture is that you are at the mercy of someone else in most cases. I purchased this from a local company with a good reputation who claimed that all their compost was organic. It cost me $235 for a load that I believe was less than a ton. You put 3-5 tons straight compost in the fall & another 5 tons in the spring. Most homestead type farms aren’t able to produce that scale of compost which means they would spend a fortune to build it up (unless using free wood chips). Then you have to gamble on whether there is something in the compost that will kill your plants.
Right. We wouldn't be able to produce the amount of compost required for this plot. Thankfully, we have a good source locally that has worked well for the last few years, but it's not feasible for everyone.
Serious beet envy, those are stellar. Can't wait to see the roots.
If I had to remove a row of spinach like that I would harvest the whole row, scalp it with a lawn mower, then rake the debris to dislodge anything that still might be inclinded to grow. I'd repeat the mow and rake if necessary.
Sounds like a good plan. Should be pretty easy to uproot.
Very fair and balanced comparison on a couple of techniques (though there are many more). I too use the 7Springs Farm 5-4-3+9Ca hen manure meal though I'm using Symphony grade from organic hens. It was just a couple bucks more. You can plant a popsicle stick with that stuff and sprout your own tree.
Didn't know they had a version sourced from organic hens. I also got some Nature Safe 13-0-0 from them that I'm trying on corn for the first time this year. Video coming Monday on that.
First off....i love your attitude of not being pushy or judgemental. That what i like about the guy across the pond. I dont knock others either but i see plenty acting like they know it all. I do like to debate the ones who act like GMOs are purely from satan. I figure we should never shut our eyes and ears from learning from others or new science . Thank you Travis for being thst way.
I use no till. I use compost that i make myself basically from kitchen veggie waste, saw dust, and i let my yard grow up and rake my cuttings. I then add some mulch if you want to call it that. I add compost on top. I buy straw every spring and let the bales decompose and use it the following year on the surface. Here are my observations
1. I water less
2. Worms in my garden have increased by 10x at least.
3. I really dont rotate just like the guy across the pond says
4. I dont use fertilizer with the exception when i plant tomatoes i put worm castings and a little bit of organic fertilizer in the hole
5. I do not weed.
....i have another plot i dont till but i dont have the compost and other on top yet and me and the weeds fight...and i lose!
This year i am going to weed cloth until i get the resources to cover it the natural way.
I think the no till with compost and fast decaying mulch is more like mother nature does it.
I wont go back to tilling.
I cant taste a difference. I thought insects were less but not true. I still fight the brassica moths, squash beetles.
I leave my roots in the ground when i harvest unless its deseased but that hasn't happened yet. I compost everything except tomato vines but I think that would be okay for me because my compost pile gets so hot. I just don't want to put that to the test LOL
You have a resource for more compost....that large amount of grass you mow...make it work for you instead of you working on it. I have a small city yard and make over 3 ..40 gallon trash cans full of finished mulch per year.
Thanks for sharing your results Franco. I don't think it reduces overall insect pressure, especially from flying insects. Some folks claim that it increases the plant's ability to resist insect pressure, but I'm not convinced on that one yet. It does seem to help with diseases somewhat.
Great video Travis. You really laid out the information both pros and cons from your experience. You also brought a great point by mentioning that in order to garden this way you need access to compost. I concur with Steve From the Garden's comment about only putting compost in the rows and not in your foot paths. What we did for our no-till experiment was to spread the compost just like you did the first time, but it was about a foot deep over the whole garden plot. Then we put straw down in the foot paths about 8 inches deep to hold moisture and continue to over time add to the soil biology. We continue to put more compost on just the rows where we plant our vegetables. So far, we have observed the same water percolation advantages and weed suppression. We honestly have to do more intensive hand weeding in the beginning because we do not have the advantages of the two growing seasons like you do in the South. When you ask about what to do with spinach, lettuce, and other crops like that when you are done........we just do the best we can with pulling up the entire plant with the last harvest of them. It is not as pretty because you always leave a few stragglers but we just pull them out as they come back up and put them back down on the row to compost down and provide for moisture preservation. You're approach to this method and comparison is much appreciated and look forward to continuing video reports on the results.
