How I Really Feel About No-Till 

small personal farm garden here : we have too many slugs/rodents to depend on silage tarps. They're great for a hot day, but any type of prolonged usage actually creates issues. So, we make compost (weeds, salvaged coffee grounds & cardboard,) we buy compost, and in fall we gather leaves / manure / straw and 'put the beds to sleep.' We've also invested time & rotten wood into hugelculture, and have been trying out the technique everywhere, even on the slope of our sacrifice paddock (we call it the nibble fedge.) The alpacas love it. If we're on it, we plant cover crop seed in the fall. Gabe Brown says "you have to figure out what works on your operation." That's it right? You're going to have your own specialized challenges / weather / gifts and the needs of your operation will dictate how you interpret regenerative agriculture. Joel Salatin says "try something, even if it's wrong." Permaculture says "the control will come." Holistic Management says even more! All of these philosophies are about the same basic idea - working with nature not against it. So fluidity and flexibility begets experience which can only benefit our operations.

My look at it is... Multi species cover crops growing all the time. CHOP, DROP, & Plant. Only living roots feed the soil with carbon. Mulch is a geat surface cover but not the main feeder and does not grow or build soil aggregates or grow mycorrhizal fungi that needs a living root as a host especially in winter. More plant roots i grow will feed the soil with carbon the main food source for the Soil Food Web. Broad forking ( Done correctly ) is all OK / good if you have compact soil. When that compaction is gone, stop broad forking. Great topic and video. Thanks

I can't help but think of Fukuoka's words most days. "Natural farming is not about the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings" I'm growing on about 1/4 acre, with more in asparagus and some other things. Currently farming for someone else,to but I'll be taking over the land stewardship next year. Your podcast has been tremendous in pushing me to implement ecologically minded practices in our gardens, and also thinking of the long term. No till is regenerative, plain and simple. We must grow harmoniously if we are to provide for seven generations. Leaving land more cared for, more loved than we found it, whatever the situation or tenure might be. A system which has a great degree of flexibility, integrating with the natural world, in the most gentle possible way. That seems to me a way of being which might lead to a certain peace of mind in uncertain circumstance

In France, we use "living soils gardening" instead of "no till". "Always covered, never tilled"

I feel like context is key. Everyone's growing and soil situation is so different, the principal's you mentioned are flexible and can be made to work based on context. Thumbs up!

You're a great teacher and a super smart guy - thanks.

I enjoy your points. I am an urban back yard guy doing Permaculture beds, not a market farmer. Unsure if my practices are adaptable to market farming, but I plant much more closely, due to the nutrient dense quality of the beds. So, I get shade mulch with my peppers and other leaf dense crops. I only need to water 3-4 times a year, and I live in a hot summer, little or no rain region. I water deeply each time, as the soil is covered with straw mulch, then again with shade mulch on these crops.

Loved the spider time lapse! Garden friend at work.

Where I work the owner calls what we do "minimal" tillage . It basically revolves around chopping down the last crop, covering for a couple weeks, broad forking, amending w/ alfalfa meal, then the power harrow (which I recently saw that you do not use anymore). Our current field locations make large loads of compost/mulch difficult to get up the hill, but in the future a new path might allow us to try and incorporate more of a "no" till system. Next season I would like to try at least one or two beds as a no-till experiment. What we are presently doing works, no doubt - but I am curious to explore other options and I really like the discussion about what's going on under the surface with all the connections between roots, fungi, microbes, etc :) Like you said, don't get too caught up with the definition...mimicking nature and it's layering/constant cover process is awesome! But then again, certain animals digging, blown over trees, landslides, etc. are all nature's way of tossing a bit of tillage in there to keep things interesting and/or provide conditions for particular things that might not otherwise thrive.

I think your definition is great! I am basically no till after first garden prep but that first prep may involve digging 18" down and removing a lot of rock and if I have compaction issues later on I might do it again. But after that it's pretty much compost and more compost, some minerals that are lacking and year round planting.

