Back to eden end of season thoughts

[CrealCritter]

@CrealCritter by mulching, it adds humus to the soil and over time the soil becomes deep, loose and holds moisture. At our old house, I could sink a spading fork with one hand in my garden. When I first started, the ground was so hard, even weeds struggled to live.

We are adding horse, sheep and chicken manure. Cardboard over that, topped with wood chips. It is vastly improving our beach sand soil. I ran over it with the tractor disc to start with, but this BTE is defiantly working for the better.

I'm not saying anything bad about other methods of gardening at all. I'm sure there's better than what I do... i only know one way to garden. That's turning my soil every other year deeply with a plow, then run a disc trough it and finish it off with my tiller. You know the old school method.

 

[Mini Horses]

CC, that worked for my grandparents -- except the horse or mule sometimes added some free fertilizer and their tiller was a few hoes, rakes and some of the kids handling them.

If your soil is good, not an issue, IMO to till it. I plan to disc mine a few times!! Very soon, to cut up some grasses, again to do same, then spread manure, lime (whatever needed) and seed clover for cover crop, let animals devour it early Spring and then till it in....probably a couple times before planting.

I am not hauling wood chips, sorry. Not enough hrs in the day. I can run a tiller in amount of time it takes to chip.

Well, maybe. We will see because that's what I plan to do.

 

[Beekissed]

I'm an old school gardener I reckon. I try and not mulch because it just gives a place for bugs to hide. My mulch is dirt that I till up in-between the rows and rake up into the base of the plants when I cultivate. Yes I absolutely do fertilizer but only nitrogen when plant leaves look pale, both my gardens tested low on nitrogen but good for the rest. I found that most all veggies should have dark green leaves almost blue looking when sun light hits them directly. I wouldn't have a garden if I didn't have a decent tiller because I know of no other way to garden. My tiller breaks up the soil and makes it loose for seed sprouting and easy for roots to grow. I don't think I would have much luck gardening in hard compacted (untilled) soil.

@CrealCritter by mulching, it adds humus to the soil and over time the soil becomes deep, loose and holds moisture. At our old house, I could sink a spading fork with one hand in my garden. When I first started, the ground was so hard, even weeds struggled to live.

We are adding horse, sheep and chicken manure. Cardboard over that, topped with wood chips. It is vastly improving our beach sand soil. I ran over it with the tractor disc to start with, but this BTE is defiantly working for the better.

What Bay said. I had hard pan clay here...could till it over and over and over, then with the next rain you couldn't even get a tamping bar into it. Added the wood chips and I could drop a fork into it and it would sink up to the base of the tines.

I wasn't impressed with BTE for various reasons but I'd never go back to tilling now that I've seen what a thick, composting mulch will do for my clay soils. I switched from the BTE to the Stout method and couldn't be happier that I did.

There are times I want to till it just to get rid of bug larvae but then I come to my senses. Planting on time this year let me get ahead of the various squash bugs and beetles and by the time they took over the garden we had already gotten good crops off the squash, pumpkins and cukes.

 

[CrealCritter]

CC, that worked for my grandparents -- except the horse or mule sometimes added some free fertilizer and their tiller was a few hoes, rakes and some of the kids handling them.

If your soil is good, not an issue, IMO to till it. I plan to disc mine a few times!! Very soon, to cut up some grasses, again to do same, then spread manure, lime (whatever needed) and seed clover for cover crop, let animals devour it early Spring and then till it in....probably a couple times before planting.

I am not hauling wood chips, sorry. Not enough hrs in the day. I can run a tiller in amount of time it takes to chip.

Well, maybe. We will see because that's what I plan to do.

You just reminded me sorry...my neighbor cleans out his horse barn come spring and fills up his manure spreader a few times and flings horse poop all over the garden. I then till it in my soil is pretty good here not much clay at all, so easy to till.

 

[baymule]

We exchange ideas and methods here. We can take what works for us and add some of our new knowledge. I have gardened all my life, but never on pure sand like what we have now. @Mini Horses i don’t haul wood chips. Power line contractors came through here 11/2 years ago and we let them park their trucks here. They brought us 110 loads of wood chips. Bonanza!

 

[CrealCritter]

We exchange ideas and methods here. We can take what works for us and add some of our new knowledge. I have gardened all my life, but never on pure sand like what we have now. @Mini Horses i don’t haul wood chips. Power line contractors came through here 11/2 years ago and we let them park their trucks here. They brought us 110 loads of wood chips. Bonanza!

Some people just have the "gift" and I'm replying to one right now.

 

[Mini Horses]

They brought us 110 loads of wood chips

That's not a Bonanza -- that's a MOUNTAIN!!

And you are correct, not everything works for everyone. Nice that we CAN share and experiment, maybe help others. I am fortunate to have good soil. So maintaining is more of a consideration than actual building of it. I will be intentionally renovating a pasture that needs to be re-worked, so disc & till. In Fall or following Spring, it will become a newly seeded pasture, again.

Have another waiting for following year. There is still plenty to graze & cut!

 

[Beekissed]

Bay, your pasture is incredibly impressive!!! Those blessed sheep!!!

 

[Chic Rustler]

The soil is much softer for sure. When i was pitting in my trellis i sank the t posts by hand 10 inches.

 

[baymule]

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Bay, your pasture is incredibly impressive!!! Those blessed sheep!!!

All the nitrogen in the soil from the clover really helped out. The mulch did too. The Bermuda in that pasture took off and put out runners. Watermelon seeds volunteered and gave us and neighbors watermelons all summer and are still putting on more. I haven't grazed that pasture all summer to let it get well established. But soon I will let the sheep graze it down, just gotta let those last watermelons grow off. LOL