Thanks for sharing Randy. Because we grow such a wide diversity of crops year round, I'm not able to adhere to a fixed bed structure with fixed row spacing. Pumpkins will require a much wider row spacing than something like lettuce, so I'm not to the point where I can standardize my row spacing that way.
@@LazyDogFarm Sorry, that flew right by me with your pumpkins. Excellent point. We learned from your videos in the past that with the way things like pumpkins and other vining plants that require room, we either trellis them upwards (cucumbers) or we rotate them through a number of tree stump mini-beds that we fence around. We have a hungry and curious deer population which can not eat all of the vines, but they do keep them "trimmed" back outside of the fence cages. Keep up all of your hard work and I will continue to watch you and adapt it for our farm. Thank you for all of it Boss.
Glad to be back with you. Keep it coming.
🙂🙃🙂😉
Great to see you here Gary!
keep up the great work bud,, looking forward to a great new start, i know you'll continue to do fantastic things, just remember to take the time to enjoy it all.
Thanks for that
I tried the no till method after watching lots of Charles Dowding videos. I believe one can do it but slowly at first and make our own compost. Dowding has 3 piles going and has been doing it for many years. So far my experience is mixed. I have to apply cardboard and compost and weed quite a bit. Will see the results later I suppose!
It certainly helps if you're starting with a low weed seed bank. Even with no-till practices, a large weed seed bank in a plot can cause issues. Fortunately, our weed seed bank was pretty low due to cover cropping and tapping. So that made our experience a little easier.
Most beautiful beet greens I've ever seen.❤👍Great job!!
Thanks Leah!
Definitely agree garden how you want. Just grow your own food !! Travis what organic fertilizer did you sprinkle along the no till rows, please. I just love your honesty. Have an awesome day.
I use this stuff right here: www.7springsfarm.com/harmony-ag-organic-fertilizer-5-4-3-9-calcium-50-lb-bag/
I am so glad that I found your channel.I have learned so much from you o gardening. Do you have a video on how you save seeds.
Glad you found us too Imma!
I agree with you. Do what works for you. Compost can act as a mulch anyway. Ive found that you dont need to rotate your crops and No Till means less weeds and those than grow pull up very easily. Glad you're giving No Till a try x.
We still plan on rotating because many pests will overwinter in the soils down here, but we'll see if the pest pressure continues to be reduced. That may allow us to shorten our rotations a bit.
Hi Ann
If you are able in your area, you will notice much better results from direct seeding into the mulch.
Also as far as termination, spinach can be pulled with minimal soil disturbance. Or string trimmer.
Thanks Michael!
Glad I found the new channel! Here's to growing the garden and subscriber's 👊
Glad you found us! Thanks for subscribing.
Look into potential mulches, chop and drop , composting and intensive gardening techniques.
We like to grow fairly intensively, but pumpkins and winter squash need their space.
Excellent video as always. Good info for us, looks like there are pros and cons to each way of gardening. One day we will all see there is always room for improvement, no matter how we do it. Knowledge is Power, never stop learning. Thanks!
Well said!
Have you tried seeding winter rye late in the fall, waiting for it to reach the "dough" stage the following year, crimping it and laying it down, then planting into the resulting thatch?
Fold a tarp into a long strip...easy-peasy.
Research some of the other "no-till" gardening methods that don't use tons of compost. There's lots of other ways of growing without a roto-tiller.
I have not tried that with winter rye, but have read several case studies on it. Seems like it suppresses weeds initially, but doesn't do that great suppressing them as the new crops grow. I'm not opposed to trying it, but I've heard mixed reviews on the success of it.
