Reading through Four Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman I came across a small section that caught my attention. This is because I have never thought of it and consequently been doing the wrong thing since I was knee high to a grasshopper.
Garden Soil Structure (page 38-40 for those who want to read it)
Basically, he states that he doesn't "spend hours with spade and fork laboriously trenching and fluffing the the earth...But isn't it necessary to turn and fluff the soil to keep it loose and friable? (in case you also don't know what this means, I looked it up and it means easily crumbled')...Soil compaction studies have shown that disturbing the natural soil with a spade and fork is not beneficial. Undisturbed, the natural soil structure that characterizes the work of microorganisms, earthworms, and other soil inhabitants actually has more air spaces than disturbed soil. Applying compost to the surface of the soil aids the natural process. The surface organic matter is slowly incorporated into the topsoil by the actions of the earthworms and their coworkers...the subsoil is less fertile than the topsoil bust serves as a continuous source of raw material for soil building...Nature's system of soil layers is very successful and it is best to leave them as they are. In fact, not only should the topsoil be on top and the subsoil below, but it's also best not to mix them within themselves."
So, in essence, leave it alone and it will do best. I have always rototilled my garden every spring thinking I was helping. However, I will try this out and see if the ground does better left to its own devices. If you were to read the preceding and later parts, he does say that you weed, remove old plant parts for composting and add new compost lightly turning the top layer. Also he recommends aerating with a broad fork, but not turning the soil and mixing the layers. So, for all you lazy people looking for a reason to never cultivate the dirt and let nature do its business, it isn't quite that simple. It is also not as complex as I have made it with my additions and mixing and what not. I guess I'll have more time to spend reading good books!
I don't think I could do it! Scratching away at the dirt is so second nature...hmmm. I'll be keen to see how your experiment works :)Cheers, Jenni
ReplyDeleteI am pretty lazy about turning the soil, so I guess that's a good thing. I do usually scratch it up some in the early spring. Ours gets so compacted in parts of our yard I wonder how a plant can grow. I'll try just spreading the compost on in those areas this spring and see if I notice a difference.
ReplyDeleteThat might be true, unless one just has a large slab of pure clay under their yard. I think the earthworms appreciate the help here at my garden..
ReplyDeleteColeman seems to be pre-supposing that those privileged Americans with room to spare and gardens to cultivate live on untouched, "virginal" soils, an assumption that's either purposely disingenuous or woefully naive. The nature he's anthropomorphizing as a perfect good has nothing to do with the construction rubble that composes the bulk of most folks' top and subsoils. Sounds like woo.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't judge Eliot Coleman off of my interpretation of reading his book. It isn't his fault someone like me picked it up and thought I knew what he was talking about. This is only my thoughts about his thoughts as pertaining to my garden...... I just thought I'd defend the poor man since he doesn't know I exist and won't ever read my blog to correct my misunderstandings. ;)
ReplyDeleteHa! Well, he wouldn't be the first to unskeptically and with the best of intentions sing the praises of almighty nature, but that did strike me as a little hyperbolic. Nowt wrong with tilling and aerating now again, and it's the only real method of eliminating layering, which costs (weeping now) more plants their lives each year than I care think about. Out here in California's boonies, we're often plagued with a clay-sand-clay profile, which causes all amount of problems with respect to drainage, root rot, erosion, run-off and water management in general (in that clay promotes more lateral than horizontal water movement and the pore spaces in a clay are more numerous but tinier than that in a predominantly sandy soil, meaning that huge amounts of water will have to be applied to completely fill those spaces before the water can actually drain into the sand).
ReplyDeleteThen again, I imagine you folks living in paradise probably don't have that particular problem. I mean, you guys actually have soil flora. Earthworms! I'd kill to have those.
I read this also this past growing season. My interpretation of the article is not disturbing the roots nearest the plants. We "have" to til here or the weeds are taller than the garden plants. Then you end up "swimming" through the weeds to get to the beans, beets, carrots, etc. And yes, I have had many seasons of "swimming" through the weeds because they got away from me in July. We still had a great yield, but it didn't look very pretty.
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