I was literally just saying to myself, "I wish I could find a colder climate based, more science-heavy gardening channel," and you showed up in my feed! Subscribed so fast! I also love watching Epic Gardening but so many of Kevin's tips are off for Saskatchewan gardens.
Same.... well, minus the cold weather part haha. I'm an analyst at heart and I love knowing the why of things, the impact different variables play and actual data to back things up. Glad to find your channel!
I tilled when setting up my no-dig beds as well. same reasons, Heavy clay full of rocks and little organic matter. It really helped get the process started. That was 3 years ago and the beds are doing really well now!
I can't believe I found your channel ! So thankful for all the information you're sharing. Not easy to find actual scientists explaining everything I wanted to know Thanks!❤
I appreciate the sound science you present in a way anyone can understand. Great channel. I'm glad I stumbled upon it. I'm in the province just west of you and trying to turn my backyard into permaculture. I've made a lot of mistakes, but I think I'm at least learning what I've been doing wrong. Your channel is helping, thank you!
LOVE LOVE LOVE this. As a fanboy both of Charles Dowding, and Kevin, I was glued to this. Why there aren’t more videos like this, I don’t know. I’m sorry you’ve had “pushback”, and as you’re a new discovery for me, I’m looking forward to seeing more. Next: pH and soil testing…. Thanks again for sticking your neck out and making these videos. 🤙
Hallelujah! I am SO glad to see this post. The owner of the field behind our back fence has blessed me with the use of 10 feet of his field to expand my garden for just this year, and then everything has to come out in October. It is all well-established weeds and grasses growing in soggy, heavy clay. I've counted 4 plants so far that have what I'm guessing are rhizomes and have been trying to carefully pull them out with a garden fork. I've barely begun and gotten so tired, so I've decided to rent a tiller and wheelbarrow in amendments. It's a lot of hard work, financially taxing (building beds on top is out of the question), and I know I'll be pulling weeds all summer, but I'm ridiculously excited to have this opportunity. Thank you for not being in the never-till camp (even a local master gardener adamantly told me not to till), and thank you for all the grains of wisdom you put into just this one video. Now I'm off to search your videos for the gypsum and lime you referenced. Thanks again!
I've been enjoying Kevin's videos for a few years now, as well as TONS of other UA-camrs! There's almost always SOMETHING to be gleaned from everyone's experience. I guess in some ways, I am a bit of an exception, in terms of my gardening method: I like what I learned from my grandfather and mom. Happy to try new, but until it proves to be better than what I am currently doing, I will stick with it. For 5 years now, I have been exclusively a Fabric Grow Bag gardener. At the end of each year, I dump all my bags, into a pile, next to compost bin. I have been doing something similar at the beginning of each year. I fill my bags with this mix: 1/3 peat, 1/3 soil from last year's pile of garden bag soil, and 1/3 compost, as well as a few organic granular amendments, depending on what's growing on that bag (I adjust NPK and micro nutrients, by the veggie or herb grown). My compost pile is the garden waste, kitchen waste, clean paper and cardboard scraps, and any yard waste. Each compost pile sits for an entire year, before getting used. I've never been a "fad" or bandwagon follower. Eggshells in a pot? It takes forever to breakdown, so grind them, then, into the compost bin. Coffee grounds? Compost. Sticks, chips, twigs, leaves? Compost bin is my answer for most everything. (I believe my kids behave because they're wondering when the day comes, will they end up in the compost? They're 27 and 29.. they've survived the danger point! Kidding. Or, am I?) For centuries, farmers have sort of "solved" the problem with tried and true methods. Same for smaller gardeners. I am not opposed to new methods, but, show me the WHY. Prove it works over time. I learned gardening from my grandfather, and my mom. I have been gardening for much of my 60 year life. I try new things, and find, many of the old ways work fine.
I love that you added commentary to his video, he is realizing that 'No till' is 'Low till', and Charles Dowding is 'Low tilling' too.. because he uses his transplants.
Hi. Thank you for the information you provide. I am a backyard grower and a small yard only. Heavy clay soil is what I had to start with. My clay held soo much worms as it had grass cover. I filled about 15inches but kept the clay in my beds while I added a lot of organic material along with manures. 2 years later i took out my soils out of the beds (No idea why). And I found that a further 10 to 15 inches further that the clay was soft and fertile. So I filled up again with manures etc and returned my soil back into the beds. The life in wet clay I found is the life you want come up into the growing grownda.
As suggested in a gardening group I came over to your channel and found this video. We live on what is actually a river delta in southern Alberta, in the Badlands. Our yard is all clay. I don’t even know how the original owners (1905) got grass to grow! We lifted the grass on one side of the yard to put in a flower garden. Then I lifted the few plants and we tilled in to about 12” lots of peat and soil. Then I found creeping bell tubers in one corner so I started digging. Again. Anyway, through all of this I found the clay underneath what we tilled stays wet, but the top 2” dries out fairly quickly. We were going to top dress with about 2” of fresh soil and then shredded bark mulch on top of that to try to keep the moisture from evaporating out of that top 2”, but now I’m not sure that will be enough. The plants I put back in, as well as the new ones, are doing great (now that we also have a fence to keep the deer away). Any quick advice? I’m also going to find your book on Amazon. TIA
Thank you. I feel so much better about choosing the old fashioned system of tilling now. I have heavy clay and once i looked at who actually has productive gardens in my area I realized they all till pretty much every year. So much aimed at the homegardener is now highly focused on boxed beds of basically potting soil that its not very useful.
I till my veggie garden beds using a straight-edge spade to dig in my compost and just to break up the soil and fluff it up and make it airy. But, over the past few decades of doing this every year, my beds became too tall, looking like fresh graves. So last Spring, I installed galvanized frames, designed for raised beds, to contain my existing soil, so it would not get washed off with every rainfall and cover my concrete tile walkways with thick, slippery layer of mud. With the beds framed, my walkways stay clean and safe to walk on. This Fall, I am once again pulling out every little weed, spreading compost and digging it in. When my veggie garden is happy, that makes me happy.
I'm all sand. I have about 1-2 inches of soil on the top, but then nothing but sand underneath. I tilled in compost, coco coir, vermiculite, peat moss for my blueberry bush beds, and other garden ammendments such as lime and michorrhizal fungi. Now I will move to a no-till (low till) method for years to come. I needed to give my plants a head start. I'm already seeing so much more bee and bird activity. It's like my yard came alive. Very exciting!
I can't believe my luck or if goggle was listening to my recent conversations? I was just recently given a rotary hoe by a cousin and I too, was a believer of no till gardening to a point as I mainly have raised garden beds but since I retired, I wanted to expand my vegetable patch. I have been gardening all my life. I am about to turn 60. I used to turn over the garden for my grandparents with a garden fork when I was a kid and I never experienced any problems with bad crop yields from turning over the soil every season but they did use chemical fertilisers! For the past thirty or so years, I have been gardening using the Permaculture method and I love it. Nowadays in my half acre garden in Melbourne, Australia, I bearly tilled my soil, except in furrows where I would plant my seeds. I am an organic gardener and I love soil science. I won't feel so bad now when I use the rotary hoe 😅 Can't believe my luck stumbling upon this channel. Thank you so much 🙏
Thank you for setting the facts straight. I find the no till crowd also tends to be the 100% organic only crowd as well. Look at giant pumpkin growers as an example of tilling. They all till, soil test, and are growing pumpkins in excess of 2,500lbs outside in the US.
@@douganderson7002 actually growing giant pumpkins does apply to the vast majority of agriculture. Isn't the goal to get the best yields and have healthy soil and plants? My comment is in response to people who claim that in all cases tilling is bad and will reduce yields. And an ion of nitrogen from a synthetic fertilizer is the same as an ion of nitrogen from blood meal. Synthetics do not hard the soil or the environment if they are used properly and in small doses.
There is more than black and white in the world. No matter what the currentvtrend in the gardenbubnle is you always got to think about what makes scence for you and find your own shade if grey. Thats the best advice my teetcher ever gave me.
Jesse from no till has done tilling for some situations. Tilling, long term, regularly is not a big deal but people get purist about this stuff. Yep, low till is a better than bringing up the soil and leaving it vulnerable to erosion, changes water situation. I am kinda a Kevin fan girl!
Thank you for your science based explanation of how to manage soil. I also appreciate you defending agriculture. It doesn’t make sense for farmers to do anything too harm the soil so I’m glad you are sharing how “ big ag” techniques work and why they are good for soil conservation. Thanks so much, a fellow plant nerd and farmer in Ontario 😊
Great information! Thank you. BTW - I live in Toronto, and it's all sandy soil here. So I compost fall leaves in my backyard to add organic mater. I've been doing it for 30 years, and my soil is better than all the surrounding yards.