@@LazyDogFarm - I imagine that would depend on what is planted into the winter rye. Anything that canopies well is going to do well, I would think. Some of your forbs or brassicas, which have a more vertical growth form, might not shade out competing weeds before the rye stems dry and are consumed. The soil-building attributes of rye are pretty impressive, though...and way cheaper than tons of compost.
Thick compost IS a mulch :)
Agree there is too much dogmatism. I use chickens. Some say they till. So do buffalo then. My philosophy, at the moment, until I learn better, is feed the microbes in the soil, let them feed the plants. Compost does that. But more important is just keeping plants growing, preferably not a single crop but a mix of different crop families. Still figuring out how best to do that though, while considering what's practical and what isn't. The figuring is the fun, for me. :)
Thanks for sharing
check out the BCS Flail mower for the spinach and any other crops in your no till plot. Casey at honey tree farm uses it.
Those things work great!
Travis, you commented that some people say that you are not doing true no till because you are not using mulch. They seem to forget that thick layers of quality, finished compost are in fact mulch. I do this quite successfully in my own garden. My only difference from your no till plot is that I use a 30 inch bed system (six beds in each of my three 1000 sq. ft. plots) to save on compost as I leave the 18 inch wide walkways between beds bare. Perhaps you should try a no-till plot using the 30 inch bed system for a comparison.
I'm familiar with the 30" bed system, but not sure it would work for all the crops we grow. How do you grow pumpkins with just an 18" walkway? Our pumpkins usually sprawl 8-10' feet on each side of the row.
@@LazyDogFarm With large vining crops I simply skip beds as needed to create the extra space between rows. The unused beds are given a thick layer of compost and covered with 3 foot wide weed fabric so that they effectively are tarped for the duration of that crop. That way the skipped beds are weed free and in great shape when the next crop is ready to be planted.
@@charlescourtney4412 makes sense.
That is very good video. I really like how you are experimenting with different seeds, techniques, different soil and such. I appreciate how you show the positives and negatives from your point of view. The best part is not preaching to folks what to do how to do it and what to use. Because they would cuss you up and down if it didn't work. That's why I say you do you.
Correct. There are no absolutes in gardening because everyone's situation is different.
I have all raised beds so mine are basically no till but I do pull some stuff up by the roots . I also use mushroom compost. Sometimes I use other organic fertilizer if needed. I also use organic pest deterrents if needed. We just do the best we can with what we have and we all get some harvest . I always have all I can preserve by the end of my main season.
Your information is always spot on , I learn so much from you .
Sounds like you're doing great!
Hi Linda
On your question, for removing bedding plants like spinach without pulling, a weeding sickle, sometimes called a Cape Cod, works great to slice them off at the surface. My garden is small, so I use a hand-held Nejiri-Kama. I think you hit the nail on the head regarding scaling. I think no till would be very difficult on a large scale, but it sure works great for home gardeners.
I think I can use a stirrup hoe to do basically what you recommend -- just cut barely below the soil surface.
Ruth stouts method with straw covering ground also reduces weed pressure and holds moisture longer if that helps
We used straw on our tomatoes in cages this year. But at $6 a bale, it's not feasible to use on the entire garden.
I would just save my Amazon etc boxes, strip off the tape and cut strips of cardboard to lay on top of the spinach to terminate them. Plus you're still adding organic matter to the bed. :) I treasure each and every cardboard box I get! LOL As far as the cost of the compost, start layering leaves from the fall, grass clippings, etc as you get them. I have a friend with a large backyard that has a ton of trees and he just piles them up in a corner of his backyard that has some light fencing around it and each fall, I go and load up the large black trash bags up with his leaf compost. A little work but basically free leaf mold.
We don't have any leaves or grass clippings, but we would use them if we did.
dehydrate your extra beet greens and then powder them in your vitamix/blender/ninja. and save in a mason jar.
Interesting. We do have a ninja!
WOW! Beulah Acres Homestead will definitely be trying the no till method!
Let us know how it works for you.
@@LazyDogFarm will do!
this is a great video , shared it to my face book and twitter, great info and it got me wanting to give it a try in part of my garden, thanks Travis another great job!!!!!!