So i personally think that less disturbance to the soil is best with that said the way that it is being done is more labor intensive and were having to bring in more foreign materiel to our farm to try not to disturb the soil not to mention the cost of good compost. I think that watching nature and seeing how that is done is the best teacher we have i think that we are on the right tract with the practices that were Implement it my thought were still trying to set up modern farming and trying to make nature approve thanks for the video and your efforts to get it right Thanks Jonathan

“Minimal Tillage” or Sustainable Tillage “ best describes my method. I like to create a home for worms. Worms are naturally turning over the soil. If I can prep a bed without disturbing the worms, I’ve got it dialed in.

One of my favourite methods, for transplanted and widely spaced crops, is to use a bagger attachment on my mower to collect all of the grass clippings and leaves from the lawn. Soil structure and worm population greatly improved, whereas under silage tarps there are no worms. My goal is to have a garden beds like Richard Perkins but quality of compost is a huge issue, especially wood chips. My compost looks similar to yours and due to its coarse texture and dark colour it dries out so quickly that germination is terrible compared to where I rototill. Weed control is something I have always struggled with and am prioritizing now over eliminating tillage. Soil is very resilient and can recover quickly as long as it’s being fed. As much as I detest tillage and exposing the soil if I cannot control weeds and have good germination than I cannot have a profitable market garden.

I am just a home gardener and i am going to work towards no till. I covered my garden with straw this year and i very rarely had to weed. I like it. Im not going to till im just going to mulch my leaves and grass and throw it on my gardn in the fall. I live in new England. I dont use pesticides in my yard but every one in my neighborhood does pesticides and werd Killers not me. Its hard because the spray chemicals all around me i hate it .i wish i had my own 30 acres . I ordered your book i got it i love it. Thank you

Well, Mr Webster calls "TILL" : to work by plowing, sowing, and raising crops : CULTIVATE. I'm with you in regards to not getting hung up on some absolute of no soil disturbance because the roots of plants are already doing that but in a good way. There is a time for all things, but the ultimate goal should be soil which is disturbed the least amount. I too would love to find a way to farm 100 acres with cover and minimal till.

It seems true no-till requires massive amounts of pure organic matter/compost for the top layer, which is both the feeder source and the mulch all in one. Regardless of the garden size, tons of compost. It must be a thick layer, 2" minimum to choke out weeds - sitting on top, undisturbed. Most commercial growers find it difficult to provide enough and end up with some type of hybrid method, maybe trench composting right at plant roots. There must be enough continuous new compost layers to mulch out weeds and provide richness. Also, my dad is old school, and gardening is all about "the big tractor". A source of pride for him to the point that he is obsessed with leaving a tractor for each of his grandsons. But his garden looks like a washed-out mass of red clay that can't grow anything without massive amounts of fertilizer. So it seems no-till, regardless of intention, morphs into a balance between size of the garden and the amount of compost that can be provided in my opinion.

I have a small market farm in Central KY and have been pondering this issue over the last week. First let me say that I have never claimed to be "No-Till" and I may or may not ever. But, as a rule I agree with everything you are saying - spot on. In my case I focus on Naturally Grown but I think either philosophy puts the natural environment first and we couldn't run away from the ecological aspects if we tried. It starts to grow in us just like our seeds in the soil. Now as far as "tillage", I define it as anything that destroys the soil layers and forces the ground to rebuild those layers. I try to keep all disturbances to a minimum but I feel broadforking and even the power harrow are not really tillage. They both leave the soil layers which is key though the power harrow really pushes the limits on the disturbance. Just my 2¢

I tried a few different methods this year combined with occultation (tarps). Stall sweepings for one section, good results mid season. Bare ground with tarps, poor performance. Ruth Stout rows of hay, best results in as little as two weeks. The Ruth Stout system needed less irrigation and loosened soil to a greater depth. However the amount of grass I pulled over the last couple of weeks the beds are now basically tilled lol. Had I continued to add hay I may have had less weed pressure. Less grass to pull out of the sawdust/ horse manure mix and more worm activity (a good thing). All crops loved both methods with the exception of garlic, didn’t care for the hay. Crops under the sawdust needed lots of water but are growing very well. I intend to get rid of the tarps as it seemed to interrupt the life in the soil. Though it was really nice to pull them back, run strings and plant same day. As for the “no till” argument, I think that the goal is not to create a hard pan just below your worked surface. Weeding and harvesting both disturb the soil. Nothing can be done about that.