I find a broad fork allows me to get compost down to 14 inches with a minimal disturbance of my clay soil. The deep loosening helps the roots go deep allowing my plants to survive longer in our hot and dry Texas summer.
Thank you! I have learned so much from just the few videos of yours that I have watched. I live about 40 miles north of San Diego (where Kevin is), and my soil is exactly like his. To see your reaction to Jacque digging the hole validated every frustration I have had with my soil.
I've enjoyed so many of your videos but this was my favourite so far! It was so fascinating hearing the common reasons for "no-dig" having nuance added to them and the scientific understanding behind it. Thank you 🙏
Hey all. Maybe some people here have had this issue in Northern Nevada. We got a new house in Northern Nevada. They use the most awful 95% sand for the subgrade. They didn't even put an aggregate down. The soil has just enough silt and clay in it so that it compacts like concrete. Not to mention that our land used to be a race track. So, there's fine gravel and old asphalt in the dirt also. I believe we have the worst soil in the world here. There is no option but to till the dirt and amend it with something alive. So, what I did was dig up the dirt in sections. I piled up the dirt. In the piles, I then mixed in deer manure and compost from a local supplier... Now, you can all talk crap, but I used biochar in small amounts per wheelbarrow full... maybe a couple ounces and a whole bag of manure/compost. I don't remember the brand of biochar but it had a lion on the front and was waaaayyy over-priced. I plan on adding a healthy amount of mulch to top it all off. The soil changed completely. It accepted water, rather than run off. The sand became a viable soil. Although still sandy, it was spongy and resisted compaction. I was noticeably darker due to the additives. In my opinion, the combination of biochar and manure made the soil hold moisture and nutrients. The biochar seemed to keep the sand from leeching out nutrients and moisture. I also discovered mycelia after a couple weeks of watering with tap water which was obviously from the manure. But, this soil was soooo dead... Like old western tumble weed "dead", literally. I'm contemplating hot composting all the Russian Thistle that grows in our back yard. A literal wall of tumble weeds 20ft thick was blown by our 30+ mph winds to our back fence. This soil killed Day Lilies for fs sake. Well, almost, anyway. Anyone from Northern NV? Care to share? There is hardly any education on our crap dirt up here. Kevin literally says he lives in San Diego every video... He's like a Tesla owner with his location.
Very good video! As I have practiced "no till" for a number of years I have always acknowledged that it is more Low Till. Even though my roto tiller went away quite a few years ago tillage still happens in my garden (and in most no till gardens actually). Whenever I grow root crops tillage happens, I have parsnips that are 10 - 12" long and when I pull/dig them out I am tilling. When I dig my potatoe crop I am tilling, when I pull my Leeks out of the ground I am tilling. So even Charles Dowding "tills" the soil without actually breaking out a roto tiller! My base soil is what we call brick making clay (several brick works survived in this area for many years) so when we set up our garden 30+ years ago you bet we tilled. And added horse manure, compost, grass clippings, hay, etc. as mulches and these got worked into the soil seasonally. Now for many years we have avoided the work of tilling traditionally but we still break up the soil when we dig out our harvest. And of course because we rotate our crops around the soil gets "tilled" in different beds in a regular basis. So No Till is what we call it but it actually is Low Till or minimal soil disturbance or what ever you want to call it. As an example my sister lives 20 minutes away from me and she tills every spring. She has a great garden (mine is better of course 🤣) but she loves that tilling every year! Each to their own. Have a great day and Thanks for doing the work of the video! Mike 🇨🇦 🍁 👍
I plow every spring. Tons of leaves blended into the top 3" every fall. Tons of grass clippings on top during mowing season. The deer really seem to enjoy my garden. The plants explode every spring. My kids / grandkids spend 30 min twice a year weeding. Daikon radish are almost a pest. Life is good. I almost forgot till she brought up the seed bank in the soil. I plow and let everything sprout for 1-2 weeks then cross plow wait a week then harrow the top 2"-3" and everything dies.
In cities they routinely strip off the top soil, leaving a clay hard pan or backfill from the hole they've dug for the basement. They grade the yard with heavy equipment, lay over a patina of sod, and call it good. Then the city turns around and charges a sewer fee for the water that drains off the yard whenever it rains. Seems to me that trying to garden in this, the best you can do is break up the hard pan, integrate the chunks of clay with manure and mulch, and build your soil on top of this, continuing to use mulch, top soil, more manure, and whatever else you can find to make soil. The best you can do is continue to build soil as you garden on top of the hard pan, knowing that underneath your garden, that hard pan will remain as is, the water will drain off under your garden leeching nutrients with it, but in the meantime you can grow a few flowers or some vegetables. It takes a long time to create top soil. A hundred years or more I'm told. But plants are resilient. They're used to used to working with less than optimal conditions. We can still have a garden, but it won't be the Garden of Eden...
of course tilling will help in heavy soils, and not just once. I've seen people try no till in my area, it lasts about 2ys then they give up with poor yields. What works in one area does not always work in another
This was an amazing video that really affects my choices! I came fot the drama and stayed for the science ;) Starting so many gardens this year, this is so helpful.
I moved to a farm when I was seven years old and was introduced to gardening. Our family has raised a garden for a long time. My dads family went well over a hundred years back. They originally was from Alabama where they had a truck garden and vegetable stand /store. My mom is of German descent and my grandfather was a child of immigrants. Anyway we just have tilled the garden every year. That’s what you did to last years garden. You turned it under. Wasn’t no science involved, you just did it. I am now in my sixties and I still garden this way. I have a very large compost pile I am working on right now which will be spread over this years garden then will be tilled in to the garden when I am done.
Thanks for commenting on the scientific side of what is happening there. Being an agriculural engineer, I can agree to all Your views. Adding to the topic of re-compaction after tilling: in Europe we see it also as a result of the movement of the different sized partcles as the small ones (clay) wander downwards e.g. with rain water and stopping at a certain depth and the bigger particles (sand) not being able to float downwards with the rainwater that much. (Sorry my English). This process even gets more with time so that You have to till again after a few years. What´s also bad then is that the clay particles can in fact be very biologically active and in their correct percentage help the biological life in the upper part of the soil.
Thank you for helping bring some balance back. I found it a helpful reminder to approach most things with an open mind and consider different views and look at data as basis for your decisions.
You said 'Kevin' so many times. It felt so weird because my name is Kevin and I'm not used to hearing my name so much 😁...Really informative video. I urban garden in Winnipeg and this gave me a really good understanding of why my soil is the way it is. Thank you so much! 🙏
the microbe spike and 'die-off' is not binary. it is cyclic. so when the die-off occurs, it is just food source for more microbes. it is a pendulum swing, slowly flocculating to an equilibrium stabilization (if left alone or mildly amended
Amazing video. Something that we learn in Horticulture is that every site needs to be reviewed from history to purpose. doesn’t mean no dig will work initially. I was assessed to use a Rotavators on heavy clay soil just after rain. It was exhausting.
Very very true. You always want to review your areas history. And most urban areas are backfilled with clay. More importantly if you can get an understanding of exactly where that clay came from is never a bad idea!
THANK YOU! My raised bed soil feels so compacted this year I could hardly get my hands in past the top layer of compost and I was concerned that tilling would be the death of my soil.
Kevin is now owner of Botanical gardens in CO and he is located in CA. Charles Dowding is known for no dig, But he has LOADS of compost-Loads! Most of us do not have access to all that compost or deliveries of giant bags of compost from an area community compost. The community compost I seen here could include anything and they don’t munch it up like the huge machine in UK. I think tilling is fine If needed. The problem is when it’s over tilled and cut to powder. Tillers like Manthis are high speed and can turn sand to powder.
I loved watching as you reacted/commentated on Kevin's video. My parents always tilled and their gardens always grew! Only issue I have for my area is quack grass which is insidious, so I tread a little more carefully. Thank you for providing this valuable info. Hope to see more of these reaction/commentary style vids in the future. You do a fantastic job of them :)
I love you!! Omg 1000% true, let's respect the tool and not cancel it. No one should be shamed for how they garden, we all have different circumstances i.e. soil
It's not about shaming gardeners it's about practicing what you preach. If you call your garden no till yet you are out digging in it every year, you are not a no till gardener.
