Easy Garden Preparation, the No-Till Way

Disadvantages of Tilling Your Garden Soil

Exposing Weed Seeds to the Sun – some people till their garden to get rid of weeds. By doing that, they actually make the problem much worse because now, not only they mixed the new weed seeds in the top layer of the soil, they also bring dormant weed seeds that were buried deep in the soil to surface level, exposing them to the sun and allowing them to germinate.

Disturbing Earthworms and Other Organisms – imagine you are a hard working earthworm.

You dig beautiful tunnels so the roots of plants will have oxygen, you eat bad soil and poop good soil, you eat decaying plants and poop compost, you make sure the compost can find its way to the root level of the living plants in the garden, you interact with other organisms, you make babies and teach them how to work hard for mother nature… You know, you’re living a good life in your natural environment.

Then one day a scary machine with huge teeth enters your home and ruins the place. It’s an earthquake, a hurricane, a tornado, all your hard work is gone and you have to start again, that is if you can still find all the parts of your body.

Loss of Nitrogen – many crops leave nitrogen behind, which is very beneficial to the following crops. Tilling the soil can cause the release of this nitrogen into the atmosphere as nitrogen oxide, a highly potent greenhouse gas, or can cause it to drain into waterways.

Erosion – if done regularly, tilling can cause the soil to erode.

Poor Water Retention – tilling reduces the amount of water the soil can retain.

Hard Work and Expensive – a good tiller might cost between $400-600, money that will be much better spent on good compost or mulch. And those machines are, simply put, not much fun to work with.

How to Prepare Your Garden Space for Planting Without Tilling

This is a small garden space I have to the left of our front steps. I shared with you here, a few months ago, how I turned it into a vegetable bed.

Last fall I planted peas (to add nitrogen to the soil), green onions, and many carrots here (to open up the soil). I just recently harvested the last of them, and since we are getting closer to spring planting, it’s time to prepare this bed.

So first, I removed the stepping bricks. This is an odd shaped garden bed, and I can’t get to all the vegetables from the outside, so I place the bricks to make sure I don’t step on the plants and that I always step in the same spot.

Next, I added some soil on top of the existing soil.

This is a new bed and last year we didn’t fill it with enough soil, so I added about 6 bags of soil this year. I use the basic soil from the garden store because I grow organically and I don’t want the fertilizers they add in the garden soil.

If you have an established garden bed, you will find that every few years it might need additional soil added to it. At the end of this post, we will talk about how to start a new no-till garden (on a lawn, for example).

Next I added compost. The more the merrier. I used composted cow’s manure that I bought in a bag because my own compost is not ready to use yet.

Head over to Lady Lee's Home for the rest of this garden preparation.