How to Choose the Right No-Till System 

I’m not a commercial farmer, just an avid gardener. I adopted no-till out of necessity because my Virginia soil was so very hard to dig. The results have been amazing. People ask “how do you have time to weed this huge garden?” I say well, maybe once a week I’ll see a weed. I use compost , hay and leaves for mulch. Works like a charm. Loved your book BTW

I have a small farm in Japan, where farms are pretty fragmented (the large one piece of land farms common in the US are just not how farms are laid out here) and I have every single type of soil in this video (and some that aren't, like red soil) in at least one block of 9 blocks, or even just one bed to the next in some blocks. I've adopted a potato rotation through blocks to deal with any compaction in place of mechanical tillage because new rare variety potatoes are quite lucrative here.

I live in Greece and people put all there "garden waste" in big plastic bags on the street for people to pickup, that has helped me rejuvenate the dead soil I have been dealing with in my property here. As we have very hot and long dry summers, it's hard to produce organic material on my small property, so that really was the key to kickstarting my garden!

Lol I love how 3.5 feet of rain casually falls from the sky from november to May up here in Oregon. Sure, we don't typically face hurricane style weather events, but the atmospheric rivers up here are pretty nuts otherwise. Inches per day are a frequent occurrence during the cool seasons. But then it's conversely completely dry from mid May until late September. Actually, it's the wood chips and compost together that keeps our backyard and garden from turning into complete mud bogs every year. And then it returns the water when we need it most!

I was just reading a post on social media written by a woman who uses the deep litter method in her chicken coop. She states that she has no where to put it when she cleans it out, so literally bags it up and puts it out in the trash. People were encouraging her to find a way to offer it to gardeners/farmers.

I met a livestock farmer at my local farmers market who was very impressed with my produce. He has like 100 acres. Long story short he asked if he could hire me to grow on his land. I went out there today, and wow, this guy has the opposite of a green thumb. Just one failed/abandoned project after another. He has all the equipment too, it's just insane how bad he is at farming. He was trying to do no-till, but I've convinced him to just start with conventional agriculture. I'm a market gardener and I have never farmed massive acreage. I'm legit scared, but I'm going to give it a try. We're planting like an acre of okra, an acre of corn, an acre of beans, and an acre of melons. He has a team of immigrants (legal) and I met them all today, and he introduced me as one of their new bosses. This is going to be a wild ride. I may have to make a RU-vid channel to document this experience.

My neighbor throws sticks over the fence into my yard. Even after I asked them to please not do that. So now they get to smell compost. Lots and lots of hot hot wet compost cooking right on the other side of their patio table setup and ornamental pond.

Wood chips have been impossible to source here, so I bought a small chipper and chip my own branches. Recently I've resorted to filling the bulk of pathways with rice hulls and capping with an inch or so of chips . Works great.

Notes on VERY regional compost ingredients (NA to 98% of US).... Rice hulls from elevator...wow! *VERY* hydroscopic. Repeals water like an umbrella. Takes years to fully breakdown. Featherlight (not worth hauling far/blows away easily) but great source of silica. Also, very good for heavy "gumbo" clay. Helps to loosen. Leaves tiny "voids" for drainage & root penetration Crawfish/shrimp/crab shells. Easy to source from restaurants during crawfish season (Lent). Also, from processors. Fantastic material but you need a lot of fairly fine consistency carbon material (sawdust/shredded leaves) to tamp down odor & balance N:C. Shells hard to breakdown but a multiseason source of all kinds of goodness. All kinds of trace elements.

The drainage test you mentioned - seeing if the hole doesn’t drain after 24 hours filling it the second time, I can’t even imagine!!! I live in southern Indiana with VERY sandy soil and we can get the heaviest rain imaginable and all puddles will be gone within a few hours of rain stopping. Our drainage is TOO good here

I like the fact that you address the bobble heads. The emotional ones that freak out and look like bobble heads if not doing exactly as they believe it should be done. The HOA officials of no till.