Just came across this and really appreciate the information. I am in the Hudson Highlands (lower Hudson Valley NY) and, even though we are on the side of a mountain that leads down to the Hudson River, the glacier gouged out areas that are now swampy and dumped piles of rocks everywhere. Our neighbors told us there used to be a duck pond where our driveway now is. Clay fill certainly explains what happened when they leveled out part of our property in order to build a house! The soil under the lawn is a daunting mix of clay and rocks. If you dig a hole you will end up with a big pile of rocks and a well that fills with water. Outside the fill area in amongst the rock outcroppings and at the edge of the woods there is lovely humus filled with soil life although not very deep. For my vegetable garden I am avoiding the problem by using tall raised beds. I'd like to replace much of the lawn with beds for shrubs and perennials. I was thinking of doing low raised beds for that purpose (the rocks pulled out of the soil make good stacked stone walls) but I think it would be helpful to improve the soil drainage below. Time to look into flocculation! I am already a plant nerd, may as well add soil nerd to that. I look forward to watching more of your videos. PS I grew up in Wisconsin among working dairy farms -- farmers are not stupid about the land and we would all be very hungry without large-scale agriculture.
Thank you for this video... I'm based on clay (small town, last street on the "suburb" - if you could call it that LOL) but it's also a result of being somewhat close to the river (a small "property" away). Anyway, all I've been hearing is "don't till", "you'll destroy your soil", etc... this video calmed me down and made me realize that we can do what's necessary. I already know we have between 1&2" of top soil because we put in a fire pit and it was obvious - I DO know we have earth worms but not entirely sure how deep they go - they love to hang out in the grass - that kinda tells me that they stick to the top soil BUT that's just a guess. We also planted a couple of haskaps late last fall - something tells me we'll have to re-do that but that's ok, take things as they come.
Thank you for this video. Very helpful and informative. Your channel came up on my feed last week and I have been enjoying and learning from it ever since. Watching from the UK😊 I love Kevin's channel and am so glad that he is resolving his clay soil issue the right way.
Hi I’m for Blaine lake I till every year after the frost and snow are gone …I also mini till between the rows to help control the weeds all summer long … thank you Ashley I’m vary grateful to have found you here on UA-cam
Thanks for this! My father has always tilled at the beginning of the season. Here in the Niagara region of Ontario we have lots of clay as well. We're adding grass clippings and compost trying to make it more workable for us, but we have tons of worms so something must be good!
Kevin dirt is our virgin desert soils, no rains to get organics, nothing, Caliche is also sometimes pliable, sometimes jackhammer hard, I feel for him, our streets are our "River closed" during our rains, as no soil perc, dig a hole 2 ' deep, fill with water, 8-15 hrs later, still water. Glad you understand, wish I could post pics. Tillage works for some of us, I'm living proof.
I now no tilt for 2 years, First 5 years I had 6 wheelbarrows of 7 inches rocks the first season and 5 years there was about 3 wheelbarrow full but average 2.5 inch average average size so big improvement. So now tilting for potatoes but not as much turning it into a powder as I used to do thinking it was good for the soil. Thanks for the teaching Lady
This area was a housing development and topsoil is usually bulldozer into a big pile and basements and foundation are often clay base with big stone and little stones, After completing the topsoil goes to where bulldozer pushed it and backyard sometimes not treated equally, But I have mostly straight carrots now,so trying no tilt. Thanks for the teaching Lady
I have several raised beds on my property along with a lot of trees and other large plants. As a result I get a lot of roots coming in to my beds from outside the beds. So, every few years I dig the beds out and replace the soil with the soil I dug out several years before. Not sure if there is a better solution but I am all ears.
Are potatoes an exception to no till? When I grow potatoes I dig a 10 inch deep trench and put seed potatoes in the bottom with the dug soil alongside the trench. Then I cover them with a couple inches of soil. As the potato plants grow I add more soil until the trench is full. Finally I add mulch to the soil around the potato plants.
I am always blown away after we watch your videos! Thank you! We are out in the country, so not having to worry about clay- but still very interesting video!
4 seasons in the Berkshires, MA that s heavy on clay and I till and hand shovel turn all of the inground gardens every year, sometimes twice if replanting. I guess that I should not do this, but when I add manure and compost in the fall... I hand turn that too. I need to loosen the soil as I builds with grass, straw, leaves, plant clippings, pine bark, etc... My papa always added manure and tilled. Plants seem to grow, so ... okay for now, but listening for next season Peace Oh... I will use the spade thing to loosen soil in between rows or around plants to rid weeds and help with drainage, so the water doesn't pool. It eventually sets in, but soil is compact. I don't like it.
So informative! On our rural property that we used to own, we used to till our gardens spring and fall. We always had an amazing garden. Massive production. And we had clay soil which we amended yearly. We didn't know anything about no till. Only what we learned from my parents growing up, helping with the garden. I think we must have done something right to get such an abundance of food. 🤷
You did everything right. Plants love tilled soil 😅 it’s the environment that doesn’t. And in some cases environmental bearing has zero impact on the garden choices made due to irrigation or whatever the case is and that’s fine.
Oh, and we had an abundance of rocks. Can't count how many loads of large stones we removed by hand, not including those that required machinery as well. But all in all the soil provided...rocks and veggies! 🤣
my brother sent our soil in to the uw wi to get tested and they suggested in our case to add peat moss and lime, worked wonderfully, try the same thing in a different but semi close, we own a house now and the soils simialar and boy those two years we had tomatoes galore
Thank you for defending us SK farmers! 😁 We do put up a lot of negativity. Just found your channel and have binged several very informative videos, thank you. I'd argue farmers in middle and southern USA still till farm more than we do here in SK, my family farms in Iowa and Missouri. The amount of tillage I see while there still astounds me in comparison to here in SK.
Your so amazing! I just bought a house on two acres that has no grass, no nothing, no grass, untouched since it was built 8 years ago, just weeds, and I’m trying to figure out how to incorporate a greenhouse, and fruit trees, raspberries. All that kind of stuff, but I will need to get the yard ready for it first. So this video was helpful. Thank you. If you have any suggestions I’d love to hear anything you would do in the same situation. Love from fort McMurray, AB
Hi Ashley, I of course have my own personal opinion on no till gardens and I feel that in my case of building new gardens, the soil in my yard is very poor clay dirt and needs to be rebuilt to create good soil so even though I wouldn’t till my gardens every year, I would definitely till my ground once when first creating a garden area and adding nutrients etc to build a healthy soil and then I would continue year after year with no till gardening, the science of it makes sense to me to and working with nature as much as possible and having no exposed soil and never walk on my garden beds 😊🌺🌱
Yes absolutely all great ways to manage the soil! Everyone’s situation is slightly different and I often don’t give the same recommendations to everyone. There is no xyz plan that works everywhere
Vertical till around here for farmers is the biggest thing going now. However, some of these implements are glorified disk which have a little curve to the disk. So many can be changed to an angle and it acts like a disk. But are pulled very fast over the field. So the curved disk do some compacting the soil at it's depth. Very solid built. True VT is totally straight disk where you don't change the angle. It breaks up the ground and somewhat leaves many of the previous roots in place. No compaction from the tool. Sometimes it is run again in the spring. Some farmers go right into the prior years stubble and "no till" plant. Thanks for the neat video!
@@GardeningInCanada Not many of the drill types around here but like the KUHN Excelerator, Landoll, etc. Still do planting with the split row corn-bean planters or some no till drills.
I found my way here from CP… I have absolutely LOVED your videos there! Do you work at the location the video was taken? I love that store! :) That was a very shallow tiller Kevin used. Nothing like the big tillers I’m used to seeing. I think that would be a good weed killer and top soil/compost mixer, without totally killing off all the night crawlers that stay deeper in the ground. The more shallow helpful creatures near the surface would be mashed, and that’s a bummer. However, I think that this little tiller is a good compromise when its needed to kill weeds, soften up soil that’s gotten really compacted, or combine soil and amendments. We just moved, and I want to do some big soil amendments once I totally figure out what’s going on in the garden. It’s always been deep-tilled and very well tended. I look forward to getting in there and doing some other gardening methods in there! Fun fun!!!
