My Thoughts on No-Till Have Changed 

Josh your clarity is so cool - it really is about... the soil! The food, the flavours, the plot health and leaf lustre, ;lack of weed pressure - all good! Plus an interesting aside about no til being 'defined by negatives'. Food for thought. It's true and suggests that what are we doing to the soil, normally, is not good. Yet it has become accepted. Go you with no till!

Josh has it 100% correct. Once you actually get into no-till and no-dig farming (or even backyard gardening), you see that its even easier than traditional tilling and prepping for a crop. So here you have a practice that is less labor-intensive, less costly, works better, and is better for the land? That's what they call zero downsides.

Your version of 'no till' Certainly inspired me. I have no farming experience and though a abrupt life change swapped a desk for a country homestead in a foreign country with a small plowed field. I put a stop to the tilling (inlaws thought I was crazy) and built a 'market garden' to grow all our veg in for our home pretty much replicating what you'd done using only our own resources. It was real hard work but now I look at what we've achieved and what we have for years to come it's amazing. Thank you so much for your videos and encouragement.

"Is this no till? LOL You must have been a great teacher. You got us through the first 30 days of the shutdown, and you continue to inspire me. Blessings to you

Josh, the garden in the city really looks great. You should be proud of what you were able to accomplish with it. Nice work.

This video was full of GREAT questions. "Is this no-till?" Soil health is where it all comes from!

WOW, thank you sooo much!! I have a small garden and have been trying to till on the slope, but it's very difficult. I came upon your video and I realize that I have been doing part of it "no till". Your experience and and conclusions have confirmed what I have seen and witnessed in regards to just observing the soil. Thank you, and please continue to encourage the rest of us.

Thanks for the video...I feel the same way, I started no till this past year and look forward to even greater results next year! All the best from NY!

It's all good thinking outside of the box, but I'm still unwrapping this box. Enjoying y'alls. Love and respect from Africa 🇿🇦

I’m so glad to hear your feedback, it confirm what I always believed!

Wow! The Intro, the music, and the end of the video is awesome. Really love how you showcase the Raleigh city farm.

I feel like no till makes gardening and growing more accessible for folks like me who can’t physically afford the back breaking work of tilling to prep a space. I can lay down cardboard, a layer of dead leaves and a few inches of compost & soil and get after it. World of difference!

Your videos are awesome! I have recently purchased my old homestead (in eastern NC) and hope to use a lot of those methods to reclaim the overgrown garden spot here. Keep up the good work!

Saying "My thoughts on NoTill have Changed" as your title to the video is click bait since your opinion had not changed. I think your videos are exceptional and valuable. Why resort to a negative ploy?

Watching this just as I go through the new Kiss the Ground documentary. I have no experience in farming, or even gardening but it's something I really want to learn and do- to grow food, and help fight for the climate. I'm only beginning to familiarize myself with a this and know I have a lot to learn but I know this is the right direction. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks a lot brosky. You have cleared up a lot of misconceptions I had about "No till" farming

Thanks so much for sharing your farm and your experiences.

Do not disturb the sponge of roots, they are the structure, the jungle of life.

Your farm is really looking great! I remembered seeing the video when you and friends were preparing the lot for farming, wow it's fantastic now. Great job!

Really good video! This was the first year we didn’t do a heavy mulch mostly due to time constraints, and the weeds were so overwhelming that we literally mowed it and gave up for the year. We’ve decided that even if it means we need to hire someone to help us get our garden mulched and ready for the year, it’s well worth the investment.

I was talking to an old timer and he was telling me about how he wanted to put in a garden and the place he picked had no bad weeds in it so he TILLED it up and planted it. Suddenly, he said, he got thistle like crazy. I told him that when he tilled he brought up the OLD seed in the ground and gave it a chance and it took it. I explained the low till method and tarping to him and he was wide eyed at the prospect of less work and fewer weeds. I hope he tries it out.

Great video as usual. Keep them coming brother.

Hey Josh I think when you consider tilling it's about soil inversion and mixing subsoil into the rihizosphere. So a general raking, tilther and broadforking don't mix soil levels and are all acceptable with no till....however along those lines also comes the term no-dig in which you are now focused on little to no soil disturbance beyond a minimal hole for transplanting etc

This is the type of farm/garden I plan to establish. Thank you for sharing!

It almost sounded like you were rapping when asking 'is this no-till?' with the background music 😆 I like your approach. No dogmatisms.

VERY GOOD!!! I moved from MN. to AR. HUGE gardening differences. Very good, introspective, information.