Let us know how you like it. I'd recommend trying it in a small spot before transitioning all your gardens to it.
Glad I found you again on YT. I've been following your no-till experiment with interest. I've been doing no-till for years, and 3 years is how long it's taken to really see the results. I use permanent beds and I would also say just use compost on the rows, not the whole plot.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. Now that we have a good base layer, we'll likely just compost the rows from now on.
Cheapest compost I can find is 20 per yard. Its usually hot, not well broke down and full of wood mulch. Also its 20 miles each way and I can only haul 1 yard at a time in my truck. Then I have to unload by hand. Good compost is 80 or more per yard plus delivery. Would love some tips or resources for finding local affordable compost.
Most compost places aren't online, so they can be quite hard to find. Start by asking around any local cotton gins if you have them nearby. Check with dairies and chicken farms as well.
@@LazyDogFarm we have a few small old cotton gins around still in operation. I was thinking of talking to them about cotton seed meal too. Thanks for the tip.
Nice plot
Thanks Sheila!
Great video with good info!! Thanks Travis!
Any time!
Hi Sydney
Hey, Travis. Here are my thoughts on this. If over a year or two I put 8 tons of primo compost on my 1000 sq ft garden plot, I wouldn't need any additional fertilizer, either! I say that because the second and third year I had my suburban garden at my previous home, I was lucky enough to have a big, strapping guy friend with a heavy-duty work truck. That first Spring, we drove to a mushroom growing facility where I could purchase a ton of compost for $10.00. Don't get too excited here - That $10/ton compost also cost me gas for his truck to get there and back, and a good lunch on the way back, so money-wise, it actually cost me about $60.00. He also helped me move the compost to my garden in wheel barrow loads (Remember - I was a whole lot better looking back in 2013/2014!). I then would spread this out and use a Mantis tiller to incorporate it into the garden. By the second truck load, I had a fantastic garden! I had very little weed pressure, everything grew well. So, is the garden doing well because you're not tilling it, or is it doing well because you're planting in a crap-load of compost?
Then circumstances happened and my guy friend had to move about two states away. So, instead of spending about $120/year to put down 2 tons of compost, I now would have to contract and pay someone to get it and deliver it. Then, I'd have had to pay them to haul it to the back yard, so that $60.00 ton of compost would have cost me $210 or more!! Nope. Not feasible. About the 4th year, I had the worst weed and bug pressure and the following year, I almost quit gardening. It was about that time that I bought my first wheel hoe.
Don't get me wrong - I now have a property with a gate wide enough for a dump truck to fit through and dump a load of compost. If I can find a good source that I know won't contaminate my garden with aminopyralids at a reasonable price, I might consider having a load or two delivered if the budget can handle it. However, I'll most likely continue using my wheel hoe when weeds start popping up after a rain. Just sayin'.
Carol, I think you are absolutely right.......If compost cost and the means to deliver and spread it were more affordable I may be on board, but with a 3,000 square foot garden with limited space for a dump truck, it is gonna be a challenge.
It's definitely hard to tease out the causation of some of the results. And I completely agree about the cost of the compost. If you can't get it affordably, time to change your practices a bit.
We have heavy red clay soil in our area and our home is surrounded by forest that hasn't been touched for 40+ years, and yet that dark brown rich layer on the forest floor is only a few inches deep before hitting that heavy red clay. That's like 40 years of compost or leaf mold for a few inches of nice dirt. I'm a big fan of adding a layer of compost to the top of my garden soil each year, and I don't turn the soil any longer BUT ... what I think works best for clay soils is to do one VERY BIG TILL then go to NO TILL. In our garden, we added a large layer of compost and turned it deep (double dug) into the soil, and from then on we only do compost layering.. It works great and it is a pleasure to work in. Working in red clay is lousy! And our soil is full of mycorrhizal fungi. If we bury the edges of Agribon on the ground, it will weave itself into the fibers soon after. Congrats on your new channel. I'm glad I found you! I miss your hilarious banter on RbR, but we have to follow our dreams! Best wishes to you, Travis!