I till . I picked okra (15 foot tall) and tomatoes ( bush cluster baseball size ) untill Christmas. Cucumber untill Thanksgiving week. Barrow county. GA. 4th year
I snowbird in a Zone 9 while my Sask.cousin fights -30c winters. Our Arizona poor dirt is not soil, on each side of our home are undeveloped lots, I though, wow, flowers, leaf veggies, spread lots of seed, watered, they came up, whet the seed food source was gone, they tipped over, -1% organics in the dirt, so for 3 years I covered with alfalfa pellet plant waste, wood chips, tilled, planted cover crop, tilled again in Feb. Planted again, warm weather cover crop, when in BC for summer, it mostly tipped over, some regrew, from monsoon rains, in Oct/Nov started all over, now 3 years in I'm looking at 19% organics, needing Mag, Mang, Moly, micros, high on Boron, Calcium, my soil PH from, 8.1 now to 7.0, so I am going to split the plot and try to no- til vs til and plant. As logging goes, my pre retirement career, it is looked at by tree species, pine, til, or fire, as comes are heat crush released, they do til, in contactless logging, grapple yarding where no soil disturbance, in areas they do disturb soil, reason being, the tree planted need to deposit seedlings into mineral soil, and the only frozen, is not fully applicable, it happens when the haul roads aren't passable when not driving on frozen soils, other areas, are break-up bans due to road damage, I'm sure you've heard of road bans, So there is no 1 size fits all again, my family farms 10+ sections now in Sask. Air seeded now, Grampa, Uncle would do roll overs as tillage was to them the only way, now they are trying a bit of cover cropping and interplanting, depending on crop. I just saw some mushrooms after a watering, I even inject 90% sulfuric acid into the drip lines under the tree rows, trying to get salinity, PH to work with me better. My go to this week is getting another 24 cu yards of alfalfa meal into a pile to compost over the summer, and then spread onto 7500k SQ.ft lot, as it keeps the microns, fungi, etc going. My 2 bits. worth.
thank you love your videos, what confuses me is if i would take a peace of land thats basically sand /dirt.... and regenerate it doesn't it need to be deep tilled and mixed in the fungi and bacteria into the ground?? lets say for potato planting purposes...or a deep root crop.
What would cause my raised bed soil to become compacted and cracked? I add compost each Fall and top dress occasionally. After my Spring greens were pooped out this Summer, i went to plant some Fall greens and my soil was so hard it was difficult to get a shovel in and only 3 worms. 😑 I tilled about 6 inches and added a couple bags of leaf compost and hoping for the best🫰
It will break the hyphae but keep in mind a gumbo soil is so compacted it likely lacks oxygen and porosity to allow the hyphae to establish. A gumbo can benefit from light lifts to allow for some microbe establishment in overwise “dead” areas
I had to till my heavy clay the first year, to mix in some organic matter, because I lack patients. I plan on trying to disturb the soil as least as possible from now on tho.
Tiling is acceptable the 1st time only. With compost mixed or tilled in with native soil. After that, no till. Manure is high is salts, wouldn't reccomend mixing in manure. In most cases. You're spot in with this video.
I set up my no-till garden with a layer of wood chips and topped it off with a layer of rabbit manure. I planted winter squash seeds and leftover tomato plants. The tomato plants were pretty sickly, but they thrived and caught up with the others in the raised beds. This year will be my second year using this no-till. I will again add a layer of rabbit manure. I started composting two years ago, but it still isn't ready. A compost bin doesn't seem to create enough heat here in zone 4a NNY to break the stuff down very fast. Our sandy soil doesn't support night crawlers only small worms that aren't large enough to fish with. Our healthiest part of our yard is because of the rabbit manure which contains a lot of nitrogen. Also calcium from rabbit urine, That's the white chalky looking stuff you see on the wire cage bottoms. It dries almost as hard as cement. It is very dusty when broken up. I use a Weasel (brand name garden tool) on our raised beds. It has star shaped cutters that only penetrate about three inches. I enjoyed your info and agree with you...I'm not a scientist just old school. The no-till is just an experiment. Take care!
@@GardeningInCanada The sickly plants were just weak plants from the garden center. I didn't use any compost or actual mulch on the no-till area. The wood chips were just layered on the sod and the tomato plants were set just in the rabbit manure. Our raised bed are about 95% to 100% rabbit manure. Some of it is aged manure. It ages pretty fast.
Rototilling, my husband will not give it up. He is 84 and has a big tow behind tractor tiller. He will not mulch. He has in past years put in a layer of horse manure before tilling, but there is always tons of weeds and as you said a hard pan under the top few inches. I have given up trying to change him.
Thanks. I’m a beginner. I live in Walla Walla, Washington. Our garden area had compaction (new term for me). Today I tilled the area and weeded it. We have freezing weather at night now. What would you recommend next . In the spring should I put organic top soil on top of it? Put leaves over this area through the winter. Just wondering.
I have converted a thin shaley Gilpen soil , into a loamy rich with pee gravel throughout it. The local city has brought me mulched fresh leaves for 5-7 years. Literally 50-100 tons per year for 3 acres. I rolled it under and lofted throughtout my soil horizon with a 6' tiller. This lofting also allowed the bacteria, and fungus to work throughtout the winter snow season. By spring the only thing left is the stems. The converting of the shale to pee gravel was LITERALLY done by years and YEARS of brushhogging the soil. Its looks ABSOLUTELY crazy....but whats better than a loam (that compacts) , is a gravelly loam. I am potato grower , so i dont know of a "no till potato" lol. Light surface tilling is what i call "tilthing" and i do tilth to try to keep my weed seed bank minimalized.
This was a very interesting video. Perhaps the part I found most interesting is when you explained that tilling doesn't kill the micro organisms. In fact the influx of oxygen would increase their numbers. I have been hearing so much about how digging will destroy the fungi and bacteria and all the things we can't see with our eyes, but I couldn't help but wonder if this was actually true (with scientific evidence to back it up) or it was just something that gets repeated because it sounds plausible and everyone else says it.
So tillage will destroy fungal hyphae that is true. But the bacteria naturally in soil does not live vary deep in the profile. I particular oxygen hungers types
I didn’t include all of Kevin’s video! But you can check out out here ua-cam.com/video/zFFokaR8t7s/v-deo.html
What a fantastic breakdown! Really appreciate your insight as always
Anytime!
I was literally just saying to myself, "I wish I could find a colder climate based, more science-heavy gardening channel," and you showed up in my feed! Subscribed so fast! I also love watching Epic Gardening but so many of Kevin's tips are off for Saskatchewan gardens.
HAHA thats such a specific channel you are looking for. Thank goodness I fit the bill
Your google guy who evesdrops on you must have put it in your feed haha
I relate too! 😁
Same.... well, minus the cold weather part haha. I'm an analyst at heart and I love knowing the why of things, the impact different variables play and actual data to back things up. Glad to find your channel!
This is how I found this channel last year. Searched for a Canadian gardening channel. Easy find
I tilled when setting up my no-dig beds as well. same reasons, Heavy clay full of rocks and little organic matter. It really helped get the process started. That was 3 years ago and the beds are doing really well now!
Yea absolutely. Important first step
Why bother calling it no dig?
@@pyramidion5911 because I don’t dig it. That’s the point. You might need to in order to set it up, then you don’t dig. Hence, no-dig.
I can't believe I found your channel ! So thankful for all the information you're sharing. Not easy to find actual scientists explaining everything I wanted to know
Thanks!❤
Happy to help!
I love how you tackled this topic. A lot of gardening advice online lacks "context" and it's so frustrating.
Completely agree every one is different
I appreciate the sound science you present in a way anyone can understand. Great channel. I'm glad I stumbled upon it. I'm in the province just west of you and trying to turn my backyard into permaculture. I've made a lot of mistakes, but I think I'm at least learning what I've been doing wrong. Your channel is helping, thank you!
Welcome aboard!
LOVE LOVE LOVE this. As a fanboy both of Charles Dowding, and Kevin, I was glued to this. Why there aren’t more videos like this, I don’t know. I’m sorry you’ve had “pushback”, and as you’re a new discovery for me, I’m looking forward to seeing more.
Next: pH and soil testing….
Thanks again for sticking your neck out and making these videos. 🤙
Hallelujah! I am SO glad to see this post. The owner of the field behind our back fence has blessed me with the use of 10 feet of his field to expand my garden for just this year, and then everything has to come out in October. It is all well-established weeds and grasses growing in soggy, heavy clay. I've counted 4 plants so far that have what I'm guessing are rhizomes and have been trying to carefully pull them out with a garden fork. I've barely begun and gotten so tired, so I've decided to rent a tiller and wheelbarrow in amendments. It's a lot of hard work, financially taxing (building beds on top is out of the question), and I know I'll be pulling weeds all summer, but I'm ridiculously excited to have this opportunity. Thank you for not being in the never-till camp (even a local master gardener adamantly told me not to till), and thank you for all the grains of wisdom you put into just this one video. Now I'm off to search your videos for the gypsum and lime you referenced. Thanks again!