Had to cut my other comment short. In regards to commercial Farming options it will take time and dedication. To start, a field will have to be sown with perennial grasses and other cover crops which are shopped and dropped into harrowed windrows which are allowed to compost down. So for the first year you are at a net loss while growing or building soil. Some farmers say you should not be using machines on the fields to avoid compaction but rather "Scythe" the growth down by hand to create the windrows. Just an option... Then the following season, using no till planters which slice open the mulch, and sod to drop in seeds to grow a crop. The disturbs the soil very little and the perennial grasses should regenerate slower than the crop planted like corn or squash. From my viewpoint, you almost have to grow soil in place or else you have to bring in compost and that would be nearly impossible on 100+ acres. Here in Pennsylvania and I believe it is a federal program, Farmers are paid to not farm their land but they mush brush hog the fields and leave it lay to compost out. Sad part is, too often they are not mowed down enough at the right time and weeds take over. What this tells me is that the solution is up to individuals and small market gardeners to do what they can on even the smallest of scales. Every carrot, potato, tomato or salad we can grow close to home will be healthier, and save more energy while helping to create better land for future generations. IF you cannot do the gardening right now, get all the wood chips you can and cover as much land as you can a foot deep in chips and leave that be an investment for the future. Spent hat, Stray, corn stalks and other manure and bedding will also work. Think of the planting beds as a bank account. That's about all, but Jessie... you are doing a great job and I wish you much success.

I till my garden twice a year in spring to get planted after planting i apply mulch after plants have ended production in the fall i till that mulch in the ground and plant turnips or rye so in essence i have something growing year round I would call it minimal tilliage

I don't know why there is such confusion about no till ? Either it is or it's not. There is 100% no till that literally punches seeds and plants into the cover crops and then there a descending scale of minimal tillage that you can put a percentage to. If you till the first two inches of your soil then you are not no till because you tilled the first two inches. Whether it's destructive or not remains to be determined, but I have seen pretty good gardening going on using minimal tillage. Looks like the minimal tillers are going to have define themselves differently because they are not strictly no till.

Reduces tillage may be a more fitting term. Now, if you're on land with ag history, there is probable a plow pan. That plow pan needs to be broken with a sub-soiler. One more tillage! Can a no-till proponet think like that?

I just broke ground on a plot that has been pasture for 80 years. Im planning a no till operation but I turned it and plan to disk and till it to. Then build permanent beds and broadfork as needed.

This is my first time enjoying your RU-vid channel. Great work! I’m looking forward to more great content from you. Thanks!

🤣🤣 the pic plus the “havent scratched the surface” were worth the view by themselves 👍

No-till I think means no rearranging of the soil profile. Therefore broad forking is out, as is cover cropping (unless you don't turn it in). I believe the structure of the soil is pretty fragile. I like your inclusion of ecological aspects. I cover my beds in winter with quality uv-stable weed mat like Richard Perkins. I also want an easy life which no- till offers I think lol. I've got a set of Neversink wire weeders which I think is ideal.

Spider Timelapse was super dope!

Has anyone got couch grass on their paths? It is super strong and grows quickly under the soil and into the beds. I spend a lot of time pulling it. Has anyone tried to chop old plant matter and throw it back onto the soil? The chopping and dropping of weeds, I am supposed to do, didn't get done in various places - and wild hogs came in making huge holes, wrecking my soil structure so left with weeds and hog holes and fencing to stop the buggers - so I am working with that - so much for 'no till'.

