Cover Crops and Rototilling
Currently there seems to be a lot of discussion about rototilling vs. not rototilling. My husband is big on rototilling, I on the other hand am thinking, enough already! BUT, how do cover crops fit into that equation? Isn’t part of the point to use them as green manure: and if so, don’t they have to be broken up pretty good? Also, I can’t imagine trying to hack them out in the spring! They develop some pretty hefty root systems.
And, just to add to the intrigue, we have two gardens. One garden we have done a lot of work to build up the soil; what we are lacking (in my estimation is good soil microbes. I rarely see earth worms). The other garden (or garden in progess) is the remains of an area that someone filled with sand so we are trying to build up the soil using Cover Crops.
Tags: cover crops, microbes, nitrogen, no-till, rototilling, tilling
July 7th, 2009 at 9:29 am
It seems to me like your situation represents the two most common modes of thoughts about tilling vs. no-tilling, and my interpretation of it is this:
If you have sufficient nitrogen (like the first garden you mention), perhaps you can try the no-till method.
If you are trying to build nitrogen the word I’ve heard is that you should till it in.
Read a long discussion about this issue at this post:
http://intheloop.groworganic.com/2009/03/questions-answers-cover-crop-no-till/
July 7th, 2009 at 9:38 am
Some people are trying 3 years of cover crops (no-till, just cut ‘em down and use it as mulch) followed by sheet mulching (manure, straw, cardboard, and the likes). You might not get as much nitrogen this way, but you’d be cultivating the soil microbes which do amazing things for your garden! I highly recommend the book “Teaming With Microbes: A Gardener’s Guide to the Soil Food Web” at http://www.groworganic.com/item_BF104_Teaming_With_Microbes_A_Gardener.html
July 19th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
I’m a big fan of cultivation. With that said, I’m not a big fan of rototilling. I’m assuming you have a walk behind rototiller. I have a walk behinf tractor, with a diesel engine, and use a Italian made spader. It gives you a nice seed bed with inverting the soil or the same level of drag that causes hardpans.
I also use a regular tractor with a disc to till up large areas. I basically do a Elliot Coleman style system, with cover crops under sown veg crops with a full field cover crop in between each crop. I also try and integrate grazing the cover crop with animals or running broiler chickens on it. At any given time, half our area is in full field cover crop, and the veg is undersown 4-6 weeks before its ready. Some examples are:
1.winter veg w ryegrass-chickens-sudan/cowpea/buckweheat-winter veg
2.summer veg w/mustard,cereal tye/rye grass-potatoes-sudan/cowpea/buckwheat-winter veg
3.spring veg-sudan/cowpea/buckwheat-fall veg w/cereal rye/vetch-spring veg
We also dig around to check for hardpans. If the ground seems packed, we’ll subsoil.
In my case, our soils not the greatest so we are trying to build it fast. We are also trying to dual purpose irrigation for the veg to help feed the sheep.
Usually I find, unless we are direct sowing, we don’t need a perfect seed bed for transplants. We will end up hoeing a few times anyway which will break up any clods left.