Tillage is a tool and it’s absolutely needed in some cases
I've been enjoying Kevin's videos for a few years now, as well as TONS of other UA-camrs! There's almost always SOMETHING to be gleaned from everyone's experience. I guess in some ways, I am a bit of an exception, in terms of my gardening method: I like what I learned from my grandfather and mom. Happy to try new, but until it proves to be better than what I am currently doing, I will stick with it.
For 5 years now, I have been exclusively a Fabric Grow Bag gardener. At the end of each year, I dump all my bags, into a pile, next to compost bin. I have been doing something similar at the beginning of each year. I fill my bags with this mix: 1/3 peat, 1/3 soil from last year's pile of garden bag soil, and 1/3 compost, as well as a few organic granular amendments, depending on what's growing on that bag (I adjust NPK and micro nutrients, by the veggie or herb grown). My compost pile is the garden waste, kitchen waste, clean paper and cardboard scraps, and any yard waste. Each compost pile sits for an entire year, before getting used.
I've never been a "fad" or bandwagon follower. Eggshells in a pot? It takes forever to breakdown, so grind them, then, into the compost bin. Coffee grounds? Compost. Sticks, chips, twigs, leaves? Compost bin is my answer for most everything. (I believe my kids behave because they're wondering when the day comes, will they end up in the compost? They're 27 and 29.. they've survived the danger point! Kidding. Or, am I?) For centuries, farmers have sort of "solved" the problem with tried and true methods. Same for smaller gardeners. I am not opposed to new methods, but, show me the WHY. Prove it works over time. I learned gardening from my grandfather, and my mom. I have been gardening for much of my 60 year life. I try new things, and find, many of the old ways work fine.
Clearly explaining why and why not. AND Yes farmers are given a hard time(I’m not a farmer) ❤️I’m so grateful to our 🇨🇦FARMERS!
❤️❤️ they don’t till much here in Canada that’s forsure
I love that you added commentary to his video, he is realizing that 'No till' is 'Low till', and Charles Dowding is 'Low tilling' too.. because he uses his transplants.
Years of working in agriculture has broken my brain into being very analytical haha
Hi. Thank you for the information you provide.
I am a backyard grower and a small yard only. Heavy clay soil is what I had to start with. My clay held soo much worms as it had grass cover. I filled about 15inches but kept the clay in my beds while I added a lot of organic material along with manures. 2 years later i took out my soils out of the beds (No idea why). And I found that a further 10 to 15 inches further that the clay was soft and fertile. So I filled up again with manures etc and returned my soil back into the beds. The life in wet clay I found is the life you want come up into the growing grownda.
As suggested in a gardening group I came over to your channel and found this video.
We live on what is actually a river delta in southern Alberta, in the Badlands.
Our yard is all clay. I don’t even know how the original owners (1905) got grass to grow! We lifted the grass on one side of the yard to put in a flower garden. Then I lifted the few plants and we tilled in to about 12” lots of peat and soil. Then I found creeping bell tubers in one corner so I started digging. Again.
Anyway, through all of this I found the clay underneath what we tilled stays wet, but the top 2” dries out fairly quickly. We were going to top dress with about 2” of fresh soil and then shredded bark mulch on top of that to try to keep the moisture from evaporating out of that top 2”, but now I’m not sure that will be enough. The plants I put back in, as well as the new ones, are doing great (now that we also have a fence to keep the deer away).
Any quick advice? I’m also going to find your book on Amazon.
TIA
Thank you. I feel so much better about choosing the old fashioned system of tilling now. I have heavy clay and once i looked at who actually has productive gardens in my area I realized they all till pretty much every year. So much aimed at the homegardener is now highly focused on boxed beds of basically potting soil that its not very useful.
LOVED this video. You are such a baller! I'm not even a farmer and the amount of cool stuff I learned from this is crazy.
I till my veggie garden beds using a straight-edge spade to dig in my compost and just to break up the soil and fluff it up and make it airy. But, over the past few decades of doing this every year, my beds became too tall, looking like fresh graves. So last Spring, I installed galvanized frames, designed for raised beds, to contain my existing soil, so it would not get washed off with every rainfall and cover my concrete tile walkways with thick, slippery layer of mud. With the beds framed, my walkways stay clean and safe to walk on. This Fall, I am once again pulling out every little weed, spreading compost and digging it in. When my veggie garden is happy, that makes me happy.
I'm all sand. I have about 1-2 inches of soil on the top, but then nothing but sand underneath. I tilled in compost, coco coir, vermiculite, peat moss for my blueberry bush beds, and other garden ammendments such as lime and michorrhizal fungi. Now I will move to a no-till (low till) method for years to come. I needed to give my plants a head start. I'm already seeing so much more bee and bird activity. It's like my yard came alive. Very exciting!
I can't believe my luck or if goggle was listening to my recent conversations?
I was just recently given a rotary hoe by a cousin and I too, was a believer of no till gardening to a point as I mainly have raised garden beds but since I retired, I wanted to expand my vegetable patch.
I have been gardening all my life. I am about to turn 60. I used to turn over the garden for my grandparents with a garden fork when I was a kid and I never experienced any problems with bad crop yields from turning over the soil every season but they did use chemical fertilisers!
For the past thirty or so years, I have been gardening using the Permaculture method and I love it.
Nowadays in my half acre garden in Melbourne, Australia, I bearly tilled my soil, except in furrows where I would plant my seeds. I am an organic gardener and I love soil science.
I won't feel so bad now when I use the rotary hoe 😅
Can't believe my luck stumbling upon this channel.
Thank you so much 🙏
Thank you for setting the facts straight. I find the no till crowd also tends to be the 100% organic only crowd as well. Look at giant pumpkin growers as an example of tilling. They all till, soil test, and are growing pumpkins in excess of 2,500lbs outside in the US.
I am envious of their pumpkins haha
@@douganderson7002 actually growing giant pumpkins does apply to the vast majority of agriculture. Isn't the goal to get the best yields and have healthy soil and plants? My comment is in response to people who claim that in all cases tilling is bad and will reduce yields. And an ion of nitrogen from a synthetic fertilizer is the same as an ion of nitrogen from blood meal. Synthetics do not hard the soil or the environment if they are used properly and in small doses.
There is more than black and white in the world. No matter what the currentvtrend in the gardenbubnle is you always got to think about what makes scence for you and find your own shade if grey. Thats the best advice my teetcher ever gave me.
Jesse from no till has done tilling for some situations. Tilling, long term, regularly is not a big deal but people get purist about this stuff. Yep, low till is a better than bringing up the soil and leaving it vulnerable to erosion, changes water situation. I am kinda a Kevin fan girl!
Thank you for your science based explanation of how to manage soil. I also appreciate you defending agriculture. It doesn’t make sense for farmers to do anything too harm the soil so I’m glad you are sharing how “ big ag” techniques work and why they are good for soil conservation. Thanks so much, a fellow plant nerd and farmer in Ontario 😊
Great information! Thank you. BTW - I live in Toronto, and it's all sandy soil here. So I compost fall leaves in my backyard to add organic mater. I've been doing it for 30 years, and my soil is better than all the surrounding yards.
Wonderful!
I find a broad fork allows me to get compost down to 14 inches with a minimal disturbance of my clay soil. The deep loosening helps the roots go deep allowing my plants to survive longer in our hot and dry Texas summer.
I forgot to add that most years I don't disturb the soil.
Such a brilliant analysis! I feel like a lot of the “no till” die hards need to see it. I’m going to go look up flocculation now 😊 Thank you
Haha down the worm hole you go!
Improvise, Adapt, Overcome! Gardening rules for a changing world.
Absolutely!
Thank you! I have learned so much from just the few videos of yours that I have watched. I live about 40 miles north of San Diego (where Kevin is), and my soil is exactly like his. To see your reaction to Jacque digging the hole validated every frustration I have had with my soil.
I've enjoyed so many of your videos but this was my favourite so far! It was so fascinating hearing the common reasons for "no-dig" having nuance added to them and the scientific understanding behind it. Thank you 🙏
Hey all. Maybe some people here have had this issue in Northern Nevada.
We got a new house in Northern Nevada. They use the most awful 95% sand for the subgrade. They didn't even put an aggregate down. The soil has just enough silt and clay in it so that it compacts like concrete. Not to mention that our land used to be a race track. So, there's fine gravel and old asphalt in the dirt also. I believe we have the worst soil in the world here. There is no option but to till the dirt and amend it with something alive.