Thanks for sticking with science and staying away from dogma

We've rocky soil here in the foothills of the Stansburys. Rocks removed make great little retaining walls for soil. Step 1 pick up rocks, step 2 till and pickup rocks, step 3 pickup rocks. Step 4 top dressing.

Another great video! Finally ordered the book after hearing about it about 40 times. I'm slow 😁

I like ur no dogma mindset. I am adapting ur no till methods to my backyard garden. I've learned tons from u about soil management.

Great reminders for the beginning of the growing season!

Excellent content! Every year my farm makes decisions for me! I learned after year two to not force things and just do what the farm is telling me to do. Both with livestock and growing. So far the farm has decided on flowers rather than vegetables, selling to wholsalers and not farmers markets, alpacas instead of pigs, 30' x 50' blocks rather than 50x100...and much more. Literally nothing I imagined on my head for my farm when we bought it four years ago has come to fruition. The farm decides. Not me.

Here in Hawaii old school we use a lot of coconut husks and leaves for mulching. New school is mostly wood chips.

Hey Farmer Jesse - thank you for the excellent content! The context is soooo important. It is really what makes healthy farming practices accessible to all. On a side note, my dad was the first in his area to switch some large fields of wheat to a no-till system. Boy did he get grief from everyone. That said, when he retired and sold it, one of the loudest critics said he was " going to show him how to farm", went in and tore the entire field upwith a disc. The first rain we had, most of the field slid into the ditch and across the road. The county had to bring in heavy equipment to clean everything up. And, the crops he planted did not do well. Sad to see so much good work ruined. Hopefully, it planted a seed in the heads of anyone else who was watching...

Your videos are full of great information and dad jokes. I believe I've watched them all. Seeing as your videos helped grow a ton of food for us last year, I paid it back this morning and ordered your book. Thank you.

Your book is so helpful! I have read it multiple times and still refer to it frequently as I transition from tilling rows to building beds. I’m using my abundant supply of live oak leaves and cover crops to enrich my sandy Florida soil. Chicken manure from local farmers should give all the nitrogen I need. Thanks for all of your entertaining content to help me on my gardening journey!

I’ve been gardening in raised beds, grow bags, and pots for a couple of years. Aug ‘22 I put cardboard over a grassy area to have my first inground plot. Late Oct ‘23 thru Feb 1, ‘24 I dumped quail poop trays (with pine shavings) on top of the cardboard. I started forking the area at the end of Feb. There is now at least 10” of material to grow plants and the native soil below it is dark and loose. Hopefully it’ll be fully composted and ready for planting next month. We’ve had some 80° days to help the process.

I started using buckwheat hull mulch for my vegetable beds, because it's cheep where I live. And found that it's actually amazing. Very lightweight (to the point of the risk of being blown away by wind, but that's not an issue in framed raised beds), never compacts. Also dark, which is is nice in cold climate.

Tillage also makes sense in contacts with oxidation and reduction in the right place, excellent information. Thank you. Yes, all excellent points, also on sweet corn, using foliar feeds. You can actually build soil, carbon matter and soil health while growing a sweet corn crop.

Greetings from Ukraine. You are awesome

Bless you! For the sneeze and the great info! Here in sandy, high water table FL, I have to put lots of compost in every round of plants, all while discouraging the fire ants! No wood chip mulch here in the veg beds- only for ornamentals. It definitely is an individual situation for us all.

There is commercial no till and domestic no till. Well done on your style

Best video yet, thank you, thank you, thank you!

Jesse, We need more dragons. I do have plenty of fairies and some naughty ones too as they are always hiding my niwashi if I'm nor careful.😅 thanks for the video this Monday morning. Love and hugs from NZ, Phil the mad herbalist market Gardener.

I can get cotton “trash” that I’m told is great for garden beds but I worry that the cotton that was ginned - thus creating the “trash” - might have been sprayed heavily. I know they don’t still use the “cotton poisons” we used to smell for miles around cotton fields when I was a kid growing up in central Georgia, but I don’t know what they’re doing now about pests like boll weevils. Therefore, although the cotton trash would be a relative bargain, I’m buying compost from a local nursery.