I agree about tilling it first. This plot was tilled and grown a couple years before we started this experiment.
No till all the way for me. 😁 Use a broadfork in the start of beds and have had such monster sucess with mulching with grass cut with scythe. Just found you on your own channel! 👍
Glad you found us C P! I have a broadfork, but am not a huge fan of using it. Lol
@@LazyDogFarm It's a workout lol! 😂
Awesome Video! Reminds me of red gardens testing different styles.
Always more than one way to skin a cat, as they say.
Gardens are looking good
Thanks Jeri!
Great comparison still excited I found your new channel keep up the good work.
Thanks William! Good to see you here.
It took me a while to figure out you were missing from my RUclips feed. So glad I found you. It took some doing. Love the content. I’ve learned a ton this year following you. How can I help support your channel?
Also, I’m growing several varieties of determinant tomatoes this year after learning about them last year from you and your dad. I can already see the huge difference is growth and vigor. Looking forward to a tighter canning season. And also, we grew onions from seed this year and they’re out pacing the bulb onions I planted last fall like I normally do. Thanks again.
Glad you found us Adam. Just keep watching, giving us a thumbs up on the videos, and help spread the word. We hope to have a website in the next few months where we'll carry merch and hopefully a few more things.
I've heard the no-till, no-synthetic fertilizer way of growing, forces the plant to search for nutrients and have stronger and longer root systems instead of being lazy plants that lay around and wait for it's next feeding of synthetic fertilizer.
I do the no-till method with wood chip pathways. My setup is pretty close to JM Fortier's in his book "The Market Gardener". I terminate my rows with a sickle. I would use a flail mower if I had one. I then cover with a tarp for 2 weeks then come back with a mulching lawnmower to scalp the plants down to the soil level and cover the beds up for 2 more weeks. After this month long period, the worms and bugs have eaten all the plant matter, and I can go back with about an inch or even less compost and plant right into it again.
Nice video.
Could be. I don't care for the bed system because we grow such a wide variety of crops. While the fixed bed size works great for some things, it wouldn't work very well for the pumpkins and winter squash we have growing in this plot currently.
Thanks for effort of comparisons.
My pleasure
Thanks. Really looking great there.
Thanks Randy!
I bet it's all that compost. Plants love feeding on it I think it also stabilizes everything. If earthworms move in heavy game over.
All the compost certainly has contributed. To what degree, I guess we'll never really know. It did take a while for it all to start "converting over" so that it was available to the plants.
I have both till and no till gardens. Kind of. Raised beds are no till lol. I don't have a tractor so I hire someone every 3-4 years. But I double dig selective beds as needed. The more I expand my growing area the more I lean towards till. I'm in the market for a rototiller.
I really like the Grillo tiller we have. Would highly recommend. They're a little more pricey than what you get at the big box stores, but well worth it.
If your purchase a refractometer off Amazon you can compare the Brix readings to measure plant quality. John S.
Sounds like a fun toy. Might have to get one of those.
I do the compost method. I have access to tons of free compost and a tractor to spread it
If you've got access to plenty of it, that's definitely a good way to go.
@@LazyDogFarm my brother has been piling up the left over hay and cow manure from feeding cows all winter. It has been there for probably 7 years or more so good compost
Definitely two different mindsets when it comes to home gardening. For us, we really could care less about the no till methodology certain people seem to be a cult of, it's not practical in our gardening applications. We will continue gardening the way that is most practical for our family by using whatever is needed to grow our food as quickly and abundantly as possible, definitely not no till for us.
It's great that we live in a country where we have the choice to grow our own food however we like. Thanks for watching.
To terminate the crop I would consider cutting the crop at soil level and then instead of smothering it with a tarp smother it with 3-4 inches of compost.
I think cutting it right below soil level will work.