So, what I did was dig up the dirt in sections. I piled up the dirt. In the piles, I then mixed in deer manure and compost from a local supplier... Now, you can all talk crap, but I used biochar in small amounts per wheelbarrow full... maybe a couple ounces and a whole bag of manure/compost. I don't remember the brand of biochar but it had a lion on the front and was waaaayyy over-priced. I plan on adding a healthy amount of mulch to top it all off.
The soil changed completely. It accepted water, rather than run off. The sand became a viable soil. Although still sandy, it was spongy and resisted compaction. I was noticeably darker due to the additives.
In my opinion, the combination of biochar and manure made the soil hold moisture and nutrients. The biochar seemed to keep the sand from leeching out nutrients and moisture. I also discovered mycelia after a couple weeks of watering with tap water which was obviously from the manure. But, this soil was soooo dead... Like old western tumble weed "dead", literally. I'm contemplating hot composting all the Russian Thistle that grows in our back yard. A literal wall of tumble weeds 20ft thick was blown by our 30+ mph winds to our back fence.
This soil killed Day Lilies for fs sake. Well, almost, anyway.
Anyone from Northern NV? Care to share? There is hardly any education on our crap dirt up here.
Kevin literally says he lives in San Diego every video... He's like a Tesla owner with his location.
Very good video!
As I have practiced "no till" for a number of years I have always acknowledged that it is more Low Till.
Even though my roto tiller went away quite a few years ago tillage still happens in my garden (and in most no till gardens actually).
Whenever I grow root crops tillage happens, I have parsnips that are 10 - 12" long and when I pull/dig them out I am tilling. When I dig my potatoe crop I am tilling, when I pull my Leeks out of the ground I am tilling. So even Charles Dowding "tills" the soil without actually breaking out a roto tiller!
My base soil is what we call brick making clay (several brick works survived in this area for many years) so when we set up our garden 30+ years ago you bet we tilled. And added horse manure, compost, grass clippings, hay, etc. as mulches and these got worked into the soil seasonally. Now for many years we have avoided the work of tilling traditionally but we still break up the soil when we dig out our harvest. And of course because we rotate our crops around the soil gets "tilled" in different beds in a regular basis.
So No Till is what we call it but it actually is Low Till or minimal soil disturbance or what ever you want to call it. As an example my sister lives 20 minutes away from me and she tills every spring. She has a great garden (mine is better of course 🤣) but she loves that tilling every year! Each to their own.
Have a great day and Thanks for doing the work of the video!
Mike 🇨🇦 🍁 👍
WONDERFUL COMMENT! Thank you for this. Very nice and thorough.
I plow every spring.
Tons of leaves blended into the top 3" every fall.
Tons of grass clippings on top during mowing season.
The deer really seem to enjoy my garden.
The plants explode every spring.
My kids / grandkids spend 30 min twice a year weeding.
Daikon radish are almost a pest.
Life is good.
I almost forgot till she brought up the seed bank in the soil.
I plow and let everything sprout for 1-2 weeks then cross plow wait a week then harrow the top 2"-3" and everything dies.
In cities they routinely strip off the top soil, leaving a clay hard pan or backfill from the hole they've dug for the basement. They grade the yard with heavy equipment, lay over a patina of sod, and call it good. Then the city turns around and charges a sewer fee for the water that drains off the yard whenever it rains. Seems to me that trying to garden in this, the best you can do is break up the hard pan, integrate the chunks of clay with manure and mulch, and build your soil on top of this, continuing to use mulch, top soil, more manure, and whatever else you can find to make soil. The best you can do is continue to build soil as you garden on top of the hard pan, knowing that underneath your garden, that hard pan will remain as is, the water will drain off under your garden leeching nutrients with it, but in the meantime you can grow a few flowers or some vegetables. It takes a long time to create top soil. A hundred years or more I'm told. But plants are resilient. They're used to used to working with less than optimal conditions. We can still have a garden, but it won't be the Garden of Eden...
Hi Ashley, just wanted to tell you that I just got excited when I saw you had a new video, I always look forward to them!
Woohoo. I love when you guys wait around for the vids to release!
of course tilling will help in heavy soils, and not just once. I've seen people try no till in my area, it lasts about 2ys then they give up with poor yields. What works in one area does not always work in another
This was an amazing video that really affects my choices! I came fot the drama and stayed for the science ;) Starting so many gardens this year, this is so helpful.
Hahah! Love that 😂
I moved to a farm when I was seven years old and was introduced to gardening. Our family has raised a garden for a long time. My dads family went well over a hundred years back. They originally was from Alabama where they had a truck garden and vegetable stand /store. My mom is of German descent and my grandfather was a child of immigrants. Anyway we just have tilled the garden every year. That’s what you did to last years garden. You turned it under. Wasn’t no science involved, you just did it. I am now in my sixties and I still garden this way. I have a very large compost pile I am working on right now which will be spread over this years garden then will be tilled in to the garden when I am done.
Thanks for commenting on the scientific side of what is happening there. Being an agriculural engineer, I can agree to all Your views. Adding to the topic of re-compaction after tilling: in Europe we see it also as a result of the movement of the different sized partcles as the small ones (clay) wander downwards e.g. with rain water and stopping at a certain depth and the bigger particles (sand) not being able to float downwards with the rainwater that much. (Sorry my English). This process even gets more with time so that You have to till again after a few years. What´s also bad then is that the clay particles can in fact be very biologically active and in their correct percentage help the biological life in the upper part of the soil.
Thank you for this. I was perplexed by the cardinal no till attitude because I’m basically tilling every time I dig up a root crop like garlic
Yes hahah I like that description
Thank you for helping bring some balance back. I found it a helpful reminder to approach most things with an open mind and consider different views and look at data as basis for your decisions.
Glad it was helpful!
You said 'Kevin' so many times. It felt so weird because my name is Kevin and I'm not used to hearing my name so much 😁...Really informative video. I urban garden in Winnipeg and this gave me a really good understanding of why my soil is the way it is. Thank you so much! 🙏
HAAHAH sorry! ❤️
the microbe spike and 'die-off' is not binary. it is cyclic. so when the die-off occurs, it is just food source for more microbes. it is a pendulum swing, slowly flocculating to an equilibrium stabilization (if left alone or mildly amended
Amazing video. Something that we learn in Horticulture is that every site needs to be reviewed from history to purpose. doesn’t mean no dig will work initially. I was assessed to use a Rotavators on heavy clay soil just after rain. It was exhausting.
Very very true. You always want to review your areas history. And most urban areas are backfilled with clay. More importantly if you can get an understanding of exactly where that clay came from is never a bad idea!
THANK YOU! My raised bed soil feels so compacted this year I could hardly get my hands in past the top layer of compost and I was concerned that tilling would be the death of my soil.
gosh no. till away!
Kevin is now owner of Botanical gardens in CO and he is located in CA. Charles Dowding is known for no dig, But he has LOADS of compost-Loads! Most of us do not have access to all that compost or deliveries of giant bags of compost from an area community compost. The community compost I seen here could include anything and they don’t munch it up like the huge machine in UK.
I think tilling is fine If needed. The problem is when it’s over tilled and cut to powder. Tillers like Manthis are high speed and can turn sand to powder.
Best gardening video I’ve watched all year on UA-cam 🙌🏻🙌🏻
Woohoo! Love that
Learned that tilling first then adding compost is better ... if that is how i understand it...
I loved watching as you reacted/commentated on Kevin's video. My parents always tilled and their gardens always grew! Only issue I have for my area is quack grass which is insidious, so I tread a little more carefully. Thank you for providing this valuable info. Hope to see more of these reaction/commentary style vids in the future. You do a fantastic job of them :)
Thank you!!
I love you!! Omg 1000% true, let's respect the tool and not cancel it. No one should be shamed for how they garden, we all have different circumstances i.e. soil
Totally agree! just plant the damn garden!
It's not about shaming gardeners it's about practicing what you preach. If you call your garden no till yet you are out digging in it every year, you are not a no till gardener.
Just came across this and really appreciate the information. I am in the Hudson Highlands (lower Hudson Valley NY) and, even though we are on the side of a mountain that leads down to the Hudson River, the glacier gouged out areas that are now swampy and dumped piles of rocks everywhere. Our neighbors told us there used to be a duck pond where our driveway now is. Clay fill certainly explains what happened when they leveled out part of our property in order to build a house! The soil under the lawn is a daunting mix of clay and rocks. If you dig a hole you will end up with a big pile of rocks and a well that fills with water. Outside the fill area in amongst the rock outcroppings and at the edge of the woods there is lovely humus filled with soil life although not very deep. For my vegetable garden I am avoiding the problem by using tall raised beds. I'd like to replace much of the lawn with beds for shrubs and perennials. I was thinking of doing low raised beds for that purpose (the rocks pulled out of the soil make good stacked stone walls) but I think it would be helpful to improve the soil drainage below. Time to look into flocculation! I am already a plant nerd, may as well add soil nerd to that. I look forward to watching more of your videos. PS I grew up in Wisconsin among working dairy farms -- farmers are not stupid about the land and we would all be very hungry without large-scale agriculture.