I really appreciate all the work you do - I just hope you don't burn out - I love the info with the wry wit interspersed. The book is great.

Helping a lot of new growers man! Respect and keep on keeping on!

If you have the ability to easily and rapidly replenish your microbes (Jadam Microbial Solution) tillage can be an incredible tool on the small farm.

I really enjoy your content so much! Just your general attitude and the way you describe things!

Thank you so much for this discussion Jesse. It’s coming at the right time, just before the community garden opens up for me. The plots I have are possibly a kind of desert 🏜️ never-before-seen on the planet - and it’s tilled every year. I’m pretty sure that the only thing there is subsoil. It was horrendous last year. I had a friend help me bring in leaf mold that had some worms in it - and I’m pretty sure those are the first worms 🪱 that that soil has ever seen 😳 I couldn’t even get a broadfork in anywhere on the 1200 square-foot plot. But besides that, thank you for a balanced discussion of no-till practices and contexts 🙏 (and I’m still on team audiobook 🎉 whenever that happens 😊)

Whenever I watch your videos, I always remember one about microbes - where they were dancing to country music 😆

Nice presentation. This is why I subscribed to you. Well done!

Thanks for this video. I have been thinking about asking you to address this topic so that I had something to point people to!

A lot of folks in MS will get cotton gin trash for starting beds or raised beds. It’s getting less and less easy to find though as we grow more soy beans and less cotton.

Love how simple and easily you explain these topics. I’m curious if you’ve had any experience or thoughts about incorporating Biochar into your beds.

You are growing ginger in Kentucky? Can you tell us when you plant and when you harvest, please? I grew some last year and it didn't mature, so didn't store well. What I haven't used by now is shriveled and junk.

Great video, just subscribed. I have found your videos before but for some reason I don't often subscribe when when i like the content.

The only bonkers farming I have around me are all the crazy monoculture lawn grass growers. Most of them hire these 'landscapers' that mechanically mow, pour heavy chemicals all around like drunken sailors, and water excessively on timers, then complain about the weedy and algae filled creek drain...Context?

LOL I couldn't do the rebar test with our clay soil because it's so ridiculously rocky here. Finding spots to stake shepherd hooks is a nightmare because of it.

This is the BEST!!!!! Could you make more?

Great content! I look forward to the new videos. Are there any plans to make an audio version of The Living Soil Handbook for Audible?!

Thanks!

No Till is just one of five principles of Regenerative Ag. By itself it (No Till) doesn't do much for building soil -- it's a good start, but it can't be done on its own. Also, compaction can still happen if one practices No Till without other best soil practices.

Good video greetings from the Peten gustemala

Love your videos! I wish I lived close enough to visit your farm! There is a movement going, or a mentality starting that it is now a huge no-no to lay down cardboard when starting to beds. Some gardeners and maybe too, just opinionated people looking to downplay home gardening or small market garden farms, that say that cardboard has too many chemicals and should never be used as underlayment for a new garden bed. Would you please share you knowledge / opinion on this? Thanks!

Hahahah Jesse, you are super helpful, its fun to learn from you man, thank you!😂

As expected another great wake me up Sunday Morning Video, Thank You! We are having a hard time finding someone to do a soil test on our place. The big agricultural University in the State no longer does them. Upon suggestion we have tried contacting a couple of other similar businesses and no banana so far. Did someone mention rainfall??? We are praying that we get more than five inches of rain this year! Went to town yesterday and thought of getting some wood chips for our fruit bushes and trees. All were artificially dyed so we opted not to purchase any. Is our new approach to No Till Farming wearing us out ........................................... DEFINITELY! As we are continually chomping at the bit and nervous as to what improvements we are making and will be seeing, LOVE it though!