Since you're asking for critique: Tillage is widely understood as "mechanical disturbance of soil for the purpose of growing plants in it". Why don't we reduce confusion and just understand "No-Till Farming" as farming that doesn't use tillage? As you say yourself: No-Till-Growers don't necessarily follow ecological approaches, don't necessarily cover the soil and don't necessarily keep it planted as much as possible. And often they struggle financially. But they are still No-Till growers if they don't do tillage. So in my mind, all these aspects shouldn't be part of the definition. They are not part of the topic "No-Till", but part of something I would call "Successful regenerative market gardening". I think we should just accept that "No-Till" is not the answer to everything, but one single principle that possibly shouldn't even always be followed if you want to be a successful regenerative market gardener. This doesn't change the fact that I highly appreciate your videos, especially your excellent humour in them ;)

i don't practice "no till" for lots of reasons. mainly the type of dirt where i live. i practice "minimal tillage" which works very well for me. it all amounts to "context".

I know that for myself when I say "I'm no till" what I really mean is low soil disturbance. When I till it's usually only 2" deep. I think that pretty good. To manage weeds and build soil I plant cover crops that are easy to pull up by hand. These I sow over and over all year amongst my food crops and over and over do a little something related to chop and drop that I like to call pluck and plop. Haven't tried any winter kill or crimpable cover crops yet. I think it wouldn't work for me a this point because my soil would still be too hard to plant directly into that.

Nice definition but no till literally means that. Not tilling. Nothing more nothing less. WHY we do it is a whole another thing and HOW we do it another thing entirely as well. Thanks for sharing. Salom peace.

I think it’s best to first till in all your organic matter to get started. It’s easy to keep it up after that with all the “ non till techniques “ to keep it up.

No till means if you look at the forest, things grow by themselves and no one till the forest. How mother nature does it to grow without us and how can we best copy nature.

You're probably familiar with Michael Pilarski and his "closed canopy" approach. It's not exactly market garden friendly, but it is, imo, the ultimate expression of keeping the soil covered in the best possible way. I just need Skeeter's encyclopedic knowledge of plants so I can recognize what's what in the jungle that is a closed canopy garden ;)

What do folks think about breaking up garden soil using a rototiller?

Some people talk about chop and drop. It may work in the south with plenty rainfall. For area that is drier and colder there aren't much to chop.

I'm still tying to understand what's wrong with turning the soil.

I think you hit the nail on the head. It is all about Ecology....Ecology-People-Profit . Profit goes back to the people and to the Ecology . When listening to you I feel that Agriculture is not the correct term to convey what you are trying to 'uncover' . What I hear is Horticulture! Horticultural societies embraced the natural systems around them and tried to mimic such systems. That is what you are trying to convey.....i believe.... As per 'disturbance' . The ecological perspective of disturbance is actually a management system that sets the appropriate groundwork for ecological succession to continue to its ultimate manifestation of forest, prairie etc..... The more we disturb our soil the more weeds we get setting up the next stage of succession. Disturbance is a strategic management system that uses certain techniques and tools to get to a goal. Annual weeds and veggies are very similar in there needs. To much disturbance we combat weeds more than we grow veg. In a no till system we hope to find processes and tolerances of each individual veg we grow. That is why is put each veggie into a framework called The Scale of Disturbance! Placing the most disturbing veg (think greens) higher on the scale of 1-10 as opposed to head lettuce lets say. Then creating our bed flip accordingly. Of course this is a new process so I have not figured it out yet but it is helping to define my processes according to my goal of no till

In raised beds true no till I believe to be possible I do it. But in ground beds I believe minimal till is important. Especially when flipping high intensity beds.

I am so new at this I can only ask questions so here goes. I am having an old house torn down this winter an the contract says to fill the deteriorating basement and make the site level. I plan on making the site a garden. I will have the contractor bring in good topsoil for the last 12 inches or so. I plan on no tilling this should I cover crop it this summer let the area lay fallow or compost and plant in the spring Zone 6b here. Thanks to all who reply God Bless and havagudun folks.

