I thing I know the response I am going to get, but here goes anyway. I have read several times in these forums where rototilling is a no no. Why? I am gardening 2 gardens, 1 is 80X60, the other is 30X50. I have used over the past 5 years of living here fresh manure every spring and plowing it under, then rototilling before I plant. I have good produce from garden, but I have weeds out the ---. I read a gardening book by Dick Raymond, where if you rototill early enough, and keep on doing it up to the time you plant, you will kill most weed seeds. Next spring the compost will be ready and will take the place of the fresh manure.

Rototilling is not good or evil. There are situations where it is useful and those where it is not. I have used it to break ground for a new garden. It also helped mix in a lot of amendments when turning sand into good garden soil. Now that I have decent soil, I don't till because I don't want to destroy the structure. I also don't want to bring up all the dormant weed seeds that sprout only when they are near the surface. By the way, I have heard some types of manure are full of undigested weed seeds and need to be hot composted.

In lasagna gardening the soil is not tilled at all, just covered with layers of amendments. I don't know if this is better or worse for the speed of the soil building process. I guess a lot would depend on what was underneath, highly compressed or loose, clay or loam, moist or arid.

I try to do what works for me, while at the same time, not be afraid to try something different. That's how I started no till, which saves me time and effort. Next year I'll see if not rotating crops and leaving old plants to rot in place will cause problems or not. And today, I am trying non-fat milk instead of baking soda on powdery mildew to see if it works better. Always experimenting, always learning.

Dmpls' had a pretty good answer.

It seems at my place that it takes about three years for me to build up a bed to where rototilling is no longer needed. Until then, my soil just is too tough to work without breaking it up -- either with a lot of hard work or a rototiller. My older (and thus better) beds I don't even turn over with a shovel anymore, just smooth 'em out and plant.

Mechanically working the soil causes several problems -- you're breaking up the "web" of life in there (killing worms, etc too) and causing compaction such as by breaking up larger aggregations like worm castings into finer grained soil. Primarily a problem for farms, you can create a "hard pan" as the mechanical working causes the really fine grains like clay to settle at the bottom just below the normal tillage depth. Depending on how dry and windy you are, you could be exposing the top to soil loss (or likewise, if you have heavy rains washing the top).

But it remains necessary sometimes to work the land in both a reasonable amount of time and with a reasonable amount of labor. Occassional use isn't going to hurt things.

There is another use of rototillers, which is to cultivate. In this case, you're using them very shallow -- maybe 1/2" deep -- to keep the top of the soil broken up. You do this both to kill weed seeds germinating between rows, and having a lose soil on the top actually reduces evaporation of water from the soil below. My gut tells me this shallow cultivation isn't that bad...I prefer my grass-covered walkways, but it also isn't working the same ground deeply several times a season.

I used a rototiller every year and a couple times per year. As the garden wound down in the fall I planted a cover crop as each area became empty. In the spring those areas were a mass of vegetative growth. I was gardening 10,000 sq/ft
and there was no way that I could spade that size area.

I also planted cover crops during the year (usually buckwheat) and likewise I incorperated that into the soil with a rototiller.

I used my tiller to make rows to plant potatoes and again to hill them up.

My tiller was capable of tilling 8" deep but I only tilled that deep in the spring.

Like others have said, some of us till when we are first getting a garden started but can cut back in a few years.

Where I live there are no worms in the soil at all so I have to rely on other soil organisms to break down what I add to the soil.

I use a rototiller to break new ground, then to till in any weeds that come up later and finally to mix in some organic matter into the dirt (sandy soil) to help hold moisture. But after a few years, after the soil gets some good stuff in there I can stop tilling other than to turn under my winter cover crops.

Thank you for the great ideas. When I first moved here 5 years ago the sod was about 2" deep on top of rock. I have been adding fresh manure every year in spring before planting, hoping to get the soil built up. I have noticed the ground gets as hard as concrete and at times when tilling the dust is so bad it scares me what is happing to the soil. I now have 2 huge compost piles going, no more fresh manure, weeds are breaking my back, so maybe a couple more years of building I can put the tiller in retirement. I always plant a cover crop to keep the worms working, so will still have to use to work up in spring.

