Presentation on No-Till Gardening

I just got home from meeting with members of a Horticulture Club. It was a great group, and a good meeting, but I'm tired.  I presented a talk on No-till Gardening and in typical fashion, I was still cramming to prepare on my way to the meeting.  Reading and listening to lectures has occupied a lot of my time for the past number of weeks, but I guess when so much of this information is comparatively new, it's no wonder that it takes a while to wrap one's mind around it.

When I practiced my speech on Hiromi this afternoon (he went right to sleep), I knew that it should be a lot longer  and more interesting.  So I added a lot of narrative-style information.  I think I succeeded on both counts, and I was able to talk off the top of my head, but the organization probably suffered a bit.  

Two people in the audience were science teachers at Hutchinson Community College.  One of them had been my high school science teacher many years ago.  For them and others like them, I knew that I'd better do my best to get the technical details right or they'd know right off that I was crowding the outer limits of my expertise.  

I'll sign off as soon as I have posted my notes here. 

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Is No-Till Gardening Right for You?                                                       March 15, 2022

Presentation to Hutchinson Horticulture Club by Miriam Iwashige

1.  What is the major paradigm shift that is required when transitioning from conventional gardening to No-till gardening?

*It’s a shift from placing a priority on getting the soil chemistry right to making sure you get the soil biology right. This hints at the purpose for No-till gardening.

* The big idea in getting the soil biology right is that if you can do that, the soil chemistry will also be right.   Living creatures can, in fact, take care of the chemistry for you.

*Dr. Elaine Ingham, who is widely recognized as the foremost authority on soil biology, says that all soils contain sufficient nutrients for good plant growth, but it takes living organisms to break the parent material down and make it available to plants.

2.  What is the purpose of No-till gardening?

*Simply stated, the purpose of No-till gardening is to establish and nurture a thriving underground biome.  When this biome is thriving, many surprising benefits show up.

3.  What are the benefits of No-till gardening?

*Eating food produced this way helps create a healthy human gut microbiome. 

*No or very few chemical inputs are required (because healthy plants are usually able to resist disease and pest pressure).

*Most of the inputs can be produced on-site, at least after the initial transition is made.

*Weed pressure is reduced.

*Erosion is minimized because of improved soil structure.

*Plants can resist drought.

* Carbon is sequestered underground. 

*It’s a regenerative rather than an extractive system.

4.  What are the principles of No-till gardening?

A.  Avoid soil disturbance

B.  Keep a living root in the ground as much as possible.

C.  Keep the ground covered as much as possible, either with a plant canopy or a mulch.

D.  Aim for plant diversity. 

5.  What are some of the challenges with No-till gardening?

A.  Downsizing agricultural practices to a home-garden scale (incorporating animals, planting through cover crop residue, etc.)

B.  Limited equipment available that is sized for a home-garden. 

C   Avoiding chemical applications in a food garden. 

D.  Needing to transition without the certainty of a quick turnaround, such as is possible with a strict scientific approach—which is not within reach for many of us.

6.  What is the most strictly scientific way to make the transition to No-till gardening?

*The Soil Food Web School founded by Dr. Elaine Ingham identifies this process:

A.  Identify which groups of microorganisms are lacking in the soil.

B.  Boost their numbers using bio-complete compost and liquids.

C.  Adopt natural farming techniques t ensure that the biology survives.

7.  What do I idealize personally?

*I really want to have access to lots of good compost. 

*Transitioning to No-till in a way that is—

A.  Affordable

B.  Manageable for a senior citizen

C.  Mindful of others

                a.  Sharing what is produced, as well as sharing knowledge.

b.  Gathering inputs as close to home as possible.  This may mean making purchases that help another person make a living, relieving a local business of a recycling burden, or arranging an exchange that is beneficial to someone besides myself.

c.  Being attuned to what is God’s provision for me, as opposed to desperately chasing every possible good thing.

D.  Suited to this place in the environment, with its gardening challenges related to climate (wind, drought, temperature extremes, etc.)

E.  Capable of incorporating various aspects of good gardening traditions that are already familiar. 

8.  Does a transition seem urgent to me?

*Starting the transition seems urgent to me.

9.  What aspect of No-till gardening seems most doable to me?

*Making use of straw mulch for keeping the ground covered.

10.  What have I done right so far in keeping with No-till principles?

A.  I have been using a garden layout and irrigation system for years that I can adapt fairly easily to No-till.

B.  I grew a fall-planted mixed cover crop over parts of my garden last year.  I chose crops that would winter-kill:  Oats, Daikon (tillage radish), Canola, and Crimson Clover.   The daikon predominated, and everything died over winter except the canola, which still shows some signs of life.

C.  With my fall-planted food crops, I scattered alfalfa pellets on the ground and topped it with a straw mulch, and put the PVC drip irrigation pipe on top of the straw to hold it in place.

D.  I have been saving newspapers and I have gathered big sheets of cardboard.  I’ll likely use the cardboard in the paths and the newspapers in the grow beds, with both paths and rows being 30 inches wide. The paths can be covered with straw.  I’m not sure yet what to layer on top of the newspapers in the beds.  Compost would be ideal, but I don’t know yet how I can manage that.  It might need to be alfalfa pellets and mulch again—or rabbit manure and wood chips.

 

11.  Where can I find resources? Ask Miriam!  Email:   miriam@iwashige.com    Text: 620-931-0815

Web page with excellent introductory material on the Soil Food Web:  https://www.soilfoodweb.com/resources/animations-videos/?vID=372925873%3Fh%3D707aa77aa3

Suggestion for viewing:

1.  View all the videos in the playlist on the right side of the screen.  Each one is between five and ten minutes long.

2.  View one video listed on the left side of the screen: “Implementing the Soil Food Web.”

3.  When you view the one on implementation, you’ll have access to a final one that contains crucial information: “Using the Microscope.”  You’ll find it in the new playlist on the right side of the screen.

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Right now there’s a webinar underway from the Soil Food Web School.  The webinar is free, although it’s obviously geared toward recruiting people to enroll in the foundation courses and then follow up courses either for training as consultants or lab technicians.  Past webinars that I have taken in have been well worth my time.

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Here are some names of No-till gardeners who have an online presence:

1.  David Dowding (from England, I believe) He uses the term “No Dig.”

2.  Paul Gautschi (from Oregon) He calls his method “Back to Eden.”

3.  Richard Perkins (market gardener from Sweden) 

4.  Jesse Frost (US market gardener)

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Talk to anyone you can find who in interested in the topic or has some experience with it.