Hi Josh. I asked a few of your harshest critics on no-till, what they were growing and how much of it. What I found was that most comments on no-till comes from people that have never farmed, the ones looking at the romantic idea of one day doing it. I always get comments about “Charles Dowding” or” Paul Gautschi”. Both of those guys adhere to an uncompromising and dogmatic ideology that they created, that now defines and limits them. I have a small section that I farm using a diverse number of practices, have been doing so for 20 years, in different locations. To all the commenters, START FARMING - GET EXPERIENCED - EVALUATE - THEN YOU ARE WELCOME TO COMMENT. Great to see your progress on the new farm.

Hi Josh. For 2020, I implemented your system from A TRELLIS TO MAKE YOU JEALOUS. It is terrific! Earlier this year, my husband and I had some projects completed on our property. All seven men doing the work ended up photographing my garden to copy your trellis system. This is my fourth year of "no till" on 5300 sq ft of garden space. By December, the plants are dead and my garden is done. Add compost and wood chips over the top, smooth it out with a rake, hose it down, then cover with tarps. By early April, an area gets uncovered for the cool-weather crops. By mid May, the rest of the garden gets uncovered to plant everything else. Using "no till", compost, and tarps, results in the weed pressure being very low.

Very informative Josh! Here’s our version of “no till.” We grow some vegetables to feed our family, our livestock, our neighbors and the community food pantry. We also grow emergency foods like potatoes. Our cash crops are all things that require little or no inputs or care once planted, things like garlic, as my wife and I both have other jobs and are not full-time farmers. With regards to garlic, I plant in the Fall. My Winter and early Spring cover crop for these plants is wild red false nettle / hen bit. It’s edible, medicinal, can be fed to livestock, makes a dense ground cover that doesn’t interfere with the growth of garlic, maintains soil humidity by preventing wind evaporation and makes an excellent green manure. Most importantly, it flowers very very early, before anything else, providing nectar for pollinators. It also prevents the Spring establishment of weeds allowing the Garlics to increase in size and height. Once the dandelions and other pollinators appear, we harvest it, use it in place for a green manure or for various other things and then side dress our garlics with aged duck manure compost (from the previous Spring). Once the garlics take off, we periodically throw down some straw. We have vary little weed issues for the rest of the growing season, nothing that can’t be handled quickly under the garlics. My take away is that, with regards to weed pressure, it’s what you do EARLY in the season and EARLY in the life cycle of weeds, that determines how the rest of your season will go.

I've been moving towards no-till the last 2 years. So far my weed pressure is definitely dropping, and my soil is certainly improving. Thanks for all your advice @Josh Sattin

What you have achieved there in 1 year is brilliant 🤙

I had never heard about no-till gardening. I am SO excited to do this!!

Thank you for making videos. I plan to get into farming.

Wow. Haven't been here since the first few videos. You've done an amazing job!

On the light side Josh - you always have good video's, yet you always get some thumbs down. I believe that is because "your trellis has made them jealous."

Appreciate your orientation to gardening

Great video! I no-till my garden and it’s awesome!

This is a spot on description of the no till or no dig method of growing food. Thanks. I use it on my allotment in north east Scotland and it’s brilliant. You do need to sensible and adapt it when you need to.

Great video Josh, love the intro and the exit!

Being "super dogmatic" about anything kills flexibility and the ability to improvise which usually bites one in the butt sooner or later. Thanks Josh!

Great content really informative keep it up. Great to see you have not been wearing the sunnies. I like the way you present you're good at getting your message across👍🏻

Howdy! RU-vid recommended your channel and here I am. Good content man, we're transitioning to a "no-till" method ourselves. Thanks for sharing looking forward to watching more of your stuff. Subbing ya now! -Josh

Well, that was a bit of a tease, but I’m not surprised that you’ve solidified your stance on no till. We do raised beds, containers and straw bale gardening and have very few weeds. It’s less work and more benefits. Win-win! Blessings...

Keep on, keeping on.

I feel ya on no till! We are on our second year of a square by square hybrid no till garden. We had to till one time and then once we had our garden formed we stopped tilling. Just completed our first video on it actually. We still till a large other area as we are expanding slowly and by far the no till beats the tilled garden in product quality and with NO synthetic chemicals. High fives for no till! :)

Thanks you Josh for this. I grew up with the notion that the invention of the plow was maybe as important for mankind as the invention of the wheel or leading how to use fire. Your differentiated view and pragmatic approach is refreshing in a time of sound bites and click baits. Thank you.