Semi sub tropical Kentucky 😂.... love the stuff you put out. Good stuff..... but here in tropical Louisiana it's March 2024vand we are still freezing our azz off

Enjoy his content clear explanation and delivery. Top notch. I’m small home gardener with previously hard hard clay soil 25 years ago. Now beautiful light soil however we’re in severe drought so about 6” down the clay is like brick. SVB and cucumber beetle 🪲 are constant work. In the city so can’t burn and don’t want to spray so succession plant all year

Do you have a video on the irrigation system you use or what you would recommend? I'm in the process of building my new no till gardens and I want be efficient with my watering. It didn't rain for 3 months last summer! I'm looking into a drip system but I'd love to hear your opinions.

you might be able to get potasium from saw mill ash piles after they burn sawdust and scraps.

Where's my greeting man 😢 I'm a nerd and miss the hey nerds

🥬🥗 Thank you for all those nice tips and trick. You show an interesting 'tap' system at 8:00 to clean the vegetables. Could you please tell us a bit more about it? On top of the fine nozzle I suspect it is having a pedal for foot-control. Are you using (filtered) rain water fro this?

Good advice. Thanks👌

Cool, now I know why my garden will fail!

Thank you as always. Love your videos!

I loved Onward🥺

Thank you, as always.

Jesse, Would love to have one of the compost farms near me that have been featured in your videos. I have contacted the one in New England and gotten quotes on tractor trailer loads to Va. Freight roughly doubles price per yard! I would like to get 150 yds, 3 or 4 tractor trailer loads if u know any outfit near SW Va.

Pertanian yang begitu subur

Where I live we have fire ants that just love garden soil. 🐜🤔

Can you create a 5-20 minute video that explains the basics of no-till farming, and step by step explain things that need to be done (think basic yet medium-sized garden, not a green house, or big farmland). Write it like you're teaching an adult who barely keeps potted plants alive. That would be super helpful.

Love your work, really informative and useful. I’m in the UK and recently got an allotment , ie local authority owned plots that the public can rent cheaply for growing food in their spare time.. do you have these in US? I think they mostly started here in WW2, when imported food couldn’t get here. I’ve started building no dig beds with the free soil conditioner made from green waste, but this winter the plot has been waterlogged. This video has made me wonder if it’s the clay soil or a high water table that’s the problem, or both? Maybe I should stop piling on the cardboard and soil improver and try digging some in for the next bed? I’m loving the opportunity to learn and experiment, and hopefully improve the environment at the same time, and you’re helping me do this, THANK YOU!

Bottom line is...dont allow the scientific side of gardening to intimadate you! Start gardening & make mistakes but learn...just like the pro's!😂😂

Good info

I didn’t realize you are in Kentucky! Awesome 😊

Home owner annoyances ! lol you have a typo about minute 7:35 around there. Unless comopost is a type of compost?

Great videos. I would love to tour your farm and I'm sure your knowledge and time is very important. But 100$ per ticket WOW. Not going to make it.

Bless U!

I was thinking of mulching the veggies in my raised bed garden with my mother's ever-growing pile of Boston Globe newspapers. If I were to shred these, would that 1) work well? and 2) be safe for consuming the veggies? I've got the usual tomatoes, peas, beans, squash etc.

You rock!

I'm very lucky that I live quite close to www.youtube.com/@CharlesDowding1nodig and www.youtube.com/@MyFamilyGarden, both of which do the no dig/no till thing very successfully. So I can pretty much copy and paste what they do.

Laws schmaws. Come and take my carrot officer rabbit. Rattlesnake on duty.

What would you do with the excess wool?

Washington state

Agricultura este atat de fertila

Sanatate❤❤❤

Gesundheit.

digging the soil is bad. This is why you can use raise beds on your property.

I like you mate

why you gotta make so much sense?

Man, the p*rn bots aren't even sparing gardening channels lol

Agriculture in your country is very developed unlike my country. still too backward compared to your country, you have technology. and modern machinery.

Farmer Jesse AKA the g.o.a.t