Thank you for this video... I'm based on clay (small town, last street on the "suburb" - if you could call it that LOL) but it's also a result of being somewhat close to the river (a small "property" away). Anyway, all I've been hearing is "don't till", "you'll destroy your soil", etc... this video calmed me down and made me realize that we can do what's necessary. I already know we have between 1&2" of top soil because we put in a fire pit and it was obvious - I DO know we have earth worms but not entirely sure how deep they go - they love to hang out in the grass - that kinda tells me that they stick to the top soil BUT that's just a guess. We also planted a couple of haskaps late last fall - something tells me we'll have to re-do that but that's ok, take things as they come.
Howdy from Texas. Great info! Just ordered your paperback planner from Amazon and I’m stoked 😀
Woohoo! That’s awesome. You’re going to love it!
Thank you for this video. Very helpful and informative. Your channel came up on my feed last week and I have been enjoying and learning from it ever since. Watching from the UK😊 I love Kevin's channel and am so glad that he is resolving his clay soil issue the right way.
You are so welcome!
The was awesome! Finally someone doing informed Sask-relevant videos. 💚💚
Haha love the Sask relevant ❤️
As always, a great informative video qualifying what makes sense from a perspective of logic, science and work experience. Thanks loads!
Absolutely agree with that! And the results the first year are shocking 😂
Hi I’m for Blaine lake I till every year after the frost and snow are gone …I also mini till between the rows to help control the weeds all summer long … thank you Ashley I’m vary grateful to have found you here on UA-cam
That’s awesome!
Thanks for this! My father has always tilled at the beginning of the season. Here in the Niagara region of Ontario we have lots of clay as well. We're adding grass clippings and compost trying to make it more workable for us, but we have tons of worms so something must be good!
Heavy clay 🥲 always fun
Kevin dirt is our virgin desert soils, no rains to get organics, nothing, Caliche is also sometimes pliable, sometimes jackhammer hard, I feel for him, our streets are our "River closed" during our rains, as no soil perc, dig a hole 2 ' deep, fill with water, 8-15 hrs later, still water. Glad you understand, wish I could post pics. Tillage works for some of us, I'm living proof.
I now no tilt for 2 years, First 5 years I had 6 wheelbarrows of 7 inches rocks the first season and 5 years there was about 3 wheelbarrow full but average 2.5 inch average average size so big improvement. So now tilting for potatoes but not as much turning it into a powder as I used to do thinking it was good for the soil.
Thanks for the teaching Lady
That’s a crazy amount of rock!
This area was a housing development and topsoil is usually bulldozer into a big pile and basements and foundation are often clay base with big stone and little stones, After completing the topsoil goes to where bulldozer pushed it and backyard sometimes not treated equally, But I have mostly straight carrots now,so trying no tilt.
Thanks for the teaching Lady
🤠 Dang! All of your videos have great info.... Thank you 😊
It’s great to watch your channel grow..
I like to till cover crops under. That's pretty much all I need to do.
I have several raised beds on my property along with a lot of trees and other large plants. As a result I get a lot of roots coming in to my beds from outside the beds. So, every few years I dig the beds out and replace the soil with the soil I dug out several years before. Not sure if there is a better solution but I am all ears.
Are potatoes an exception to no till? When I grow potatoes I dig a 10 inch deep trench and put seed potatoes in the bottom with the dug soil alongside the trench. Then I cover them with a couple inches of soil. As the potato plants grow I add more soil until the trench is full. Finally I add mulch to the soil around the potato plants.
I am always blown away after we watch your videos! Thank you! We are out in the country, so not having to worry about clay- but still very interesting video!
So nice of you
This crossover 😍
Haha ❤️ glad you enjoyed
Just found your channel, loving it. I just watched Kevins video so this was timely. New subscriber to your channel. Thank you for your info.
Hello! Welcome to the channel
4 seasons in the Berkshires, MA that s heavy on clay and I till and hand shovel turn all of the inground gardens every year, sometimes twice if replanting. I guess that I should not do this, but when I add manure and compost in the fall... I hand turn that too. I need to loosen the soil as I builds with grass, straw, leaves, plant clippings, pine bark, etc... My papa always added manure and tilled. Plants seem to grow, so ... okay for now, but listening for next season Peace Oh... I will use the spade thing to loosen soil in between rows or around plants to rid weeds and help with drainage, so the water doesn't pool. It eventually sets in, but soil is compact. I don't like it.
So informative! On our rural property that we used to own, we used to till our gardens spring and fall. We always had an amazing garden. Massive production. And we had clay soil which we amended yearly. We didn't know anything about no till. Only what we learned from my parents growing up, helping with the garden. I think we must have done something right to get such an abundance of food. 🤷
You did everything right. Plants love tilled soil 😅 it’s the environment that doesn’t. And in some cases environmental bearing has zero impact on the garden choices made due to irrigation or whatever the case is and that’s fine.
Oh, and we had an abundance of rocks. Can't count how many loads of large stones we removed by hand, not including those that required machinery as well. But all in all the soil provided...rocks and veggies! 🤣
Oh no 🥺 sounds like glacial till landscape! Where are you located?
Southeastern Manitoba. Our property at the time was just south of Steinbach.
Makes total sense!
my brother sent our soil in to the uw wi to get tested and they suggested in our case to add peat moss and lime, worked wonderfully, try the same thing in a different but semi close, we own a house now and the soils simialar and boy those two years we had tomatoes galore
That is awesome!
Thank you for defending us SK farmers! 😁 We do put up a lot of negativity.
Just found your channel and have binged several very informative videos, thank you.
I'd argue farmers in middle and southern USA still till farm more than we do here in SK, my family farms in Iowa and Missouri. The amount of tillage I see while there still astounds me in comparison to here in SK.
Your so amazing! I just bought a house on two acres that has no grass, no nothing, no grass, untouched since it was built 8 years ago, just weeds, and I’m trying to figure out how to incorporate a greenhouse, and fruit trees, raspberries. All that kind of stuff, but I will need to get the yard ready for it first. So this video was helpful. Thank you. If you have any suggestions I’d love to hear anything you would do in the same situation. Love from fort McMurray, AB
Nice! That’s an awesome purchase congrats.
Hi Ashley, I of course have my own personal opinion on no till gardens and I feel that in my case of building new gardens, the soil in my yard is very poor clay dirt and needs to be rebuilt to create good soil so even though I wouldn’t till my gardens every year, I would definitely till my ground once when first creating a garden area and adding nutrients etc to build a healthy soil and then I would continue year after year with no till gardening, the science of it makes sense to me to and working with nature as much as possible and having no exposed soil and never walk on my garden beds 😊🌺🌱
Yes absolutely all great ways to manage the soil! Everyone’s situation is slightly different and I often don’t give the same recommendations to everyone. There is no xyz plan that works everywhere
Vertical till around here for farmers is the biggest thing going now. However, some of these implements are glorified disk which have a little curve to the disk. So many can be changed to an angle and it acts like a disk. But are pulled very fast over the field. So the curved disk do some compacting the soil at it's depth. Very solid built. True VT is totally straight disk where you don't change the angle. It breaks up the ground and somewhat leaves many of the previous roots in place. No compaction from the tool. Sometimes it is run again in the spring. Some farmers go right into the prior years stubble and "no till" plant. Thanks for the neat video!
Are you talking about the Salford drills? With the vibrating plates?
@@GardeningInCanada Not many of the drill types around here but like the KUHN Excelerator, Landoll, etc. Still do planting with the split row corn-bean planters or some no till drills.
Hi ! new follower here :D
I'm on the other side, in South Africa! Hoping we will find some *common ground* hehehe
Interesting video thanks !
I found my way here from CP… I have absolutely LOVED your videos there! Do you work at the location the video was taken? I love that store! :)
That was a very shallow tiller Kevin used. Nothing like the big tillers I’m used to seeing. I think that would be a good weed killer and top soil/compost mixer, without totally killing off all the night crawlers that stay deeper in the ground. The more shallow helpful creatures near the surface would be mashed, and that’s a bummer. However, I think that this little tiller is a good compromise when its needed to kill weeds, soften up soil that’s gotten really compacted, or combine soil and amendments. We just moved, and I want to do some big soil amendments once I totally figure out what’s going on in the garden. It’s always been deep-tilled and very well tended. I look forward to getting in there and doing some other gardening methods in there! Fun fun!!!