Been watching gardening/ farming videos for a couple yrs now and somehow just discovered ya. You have the best descriptions and videos! Thanks for the inspiration! Hoping to get a cat. tunnel for growing in frigid Wyoming!

I love no-till and everything about it. Also as you said Josh, it is all about the soil. If we have good soil we will have good plants and good healthy food, which is what is is all about !!!

Thanks again for another educational video.

I've been using your ideas to plant a landscape. I was reminded how using cardboard under mulch or compost can smother weeds/grass/vines. I got inspired to buy a Treadlite broad fork and it is so much physically easier for me, a 60 yr old woman, to prepare my garden and to loosen soil for planting shrubs and flowers. I use straw to mulch longer growing veggies and it also cuts down the weed pressure. I keep straw on my garden all year long and have almost no weeds. I see people have problems with voles and other critters. My cats have lowered my critter pressure. I think the other point you make is that total elimination of weeds/pests/critters is not possible but it can be minimized. Keep learning and keep teaching.

nice garden, the overhead views are great

Amazed how things change. My Dad was a composter before it was cool and every year, he would spread compost in December and my job in April was to use a shovel and go down 7 inches and turn it under. To mix it into the soil, break up any clay clods, introduce oxygen for aerobic bacteria and lastly, bring up trace minerals in lower soil for plant availability - or so he said. It was a backbreaker, always dreamed of a tiller.

I agree 100% with you. Thank you for this wonderful video!🙏

I just prepped my beds for the season……nothing beats just layering more compost on top and getting down to business. Garden is so clean and tidy and like you I was noticing how black and alive my soil was as soon as I rehydrated it. It’s just an awesome way to grow. I’m never going back.

Thank you for getting the message out that good food is possible and to not get caught up in the hype of are you doing it right if the land is fertile and the food is good and clean your doing it right heal the land thanks for your part

I have done tiny bits of it & love it. I have sandy soil, I think clay adds a little challenge as it never becomes better until U mix it with organic matter. So the purest of NO TILL method are just adding a whole new soil layer. :D Thanks for your video, and have a great day.

El mejor video que he visto. Muchas gracias por compartir.

Whats good Josh? Nice video keep crushing it Its all in the soil...minerals are the key to flavor! Been og since 2002 , top dressing , compost teas, compost homemade Balance is key and not easy to achieve! Layers like the forest floor is where its at ! We can mimic mother nature but never replace her! The Soil web is fascinating!

Great video! I love what Gardener Scott says about weeds - "Weeds Happen".

I misspoke during your live session about your beans. I believe I asked how your progress bush beans did. Pretty sure I meant the provider bush beans. I had seen a video of yours where the "unnamed beans" had been encroached by other garden plants. Anyhow, I wasn't sure how they turned out and really was curious how the beans faired. Btw, your farm looks amazing! You have some really great strategies and helping hands. Cheers!

Great episode

You have a very nice looking farm. I'm an American living in Thailand and I am getting ready to build a house and farm on 4 acres. For the past hundred or so years they have grown rice on it like everyone else has. They do run a tractor over it every year or so and have a disk behind it and only till up the top 0ne or two feet but with using flood Irrigation it puts enough pressure on it that it becomes as hard as a rock. I have been watching people like you that don't want to till your soil and I get it but I feel I would have to do something at least the first year just to get it so I can put some type of good soil on top of it. Back when I got my degree in Agricultural Engineering we were geared to farming thousands of acres at a time. So we had the biggest equipment we could find. I have an old classmate that farm's 14,000 acres of alfalfa and works 9 months out of the year in the fields. The next 3 months he let's the mechanics tear down all the equipment and rebuild it. He goes to Mexico and relaxes. Lol The soil on this 4 acres is pretty much depleted of nutrients and they have to fertilizer the hell out of it and they are planting GMO rice every year. I only hope I can bring this soil back to life without to much work. Your kind of farming I have never done before so I will be asking a lot of questions in the future.

I have 3 gardens, all about 500 sq ft. I didn't till them for 6 years. One day I decided, I have to have a test case or my lack of weeds isn't valid. So I tilled up one of the three gardens. HOLY COW did it turn up buried weed seed. IT was a cover crop of weeds! At that time I was also buying used tillers, fixing them and reselling them. I put them all up for sale. A lot of people say but what about a new plot? Well if we are talking less than 1000 sq ft or maybe bigger, just lay cardboard over the grass and weeds, then pull them up. Best to pull them as it disturbs the soil microbes less than hoeing them up. But you say, I've got 1/4 acre planted, which isn't rare for an rural gardener. To break it up the first time find a local with a tractor and discs. Discs don't disturb the soil like a tiller. I did that once years ago, living very rural. I disced the area once a week for about 3 weeks and then planted. Never disced again.

