Comfort from the Earth

I tilled the garden today-almost all day. It was hard, but for someone who loves to play in the dirt, it was very satisfying. That seems a bit contradictory for someone who is an advocate of no-till agriculture. I do believe that deep tillage is not good for the soil and that long term, all tilling is damaging. Not only does it kill earthworms, but it totally destratifies and kills the organisms in the soil. Some organisms live right on the surface, others several inches or feet down. In one shovelful of soil there are more living organisms than there are above-ground plants and animals in the entire Amazon rainforest. One cup of soil contains more bacteria than there are people on Earth. A teaspoon of soil can hold the fungal spores for miles and miles of fungi. Tilling mixes everything up. If you went deep sea fishing over an ocean trench and caught a fish that lived at great depths, chances are that he could not live in shallow water, and visa versa. Temperature is different. Pressures are different. Oxygen content is different. Living organisms, even microscopic organisms, are dependent on specific environments, and if the environment changes abruptly, many organisms will die. So I suppose, in reality, I am a minimum till or a conservative tiller. I don't like to till, but I do want to grow my food, so I try to strike a happy medium and only till to cultivate and mix the very top layers.

This year, I am tilling for corn, sweet potatoes, pole beans, cucumbers, squash, okra and tomatoes. Some tomatoes and peppers will go into the raised beds, as will the bush beans, but not everything will fit. I could probably do lasagna type beds, and probably eventually will do that because it works great, but right now, all the materials that would go into a lasagna bed are going into my raised box beds. Every year, I have to add materials to my monster raised beds and every year it composts into rich soil that settles down in the bed. I anticipate that it will take another 5-10 years to get to a point where I do not need to add additional material to bring the soil level up. When the beds are finally full of soil, I will start lasagna gardening on the ground.

I borrowed a 6 hp rear tine, counter rotating tines, YardMachine tiller and worked the soil only at the 'cultivation level' of about 3-4 inches. I crossed the areas at 90 degree angles, basically just trying to kill the grass and weeds and incorporated them into the soil. Organic matter is important for holding moisture. The weeds 'mine' deep nutrients from several feet down and by cultivating, that moves those nutrients to the top layer of soil where they will be more available for uptake by the veggies. Also, before tilling, I scattered kelp meal and organic fertilizer and manure on various areas and tilled that into the earth. It is supposed to rain for the next 4 days, and then it will take another week to dry out. Luckily, my garden holds moisture well-it enables my veggies to be more drought tolerant, but when I want to work in the garden, all that moisture becomes a liability. I want to plant corn on April 10, which is two weeks from Friday, and I want to till one more time before I sow the seeds, just to give the seeds a weedless advantage. Next time, I will try to till a bit deeper, but I am of the belief that 6" is plenty deep enough. Anything more can be done with a hoe. I plant tomatoes deep, but I plant those with post hole diggers.

Luckily, I have good,deep soil. I do have rocks, but the soil is fertile, has a good crumb and is relatively loose(compared to some folks hard clay gardens). I have one area, about 6x6, that was a bit compacted a few years ago, but I believe that time and earthworms have probably healed that area. The last time we raised pigs, I kept them in a 16'x16' pen that I moved around in the garden. The pigs were great rototillers, digging down sometimes as deep as 18", eating weeds and seeds and roots along the way. If I only had a couple of pigs now! As long as I moved the pen daily, the soil did not compact, but there was a period of about 4 days or so that I was unable to move the pen and for a while water just stood in that area, indicating subsurface compaction.

In the old days, farmers sealed ponds with pigs. They would fence off an area where the pond was to be, dig it out, and then raise pigs in the 'pond'. The pig manure and the clay forms a special 'mud' that is very dense. The pigs hooves knead and compress this mud making it more dense, so dense that it in effect puts a layer of 'concrete' on the bottom that will hold water-the water doesn't drain or seep through. Pig manure is magic as a fertilizer, and it is magic as a pond sealer, but in the garden, you want the former, not the latter. To prevent compaction, the pigs have to be mobile. I haven't noticed water standing in that area, and we have had a good bit of rain this year, so I am thinking that the earthworms have naturally healed the soil by tunneling and aerating that layer. Earthworms are a gardener's best friend, and I will never understand why people put pesticides and herbicides over large areas of earth as they are killing the earthworms, and in effect, killing the soil. There is a lot of truth to the adage that a gardener tends the soil, and the soil provides the food. I'll sign off with a quote I saw today:

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As long as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles. - Anne Frank