Your job is great ❤

Tilling is a hard habit to break

No till conserves moisture and nutrients. Its problem is the soil compaction. Some plants don't grow well in compacted soil. I'm not talking about fields that is covered by a thick layer of compost. In that case you simply plant in the compost at the compost soil boundary. If you have an unlimited supply of water and organic fertilizer, till it by all means. It will be more productive than no till. One way to plant in the no till soil is to dig a hole and throw compost in it. Plant on top of that. But this method may not be practical for large area planting.

Double digging is a no till menthod, but disturbs the soil a great deal. I would only use it, if the soil shows lots of compaction 😊

If I till compost into the garden every year and your laying compost on top and planting in it what difference does it make? I’m still feeding microbes. I still have lots of worms in the garden. I’m relatively new to this so. 🤷‍♂️

You are impatient! I've been building my garden for twenty five years, using wood chips I let settle for a couple years to begin composting. The first few years I dug in the compost chips into the hard clay that went from rock hard to swamp, depending on the season. Each season I bring in the composted chips first passing through a screen. Lot of work, but it works. You've been doing this a couple years! Just keep doing what you are doing and in twenty years take a look at your land and see what you want to say then. (Hint, you will have the riches, tmost productive soil in your county! You will be using a lot less fertilizer and much less need for pest control. Meanwhile, if you are able to make a living the way you are doing it, well, make small adjustment each year from what you learned the previous year. Farm economics seems to require sprinting. Land management for great poductivity reuires running a marathon.

In my case I'm working 3 acres of gardens . My markets are not making enough to bring in the compost I would like. It's odd soil. It grows everything fairly well but gets like concrete ,even irrigation it will crust and lump. The water table is at 2 ft. Abouts 8 inches of soil six inches of white sand then grey clay and water after that . I believe no till would work best if I could afford to put more organic matter in . The water grasses are another problem I've seen then push a vegetable plant out of the ground and replace it in a couple days. Or even lift a tarp off the ground . My market is a bit odd too. I baught all the permits, and have worked the market for several years, that is the the ones I can get into. Two surrounding counties won't let anyone in unless grown in county, these are my closest and largest markets. The hole population of my home county is roughly the same as the cities in the neighboring counties. The number one question at market is who is your people here, I I have to be honest and say I have no people here. My number one customers are the migrant workers and Latino farm workers. To small a base to continue after several years. I was GAP certified this year and tried commercial sales this year. Their predicted orders fell short of paying for certifications, packaging ,labeling, and transporting by 2000$. Any help I've had won't pick up the first thing for less than 10$ hour and less than stellar or dependable. I stopped everything and let it grow up last month after 5 years. In the process of selling what equipment I have to finish paying out bills. The inspectors that have been here say I'm growing beyond organic standards but that don't seem to be important here . The market demands cheap, by half what the grocer sells for . Think I'm done, other than a personal garden . The others on the market are multi generational and don't talk much. If the seed kinston the local farm supply shelf no one will buy it. If I shoot at this again my market is an hour plus away. Your thoughts.

How about surface tilling the top 2" to reduce weeds and keep doing this until weeds slow to a crawl and then plant? Weeds will always grow, we can't stop them but we can slow them down enough to get a crop or two off maybe, just a thought.... I don't want to get rid of weeds as they are beneficial to the soil, but I need them to give me space to grow some food for storage.

So here's another big question. If you plant tillage crops like fodder beats Daikon radish deer radish or any other kind of animal feed is that considered tillage. If you let those crops die you're adding to the soil biology because worms are there microbes will eat that stuff up. Next I'm not 100% in love with the no-till idea for example we have really bad dirt,tilling in material over the last 5 years has turn dirt into soil. And also what about root crops that need deep spaces like carrots or potatoes. If I'm going to Market Garden carrots I don't want itty bitty tiny specialty carrots I want big fat juicy carrots.

I was interested in learning more about "no-till" up until I watched this video. The problem with any idea is when it becomes "politicized" in that people turn a potentially good idea into a dogma, in essence into a pseudo-religion. No till should mean just that, no tilling, or no turning over the soil in preparation to plant a crop. It doesn't mean or imply "no disturbance" of the soil. Such is possible, using methods such as the Ruth Stout method, for instance, and though it is a form of no-till, such does not embody the concept of no-till farming/gardening. People talk about nature, but rarely follow it's example. It is like trying to compost without worms expecting the best compost possible, which is far from happening at that point.