To till or not to till your attitude is positive and your crop is good enjoy your input and videos thanks!

100% agree on the no till practice. My weed pressure is very minimal. It took a few seasons to get our garden to its current scale which is just a 1/4 acre but I plan on expanding. We are also using well water which I prefer. City water kills soil structure unless you filter it properly. Cheers

I have only started back into gardening for the past three years and it is no till all the way for me. I did till and amend the soil when I first started as the soil was rock hard clay but since then I just spread about 4 inches of compost at the start of my spring garden and plant directly into it. I don't find I need to rotate my crops either and I multi - crop which makes planning even easier and seems to keep most pests at bay. The bane of my existence is powdery mildew as I garden in the sub-tropics in Brisbane, Australia but apart from that everything is running smoothly. Charles Dowding is my hero and mentor.

I can watch your videos for hours

In the spring we broadcast radish seeds into areas of the yard and just scratched them in lightly. When harvesting the radishes from the sunniest spot where they grew the best, it turned out there was a brick patio under a half inch to a quarter inch of soil, I put it there many years ago and forgot how far it extended. Anyway, the radishes were just fine growing in between the bricks, although there were a few lines on them. Usually we set up new spots by making a deep narrow trench and fill it with organic matter, and the dirt from the trench makes a nice slightly raised garden bed, but we don't dig again unless it gets completely taken over by the lawn. We barely even put down the lightest mulch, as the growing plants themselves shade the soil in the garden bed, and by the time they are done growing, there is plenty of organic matter to cover it if needed.

Im glad ive come accross this method it saved my Back

Well said. Well rounded, productive, positive, logical and solution based perspective. Just found you on this here interwebz. Really diggin' your videos and overall attitude/thought process so far. cheers man.

Great video, thanks

It’s a win-win! And was great way to ♻️ cardboard! I layer newspaper, compost & dried grass clippings on top of my cardboard. This method has provided me w wonderful rich soil w a lot of worms. 🐛

Confirms my belief. I read about this a few years ago, and I’ve never tilled. I have a small garden, a few raised beds. I rarely have weeds, only first in the spring, they get pulled. Never any all summer long. Love it, as I’m sure the worms appreciate not being ground up!

Weeds don't stress me, because we have been lied to. They are food and medicine.

So true great information

Great opening of dialog. In my opinion No Till is one grain method, heavy broad casting and leaving debris. I am Know Till, I know when and how to till. I always build up, applying compost and fertilizer on top, mixing it with a stihl cultivator, raking, sometimes putting a fully composted mulch on top of that as a cap. The only time I deep till is in the beginning, mix the soil, exfoliating weed seeds, broad fork, add compost, deep till the compost down deep and do 2-3 solar tarp sessions to then move into a know till, permanent bed system.

I learned so much from you, I also follow 3 other market growers on you tube. I ask myself what are they doing and can I use the same techniques to achieve success and the answer is yes. Take care my friend.

Awesome photo in the Thumbnail.

I do no till for the worms.... They are my buddies...the thought of blending them up makes me sad...

Been gardening on clay soil in the high desert. Every year I battle with bindweed, a very invasive vine which goes dormant in winter and in spring pops up everywhere. I will study it in my "experimental" zone. I am determined to go No Till. Makes so much sense.

Its working really well for me.

No till for 5 years now. Welcome to the new farm world. NewSouth Farms.👍🍍

Your videos continue to inspire . I will be attempting what Steve here dubbed "Low-Till", next year on my new farm. My wife and I are closing on our new place soon.. I will have an acre and a half to begin preparing once we finish the move.

I've been doing no till and mulching with straw for 4 years, and I wouldn't do it any other way. Had My soil tested for nutrients last year, and every one of them were off the charts, and that's without adding compost/amendments last year. Going to try to get my with no compost again next year. Hoping all still goes well.

The arial shots of your farm ate fantastic, congratulations! I've a large vegetable patch within a 2 acre property in the south west of England. Completely sold on no dig gardening, but the big issue fior me, to achieve no weed nirvana, is having sufficient quantities of compost to mulch the entire patch. I've plenty of grass clippings - I'm establishing a wild flower meadow on place of an otherwise boring and unproductive field, along with grazing a couple of a neighbour's sheep for half the year, but grass doesn't produce great compost unless I add large amounts of brown which is more difficult to come by. Do you make your own compost/mulch or buy it in? I can do so e areas of the veggie patch, but just can't do all of it. All the best.

