Spring is here and it's time to garden but you may want to think again before tilling your soil. Nature doesn't till the soil mechanically so why should you? Let nature do it the natural way.
Think about it. When you walk in a forest full of plants and trees ask yourself, who tills the soil? Nature does it all by itself but you have to leave the soil alone.
One of the crucial patterns in nature is soil coverage. Whenever there is bare ground, nature works to protect the soil with help from living plant cover and through the breakdown of organic matter on the soil surface. When you disturb the soil you disrupt the natural process of soil breaking down and disturb the soil life and structure of the soil.
Tilling soil also leaves bare ground exposed to the sun and rain which compacts the soil and decreases the amount of water that can infiltrate the soil making it harder to grow plants next season which is one of the reasons people who till have to till again. Exposed soil can be blown away by wind and wash away with heavy rains.
Also, when you dig soil you disturb seeds bringing them to the surface where they sprout into weeds making it harder to grow things and increasing the amount of work needed to produce a crop. It's a vicious cycle that can be stopped by not digging your soil at all. So, what can you do?
No Dig Gardening
The key to healthy, living soils is no-dig gardening. Nature gets around the bare soil problem by constantly covering bare soil. In a garded we use mulch instead.
What is mulch?
Mulch is organic matter applied on top of soil without incorporating it in the soil. You can make mulch by composting organic matter made from hay, straw, leaves, grass, wood, or food scraps until it's half decayed, with a lot of small particles. The final result should look dark, almost black and have a humus smell to it.
Each spring after the rains you just apply 2-3 inches (5-7 cm) directly on top of your garden beds without mixing it in.
This will feed your soil for a whole season and because the soil wasn't disturbed no weed seeds that fell on the surface over the winter will germinate. It gets buried too deep to sprout and they will just rot and turn into food for the soil organisms.
The layer of mulch will also hold moisture in the soil and prevent it from drying out which also helps keep the soil organisms healthy and thriving. Over time the natural soil processes will bring the soil to life and worms will start tunneling through the garden which opens up air tunnels for roots, nutrients, and water to follow deeper into the soil, deeper, in fact, than you could ever till with a shovel, tiller, or plow.
This process gives the soil a fluffy, crumbly texture, aka, soil structure that will make it easy for roots to grow in and that kind of soil is a joy to grow in. It also makes the plants healthier and more disease resistant and food crops will keep and taste better.
I once reclaimed a weed infested field covered in buttercup and canary grass thought to be impossible to clear for gardening, in one season and turned it into a beautiful vegetable garden without tilling using chickens. You can read about that in Chickens Planting Gardens - How To Get Chickens To Plant Gardens, Not Destroy Them. That post also happens to be my highest earning post on Steemit to date.
Best times to mulch in the fall before the winter rains come so that your soil is protected and the nutrients in the mulch can infiltrate into the soil with the rains and also in spring before plants. Soil will eat mulch so really anytime you see bare soil feed it with a cover of mulch.
A picture is worth a thousand words so have a look at this video and see for yourself why you should try no dig gardening.
No Dig: feed the soil not the plants for many, easier harvests and few weeds
If you continue to add mulch season after season how soil will get better and better over time and gardening gets a lot easier too. Root crops just pop right out of the soil, you almost never get pests and can grow completely organically, and make the world a better place.
You can solve all the world's problems in a garden
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