Organic No-Till Garlic 

Thank you for encouraging us to document our other methods. Be forewarned that the only vegetables we plant directly into a cover crop are garlic and onions. For the rest of the vegetables in the market garden we incorporate the cover crops with different types of tillage depending on the crop and time of year. We like to think that we use a “know-till” system.

Thank you, Ricky, for your encouragement to make more videos and for the suggestion of one about skim plowing. We have replaced skim plowing with the sweep-and-furrower cultivator setup shown briefly in the garlic video when discussing repeated shallow tillage. Although not as efficient as skim plowing 2-3” deep, it inverts the soil less and keeps more of the fresh organic matter on the surface. We occasionally use the moldboard plow for incorporating a ryegrass-clover sod, but in this case it seems necessary to go 4-6” deep to do a good job of plowing. If we return to skim plowing, we will film how we set the plow. Thanks, Eric

Thank you, Mason! This was our first attempt at putting together a video so we really appreciate your encouragement to make another one.

Apologies for the delay. We have been busy catching up with fieldwork and planting after a very wet spring. I like your suggestion of equipping the horses with GPS! We use a more primitive guidance system which takes advantage of the horse’s natural inclination to follow a path such as the valleys between the garlic ridges. Also, the old riding cultivator we use for building the ridges, making the furrow for planting, etc... has pedal steering for fine tuning the rows. Thanks for your compliment about the video!

We are glad that bumping into our content has been welcome and we appreciate yourencouragement to make a video about the sweep-and-furrower cultivator attachment we use for shallowly tilling cover crops. You can find details about this tool in our article “Organic Surface Tillage” posted at Cover Crops Incorporated: covercropsincorporated.wordpress.com/2018/05/16/organic-surface-tillage/

Thanks for your support and encouragement to do additional videos. We are working on one about onions, but we may need another year of filming to complete it. Most of our garlic bulbs weigh a quarter pound.

@@EricNordell-ld6wp Wow - huge thanks for your response! I have so much admiration for what you are doing. I'm very much looking forward to learning more from your future videos. And, the weight of your bulbs is absolutely amazing. One last question and I promise I won't 'keep coming back to the well' for more free advice. What type/cultivar are you growing. I did view your episode but I must have missed it. Again, huge thanks. Your thoughtful way of providing instruction and perspectives is truly commendable.

The taller garlic in the video is German White. The bulbs contain five to six large cloves, which our customers prefer, but we need to save back more bulbs for planting than the shorter garlic, a locally adapted Rocambole with eight or more cloves per bulb. We started with a handful of each variety almost 30 years ago and keep selecting for the largest, healthiest bulbs. We appreciate the questions, Howard, and trust you realize it may take a few years to adapt each aspect of our unusual garlic growing system to your situation. It may be wise starting out to try it on just part of your quarter-acre of garlic.

Hi Calimeh, Anne and I are glad you see merit in the widely spaced ridges. Widely spaced rows for garlic and the other vegetables we grow in the bio-extensive market garden allow the roots to explore a large volume of soil for moisture and nutrients, improve air circulation for the plants, and are a nice fit for the traditional row crop equipment we use with the horses. However, if we were more limited by land than labor, planting multiple rows on a bed would make a lot more sense. Intensive planting would also be more efficient for irrigation and for application of pest controls, foliar sprays, row covers, insect netting, etc..., materials that we have not needed so far for growing garlic. -Eric

​@@EricNordell-ld6wp Thanks for the feedback. I fully agree with you. I'm interested in this topic because a few years ago, here in the german-speaking countries, a small but very interesting trend in organic farming emerged. It's called the Turiel-Dammkultur. Turiel is the name of the inventor. He is from Spain and got the idea from traditional spanish farming. In the past, there was only very shallow plowing and everything was grown on ridges. Grain is also successfully grown with this device. But also vegetables. The cover crops are also grown on ridges. The device always guides itself, as it runs in the initially pre-set tracks. This allows it, to work very precisely without complex technology. Everything can be adjusted very flexibly. I sound like an advertising guy. But I just think it's awesome. There's a whole philosophy behind this method. I just thought you might be interested in this. Here are a couple of videos about it. Greetings from Austria! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-9puuFuD7anc.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-FdaJDe4pC2U.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LesYZqDTb3I.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6knyzsWby8I.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qkP32lbg6cc.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-OdTgcNz7hvQ.html

@@CalimehChelonia Thank you for introducing us to Turiel-Dammkultur and the videos with the excellent camera work of the cultivating tools dislodging well established weeds right next to the rows of lettuce and other vegetable/field crops. I found dammkultur videos of making and renovating the ridges which gave me some ideas on how we could improve our system. In our situation, we find that ridge culture works best with mulching. Without the mulch, the ridges dry out too much for reliable production without irrigation and the valleys are prone to erosion. Unfortunately, we do not produce enough cover crop straw to mulch all of our crops, so we plant the vegetables without mulch on low single-row beds which are interseeded with a cover crop as soon as practical. The dammkultur tools may improve rainfall infiltration so that erosion is less of an issue. Thanks again for the great advertising! We will pass on the dammkultur info to others, Eric

@@EricNordell-ld6wp I'm glad you liked it. I think your methods are very inspiring. Thank you very much!