Im also going no till if you think about it nature doesnt till but leaves fall and become compost, plants die stay in place and become compost it just makes sense when you add compost every season you are fertilizing new organic material ( and no im not brilliant somebody else pointed that out)😄😄😄love watching your comparison 👍👍👍👍
Thanks for watching Dana!
Beets look wonderful!
Thanks Laurie!
Wish u would do the jadam thing as a test
Very interesting take, thanks for sharing
Thanks for watching Adele!
I've been doing a version of no till for a few years. My theory on transplants taking longer to get going is that they're spending time initially putting out really strong root systems in order to take maximum advantage of the high soil fertility. The lack of soil fertility In traditional cultivated plots stresses plants into growing faster in order to produce the next generation faster because the parent plants don't live very long in that non-beneficial environment. I have no idea whether this explanation is "scientific"; it's just something I've observed every growing season.
Makes sense. Could be that as well as the lack of moisture in the top portion of that compost layer.
Happy your back on New RUclips Travis ! You never mention the PH levels on either plot. As you know PH is very important particularly using organic fertilizers. Thanks for your video(s)..
Our pH is pretty stable as is the case in most plots. I'll try to remember and do a video on that next time we do a soil test.
I grow my plants in a no till garden. The reason that the plants seem more yellow and sickly at first is due to the compost. The wood fibers in the compost use nitrogen to break down, leave less available for the plants until their roots reach the actual soil. As the worms and other bugs mix the compost with the soil, that part should improve over the years. I used a 12” thick layer of straw and i actually did better planting seeds directly into the straw than already started plants.
Thanks for sharing! That makes sense.
I think a mulch is something you put on the soil to cover it. Organic or not. Five inches of organic matter sure seems like five inches of cover to me. Ask them what is, and what is not mulch.
Very true.
Thanks Travis!
Thanks Ruby!
I have a small plot that I go no till and a larger one that I till and fertilize, because I have a limited amount of compost, and I fill up the small plot first.
Makes perfect sense.
Hi! Q: About how much acreage do your ten plots take up? Or how big are they, in feet, like 30x30, or what? Just trying to think about how much room it would take to bring in the amount of grub you do.
All our plots combined equal approximately 1/4 acre. Each plot is approximately 1,000 sq. ft. and most of them are 30'x35'.
You could try a biochar test too. Have you thought about making your own compost on site? With a bay system you can get a couple tons every few months. If you're going to continue the no dig bed, maybe try mulch on part to see the difference.
Besides food scraps, I don't really have any carbon sources to make my own composts. We only have a couple pecan trees, so not many leaves. And we don't bag our grass.
Have you done an analysis on your compost? Something in it is working hard for your plants and family
The source keeps an analysis sheet right there at the front desk. I haven't grabbed one in a while, but they do have it.
Hi Travis, the beet greens are luscious but I wonder how the bulbs look. Are they comparable? Also, it’s a waiting game on the pumpkins. You can have great greenery that bears no fruit. Keep us informed. Cannot wait to see them in the coming weeks.
Bulbs look great as well. I'll try to remember to bring the camera when we harvest those soon.
Hi Mary
I thought about your termination problem, would a long piece of landscape fabric work after mowing it?
Maybe ... We have silage tarps as well, just not that particular size. We'd have to fold them a bit.
In theory you are adding more compost after you harvest the spinach, so yiu would just cut it off at the base and leave the roots in place. I have had mixed success leaving plant roots in place. Some things just take too long to break down and they get in my way for subsequent plantings (ex. Tomatoes, sunflower, brassica stems....)
So I cut at the base and wait as long as I can before I pull the rest out if it's in my way.
Yep. Okra roots can stay in the soil quite a while before they decompose.
Hi Jennifer
No till, to make it more cost effective, needs the gardener to make their own compost. I’m in my second year of composting but finally order a better chipper shredder & it may be another year before I can meet all my compost needs.
I'd definitely need a tractor to turn that much compost. But I agree, making your own makes the process more sustainable.