That was an informative video. Thanks

Jesse, I wonder if your definition has changed after three years? Three years is a lot of water under the bridge (opportunity to have tried new things, talked to new people, read new material, etc.). Your original definition: "An ecological approach to agriculture which seeks to keep the soil covered as much as possible, planted as much as possible, and disturbed as little as possible, in an effort to increase soil health and profitability for the farmer."

Looking real nice !! Topdress , topdress , topdress ,

Great one. Very helpful

no till is something like,just looked what i've done.

no-till is hard. I live in an arid area if you don't get enough stuff to put on top of it. it never really works out. it dries out to fast or if it rains too much it just gets eaten by the worms to fast or something. You never really reach enough matter on top to pull it off. on top of it, straight compost base no-till in your climate is like pouring oil on a fire. your cycle is just wayyyyyyyy faster than colder climate or says singing farms which are near to the coast. they get that cooling wind. if you don't hit enough material on top you never really launch into a no-till cycle and a no-till cycle without those woodchips or something in those paths in your climate is just a really bad idea. so... id says you never really got into true no-till. you were in this state of "almost there" working a lot harder then we do. but keep in mind getting to relationships or having the money to do no-till is hard. I really wish state gov. would really put in the work. We have this garbage crisis mainly because we in the usa don't sort our garbage like overseas. because of that laziness waste streams end up in a landfill instead of back into cycle. which would be a huge boon green waste stream for new farms. If they had a really clean system they could pay the farmer to take it or even just deliver to farmers for free.

I will say there is definitely advantages to stratified soils and piling or building on top of the ground definitely stratifies the soil. Not to mention if Earth is left alone it will self stratify. My personal thought is that at some point you'll need to break up that stratification. I will also say that if your methods work continue using them.

The "profit to the farmer" part of your definition can be dropped since it doesn't differentiate no till from any other farming technique. Pesticide, fertilizer and tillage users also attempt to maximize farm profits for instance.

How do you prepare the soil for planting garlic? Is the broad fork enough? I love the idea of preserving soil ecology, but I also want the soil to be really loose to encourage a jumbo bulb in the spring! Any tips would be much appreciated.

Is aqua-ponics No-Till ? I don't aqua ponic - just wondering. :)

Do you buy your compost?

I think the description of a technique is being stretched too far. Many early adopters were mainly interested in saving diesel fuel, others soil erosion. Food forests and ranching are also no-till, but don't make sense to include, probably because no-till started as conventional farming minus the heavy use of tillage. By all means keep the ecologically sound focus with its value to the customer, farmer and larger community but I don't think the new definition is serving much of a purpose.

Hey totally unrelated to this show, but a question we have as newbees , whats your thoughts on and have you ever had an issue with soil based pathogens contaminating your crops from compost or the like …. seems like we hear about this all the time in the stores, but what about on the small market farm scale …. should this be more of a consideration for us in the small market farming ???

Check out Gabe Brown, 5000 acre farm, amazing !

Punintended.

The mention of greater nutrition is missing - if it’s true.

low till...

You ask yourself "what can we do on large scale". Gabe Brown's 5 tenets of soil health video is probably something you might also like watching. I did :thinking_face_oh_emoticon_codes_dont_work_here:

Any chance you're related with Jaime Mantzel (also a youtuber). You have similarities... One of which is that I really like you

Hello, succes with succession (New Forest Farm - 50 hectares) from autor Mark Shepards greetings, Marc (Belgium)

What part of Ky are you in brother?

Perhaps we need a new name for "no-till" . The name is problematic/misleading. Maybe "Living soil farming", or "minimal disturbance farming".

Are you profitable I guess is the question

"No tilling. How can we do it though?" *googles:* "opposite of do" *search result:* "don't" 🤣🤣 just messing, I hear ya. Not all black and white

Scaling, scaling, scaling.

💚👍🙏☝️🕉🌞💪