Taking your hands though the upper layer is till but it's good for 'no dig' gardens😃

I think your right stick to the 3 main concepts and you can’t go wrong

I just stumbled onto your channel today. This is a great video - thought provoking. I look forward to watching the rest of your videos!

Thank you Josh for all your efforts and videos on your gardening endeavors. As a city person who hopes someday to have a market garden I find your productions very informative. What are you doing to handle insects now?

The argument for/against no-till is similar to that of 'what does organic mean' Do what works for you

Do you have any videos or could you discuss how you control things like high phosphorus using so much compost. We’ve tried several sources from our area and our tests always show high phosphorus if we get to heavy with the compost. Love your channel!

I like Conor Crickmore's thoughts on it.

America is the land of reductionism. I have been gardening for 50 years, and am just recently trying no dig. I've already learned that because I have such heavy clay soil, I either have to use a broadfork or a small tiller initially. After that, with organic amendments and other good soil practices, I shouldn't have to till after that first season. I think it's different for everybody, as you said, depending on the soil. Thanks for sharing your ideas and realizing there is no one perfect way.

😊Thanks

We did no till for a year on our farm, after we started tilling again(but still adding our compost, fertilizers, and mushroom substrates, our yields more than doubled if not tripled and disease and bug control was far better. We are on Maui in Hawaii with heavy clay soil so I understand no till can work great on sandy or silty soil, but our clay soils seem to do better with lots of oxygen from till and compost and fert which makes our biological systems regroup so fast as well as our climate.

Good video Josh! My two cents worth follows. The Earth - Mother Gaia - is a "soil farmer" FIRST. The one lesson I've learned after 60+ years of growing is I can never have enough biologically active compost [humus] because the soil's microbiome determines soil fertility. The soil's microbiome feeds off of humus, makes humic acid, of which, about 70% is fulvic acid minerals - it's those fulvic acid minerals that plants need to grow - do the research. I agree with Josh's findings, the more biologically active the soil, the better the biomass taste - refer to previous sentence. I think there's a direct corollary between flavor profile and nutrient density. About this 'no-till movement' - it's like how the organic movement began - everyone clamoring to be the voice of authority. And frankly, given the current state of the environmental air and water quality, I don't know how anyone can claim the word 'organic' if growing in said environment - research on how pernicious glyphosate is in air and water. About weed pressure...what I observed on more then one occasion is, when pulled, I find earthworms in or near the roots...huummm. Lastly, learn how to keep the soils microbiome the happy campers and they'll do the growing for you. Stay safe - be well.

I live 26 miles west of San Antonio, TX. We have Houston black clay soil. We are also in semi arid climate. No till works here but if you are starting out with Virgin soil here, you have to root plow deep (2 ft), then plow again, then disc, then you dump a crap load of compost down, till the he'll out of it, till it some more, then throw more compost on top, and then a foot or two layer of triple ground native hardwood wood chips, and if it does not rain a few inches, ya better have a means to irrigate it. I did 3 acres like this and I still have until fall to wait before I start planting. I did one acre this way 4 years ago and all that I have to do is keep laying this one acre year after year and I do so with leaves now. What was once hard pan clay is not 18 inches of black, fungul compost and soil mix and I can dig down to the depth easily by hand. In hard pan clay soils, no till works AFTER working the soil really heavy the first time. In sandy country and medium to light loam, no till works just fine. The plow, the disc, and the tiller in necessary when starting out in any hard pan clay soil.

I think if you avoid plowing and only disturb the soil as much as needed to grow your crops it is no till. great video thanks

"No til" is wonderful where you don't have voles. Voles see mulch as a vole hotel with food all around them. I have voles and when they hear the tiller rev up they run for the hills. The closest I can get to "no til" is tarping. I like it and use it whenever I can.

At the end of the day each person has to do what works for them. i enjoy exploring how different people farm. I even try and implement some of their practices. but i am limited by certain restraints, so i keep going back to what works for me. I am a traditional farmer, IE tractors, plows, fertilizer. I do have several different plant beds where i use chickens and "organic as possible" farming practices. I've even started in the last couple of years mulching with straw for weed control. Farming and gardening is a process of development to do what works for yourself.. Thanks for what you do.!