Understand that when you till soil you bring up "weed" seeds that have been long buried that then require you to till again to quash them. There may be times when tilling, once, is necessary but beyond that tilling should not be required. I know people that insist they must, even after tilling in "lots" of organic matter, till their soil because it becomes too compacted if they don't and I try to convince that they have not added enough organic matter if that is the case.
Really large gardens may look impressive but they require a lot of unnecessary work to maintain and are largely a waste of space since over 1/2 is unproductive.

I wouldn't mind a larger garden. How is half the space wasted? Are you referring to row type gardens? I have tightly planted raised beds, use every inch of space and don't have room to grow everything I would like to grow. Things like potatoes, celery and most herbs are grown only in some years, and I would love to grow more beans and peas and have room for corn.

punxsy phil'

If your soil is only two or three inches deep then it sounds to me like you should be building some raised beds to get some deeper soil. And with raised beds, since you don't walk in them, you can plant in blocks not rows and the beds are a smaller area too so then you don't need to till them at all when they are established.

quote:

Originally posted by Kimm1:
Really large gardens may look impressive but they require a lot of unnecessary work to maintain and are largely a waste of space since over 1/2 is unproductive.

And you know this, how?.

I have a very large garden and I'll admit you are correct, it does look impressive. My daughter also runs a very large garden which also looks impressive.

I am curious to know how you can make a blanket statement,(and with such self-assumed authority) that more than half of these gardens are unproductive. As far as I know you haven't seen them, have no clue as to the methods used in tending them, the time involved in working them, the yields realized nor do you have any inkling as to the amount of produce we require of them to feed family and friends.

Yet you imply with such assuredness that they are largely a waste. Again, you know this how?.

GardenDmpls, he has no way of knowing if your garden wil be unproductive or not. Perhaps he tried a large garden once and was unable to tend it properly. You and I may just work more efficiently than Kimm.

Wayne

The "large gardens are unproductive" viewpoint may have come from the intro to the square foot gardening book. There, the author is talking about how people plant way more than they need or can maintain. The gardens become over-run with weeds when the gardeners can't keep up and are abandoned.

With all my children and their growing families, I have never had too much produce. I also manage to find neighborhood kids who are happy to help in exchange for produce, attention from an adult and a few dollars thrown in. I wish I could find more space somewhere. I have sneaked eggplant, burgundy okra and peppers into the front flower beds. A few days ago I planted a mixture of lettuce there, next to the blue potatoes hidden by the nicotiana.

I too have a small garden, I asked the question on cover crops, but as I don't have bare spots except for October to March, it really doesn't help.

This year I think I got it managed the best ever, as for putting the radishes around the corn, the lettuce, next to the cucumbers. Things that grow early next to something that grows slow.

I have had too big of a garden, it can be overwhelming. A young mother wrote into here about a 100 x 40 and I about fainted. That is not a garden, that is a full time job. Whew!

My garden is a play garden, but I love it, and it is surprising how long and how much we eat out of it. Mrs. K

Good point Wayne. You owe me another beer.

Thanks,
Dirt

I used to have a very large garden, 60 feet by 120 feet, and everything that was planted in that garden was in rows and the space between the rows, necessary for access to work on the rows of plants, was wasted space. Since we were walking there every day nothing could grow there, if nothing is growing there it is wasted space. At some point I converted those beds into 6 foot wide by whatever length seperated by grassy strips to work from and intensely planted the beds which were easier to properly feed, weed, plant, and harvest (until I got older and found reaching into a 6 foot wide bed to strenuous). I still see people with very large garden plots and still see that about 1/2 of the space is wasted space, nothing is growing on about 1/2 of the garden, but the whole garden must be fed, tilled, and weeded.
It was some years after I changed how I gardened that I found Mel Bartholomews Square Foot Gardening.

Major, I have been adding to and building the soil for the past 5 years and am getting most of it in good shape. I have one corner that still has some rock come up when plowed. I am not having the garden plowed any more, and I am not adding fresh manure or chemical fertilizer to it any more. I do like Kimm's idea of the grass walk ways, might consider that next spring. Major, I don't know what you mean by raised beds. I use the rototiller with a plow behind, more like a wing, make a pass then I move 3ft down and make another pass, this makes a wide raised bed.