Hey! Glad you enjoyed. That’s Nate’s office actually
@@GardeningInCanada I’m pretty sure I saw Dutch Growers?!
Oh yes! That’s from the first and second video that’s a local greenhouse
I would love to hear more on fluctuation, what it is and how it works. Great video!
You got it!
Amazing post!!!! Great information! TYVM!!! Go Bills ❤
Glad you enjoyed it
I till . I picked okra (15 foot tall) and tomatoes ( bush cluster baseball size ) untill Christmas. Cucumber untill Thanksgiving week. Barrow county. GA. 4th year
I give my raised bed a once a year till. Good way to add more air into the soil and break up clumps.
I like the grow tent in the background, I have the 4x8
I have 3! I’m not sure which is my favourite yet 2 x 4 is nice
now im growing in buckets because of mobility issues, seems to be working decently but im a noob woth containers lol we will see in the fall
it will turn out!
Tilling can kill of bugs and their eggs. It can loosen soil for aeration.
You can till in organic matter.
It can also get rid of some weeds.
I snowbird in a Zone 9 while my Sask.cousin fights -30c winters.
Our Arizona poor dirt is not soil, on each side of our home are undeveloped lots, I though, wow, flowers, leaf veggies, spread lots of seed, watered, they came up, whet the seed food source was gone, they tipped over, -1% organics in the dirt, so for 3 years I covered with alfalfa pellet plant waste, wood chips, tilled, planted cover crop, tilled again in Feb. Planted again, warm weather cover crop, when in BC for summer, it mostly tipped over, some regrew, from monsoon rains, in Oct/Nov started all over, now 3 years in I'm looking at 19% organics, needing Mag, Mang, Moly, micros, high on Boron, Calcium, my soil PH from, 8.1 now to 7.0, so I am going to split the plot and try to no- til vs til and plant.
As logging goes, my pre retirement career, it is looked at by tree species, pine, til, or fire, as comes are heat crush released, they do til, in contactless logging, grapple yarding where no soil disturbance, in areas they do disturb soil, reason being, the tree planted need to deposit seedlings into mineral soil, and the only frozen, is not fully applicable, it happens when the haul roads aren't passable when not driving on frozen soils, other areas, are break-up bans due to road damage, I'm sure you've heard of road bans,
So there is no 1 size fits all again, my family farms 10+ sections now in Sask. Air seeded now, Grampa, Uncle would do roll overs as tillage was to them the only way, now they are trying a bit of cover cropping and interplanting, depending on crop.
I just saw some mushrooms after a watering, I even inject 90% sulfuric acid into the drip lines under the tree rows, trying to get salinity, PH to work with me better.
My go to this week is getting another 24 cu yards of alfalfa meal into a pile to compost over the summer, and then spread onto 7500k SQ.ft lot, as it keeps the microns, fungi, etc going.
My 2 bits. worth.
I live in south Georgia. Im a farmer and logger. We never see freezing temperatures until winter and rarely that
thank you love your videos, what confuses me is if i would take a peace of land thats basically sand /dirt.... and regenerate it doesn't it need to be deep tilled and mixed in the fungi and bacteria into the ground?? lets say for potato planting purposes...or a deep root crop.
What's your thoughts on broad forking instead of tilling? Seems a lot of the "No-till" farmers broadfork their beds for the first few years at least.
I think Charles Dowding can do the no till because they have better soil in their area.
What would cause my raised bed soil to become compacted and cracked? I add compost each Fall and top dress occasionally. After my Spring greens were pooped out this Summer, i went to plant some Fall greens and my soil was so hard it was difficult to get a shovel in and only 3 worms. 😑 I tilled about 6 inches and added a couple bags of leaf compost and hoping for the best🫰
What do you know about Broad Forks & how they effect soil / mycelium? I live in a river valley with gumbo so thick & hard it will hold water for days.
It will break the hyphae but keep in mind a gumbo soil is so compacted it likely lacks oxygen and porosity to allow the hyphae to establish. A gumbo can benefit from light lifts to allow for some microbe establishment in overwise “dead” areas
I had to till my heavy clay the first year, to mix in some organic matter, because I lack patients. I plan on trying to disturb the soil as least as possible from now on tho.
Absolutely fair and totally valid
Tiling is acceptable the 1st time only. With compost mixed or tilled in with native soil. After that, no till. Manure is high is salts, wouldn't reccomend mixing in manure. In most cases.
You're spot in with this video.
Manure has sulphur haha thats why i recommend it. Onions, garlic, leeks. cabbage. brussel sprouts all LOVE sulphur
I set up my no-till garden with a layer of wood chips and topped it off with a layer of rabbit manure. I planted winter squash seeds and leftover tomato plants. The tomato plants were pretty sickly, but they thrived and caught up with the others in the raised beds. This year will be my second year using this no-till. I will again add a layer of rabbit manure. I started composting two years ago, but it still isn't ready. A compost bin doesn't seem to create enough heat here in zone 4a NNY to break the stuff down very fast. Our sandy soil doesn't support night crawlers only small worms that aren't large enough to fish with. Our healthiest part of our yard is because of the rabbit manure which contains a lot of nitrogen. Also calcium from rabbit urine, That's the white chalky looking stuff you see on the wire cage bottoms. It dries almost as hard as cement. It is very dusty when broken up. I use a Weasel (brand name garden tool) on our raised beds. It has star shaped cutters that only penetrate about three inches. I enjoyed your info and agree with you...I'm not a scientist just old school. The no-till is just an experiment. Take care!
The sickly plants maybe from the mulch or unfinished compost.
@@GardeningInCanada The sickly plants were just weak plants from the garden center. I didn't use any compost or actual mulch on the no-till area. The wood chips were just layered on the sod and the tomato plants were set just in the rabbit manure. Our raised bed are about 95% to 100% rabbit manure. Some of it is aged manure. It ages pretty fast.
Rototilling, my husband will not give it up. He is 84 and has a big tow behind tractor tiller. He will not mulch. He has in past years put in a layer of horse manure before tilling, but there is always tons of weeds and as you said a hard pan under the top few inches. I have given up trying to change him.
Thanks. I’m a beginner. I live in Walla Walla, Washington. Our garden area had compaction (new term for me). Today I tilled the area and weeded it. We have freezing weather at night now. What would you recommend next . In the spring should I put organic top soil on top of it? Put leaves over this area through the winter. Just wondering.
I live in a city and my soil is very sandy and hydrophobic.
I have converted a thin shaley Gilpen soil , into a loamy rich with pee gravel throughout it. The local city has brought me mulched fresh leaves for 5-7 years. Literally 50-100 tons per year for 3 acres. I rolled it under and lofted throughtout my soil horizon with a 6' tiller. This lofting also allowed the bacteria, and fungus to work throughtout the winter snow season. By spring the only thing left is the stems. The converting of the shale to pee gravel was LITERALLY done by years and YEARS of brushhogging the soil. Its looks ABSOLUTELY crazy....but whats better than a loam (that compacts) , is a gravelly loam. I am potato grower , so i dont know of a "no till potato" lol. Light surface tilling is what i call "tilthing" and i do tilth to try to keep my weed seed bank minimalized.
We dig and fill in the hole with compost and wood and any animal bones etc then plant in there for years before digging in there again
nice! so basically a trench compost
@@GardeningInCanada yes we dig down to the sand layer so we can look at what we already have too
This was a very interesting video. Perhaps the part I found most interesting is when you explained that tilling doesn't kill the micro organisms. In fact the influx of oxygen would increase their numbers.
I have been hearing so much about how digging will destroy the fungi and bacteria and all the things we can't see with our eyes, but I couldn't help but wonder if this was actually true (with scientific evidence to back it up) or it was just something that gets repeated because it sounds plausible and everyone else says it.
So tillage will destroy fungal hyphae that is true. But the bacteria naturally in soil does not live vary deep in the profile. I particular oxygen hungers types
How have I not ran across you on UA-cam… and how do I get you to come look at my farm and garden. We are solid Bentonite clay here.
Well I’m glad you finally did!!! ❤️ and that’s a legitimate nightmare my goodness. Where are you located
@@GardeningInCanada we farm about 20 min outside of the Drumheller Valley :)
Oh nice! If I’m even in the area I’ll let you know.
@@GardeningInCanada deal! I’ll put you up in my trailer at a campground. You can make a holiday of it. 😊