@@CalimehChelonia calimehchelonia, thank you for introducing me to the "turiel-dammkultur" you speak of. It seems like something I'd want to learn more about. So far from what I can gather, it looks like a simple chisel plow or subsoiler but with the addition of some prongs that shoot the stirred soil off to the sides to form the ridges. Can you give more detail about the philosophy behind this method that you speak of? Have you been able to use this device yourself yet?

Hi Cliff, please let us know how planting garlic into a oat cover crop works for you. We are glad you are only trying part of the crop with this system so you can make a comparison and because, like any new method, there is a learning curve to no-tilling garlic. We compared no-tilling to our standard practice of planting garlic into tilled soil and covering with straw mulch for several years until we were convinced that no-tilling into an oat cover crop provided superior results with less cost. -Eric

Will do, won't be able to do it for this fall's planting. I already have a cover crop of mustard coming up that will be tilled in prior to planting garlic. I am slating it for next year's crop. @@EricNordell-ld6wp

Our farm is in the mountains of north-central Pennsylvania. This location was growing zone 4b when we started this system of growing garlic, then revised to 5a about 20 years ago, and was recently changed again!

Hi Daniel, I am afraid we are not familiar with Sericea lespedeza. Our weed books make it sound like this invasive species is adapted to dry soils with low fertility. Before resorting to repeated shallow tillage (or moldboard plowing, which may be necessary to kill this perennial), consider improving soil fertility to give the desirable pasture species a more competitive advantage, and use targeted, repeated mowing to weaken the Sericea. Maybe another class of livestock (goats?) would help manage it? One source suggested that mowing, burning and herbicides were not effective at controlling Sericea when used alone, but together they were effective. We are not suggesting the use of herbicides, but this research underscores the need to use several tactics together to manage this weed. So even if you use a short or extended period of tillage as a substitute to herbicides to setback Sericea, you made need to employ other strategies to keep this weed at bay. If you use tillage, make sure to be mindful of both water and wind erosion. And definitely talk to holistic livestock farmers in your area about how they have managed Sericea. I am sure their advice would be more helpful than our wild guesses! -Eric

@@EricNordell-ld6wp Thank you for taking the time to look up the info, it's very helpful. Looking forward to more videos!

Hi Evgeny, our plant hardiness zone is 5a which means “the average annual extreme minimum winter temperature” is -15 to -20 F (-28.9 to -26.1 C). In recent years the low has only been -5 F (-20.6 C). So far this winter, the lowest temperature was 15 F (-9.4 C). Hope this helps, Eric

@@EricNordell-ld6wp , thank you, really appreciate it. I would like to try your technics in the cold climate, which is very close to yours.

To minimize the risk of disease, we like to wait at least six years before planting crops in the allium family (garlic, onions, leeks, etc...) in the same spot. Rotation is especially important with garlic when replanting your own seed stock. We have been been replanting the German White variety for over 25 years and the Rocambole for almost 35 years. All of our fields rotate between a year with a vegetable crop and a year of cover crops. In addition to soil building and weed management, alternating between vegetables and cover crops provides another line of defence against disease. Hope this is of some help, Eric

@@EricNordell-ld6wp, thanks for the reply. I didn't plan on 6 years in between. How much do you plant? I know it's a lot!

@@bjepple82 Looks may be deceiving because we grow our garlic in widely spaced rows. We plant seven rows that are about 380’ (116 meters) long, with the cloves spaced 6-8” (15-20 cm) apart in the row for a total of roughly 4500 cloves. Garlic occupies less than 3% of our six acres (2.4 hectares) under cultivation, so it is not difficult to practice a minimum six year rotation between garlic crops. My understanding is that six years is the minimum to prevent the build up of fusarium and other soil diseases. However, planting garlic more frequently in the same spot does not necessarily mean disease will be a problem, especially if other aspects of of improving soil health are practiced.

@@EricNordell-ld6wp, you're right; it does look like a lot more with those spread out! I'm thinking I'll be doing about 2,000 cloves this year. One more question (for now 😂), what is your seeding rate for the oats? I've heard 3-4 bushel per acre and I did 4. They are just coming up but that seems like a little sparse to me. I guess I'll know for sure in a week or so.

@@bjepple82 Four bushels per acre (.4 hectare) sounds about right for broadcast seeding, although more may be needed for varieties with very large seed. A higher seeding rate may also be necessary for early weed suppression. Otherwise, 3-4 bushels per acre is plenty for producing a lot of cover crop straw when seeded two months before planting the garlic.