• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Vegetable Gardening Ideas

Learn How to Vegetable Garden

  • Vegetable Growing Instructions
    • How to Grow Peas
    • How to Grow Lettuce
    • How to Grow Hot Peppers
    • How to Grow Onions
    • How to Grow Summer Squash
    • How to Grow Carrots
    • How to Grow Beans
    • How to Grow Sweet Peppers
    • How to Grow Cucumbers
    • How to Grow Tomatoes
  • 21 Easy Vegetables to Grow
  • 5 Tips For Vegetable Gardening Success
You are here: Home / No Till Gardening

No Till Gardening

What is this? Well, its gardening…without…the tilling.

By mimicking nature’s own soil-building process, no-till gardening is a great way to reduce your workload, build your soil and conserve water. The bottom line of no-till gardening is keeping the weeds down. You do this by using a very thick layer of mulch.

Your mulch can be anything from straw and grass clippings to thick layers of newspapers or cardboard. The ancestral Puebloan people of New Mexico used thick layers of gravel as mulch in their gardens. In my garden, I use the trimmings from the flax I grow in my xeric landscaping that faces the road. Twice a year I clip the flax back and pile those cuttings around and between the plants in my garden.

3034378108_ddac5c50842-2

Photo courtesy of Samuel Mann at Flickr.com.

To get started, I recommend using a permaculture method called sheet-mulching. Begin in the Fall if possible. First, mark out your garden location, wet the soil thoroughly (DO NOT dig up the weeds or turf) then cover the area with a layer of cardboard. You can use flattened cardboard boxes for this. Remove any tape or plastic first. Make sure that the layers overlap enough so that you cover the soil completely. Wet the cardboard thoroughly.

Next, lay down a thick layer of grass clippings, straw or other types of mulch and cover with a layer of compost and good top soil. Again, wet the whole area thoroughly. You’ll want your mulch layers to be one to two foot deep. Keep the area moist until the snow flies then let the whole thing sit for the winter. In the spring, you will find a nice, thick planting bed for your vegetables. If the cardboard hasn’t completely deteriorated, you can cut a little hole through it to plant your seedlings.

There are many advantages to this method. First of all, you are maintaining the soil structure and adding nutrients from the top down. You are also allowing worms and microorganisms to build and aerate the soil while building beneficial soil fungi.

This method also allows the soil to hold carbon which, in turn, keeps the carbon-dependent nutrients in the soil. All of this helps the soil retain moisture, thereby reducing the amount of water you use in the garden.

Once you’ve established your no-till garden, you will not dig it up again. Instead, when you plant your seedlings or seeds in the spring, you will disturb just enough of the garden bed to get the plant in the soil.

Primary Sidebar

Popular Posts

  • How to Grow Cucumbers
  • How to Grow Peas
  • Vegetable Growing Instructions
  • How to Grow Onions
  • How to Grow Lettuce
  • How to Grow Sweet Peppers

Vegetable Gardening

  • About
  • Growing Vegetables Indoors
  • Organic Vegetable Gardening
  • Vegetable Gardening Tips
  • Victory Gardens
  • Why Grow a Vegetable Garden?
  • Planning Your Vegetable Garden
  • Seed starting at home: getting a head start
  • Buying Starter Plants
  • Container Vegetable Gardening
  • Edible Landscapes
  • Hydroponic Gardening
  • Intensive Gardening
  • No Till Gardening
  • Perennial Crops- The Gift that Keeps on Giving
  • Permaculture Design
  • Raised Bed Gardening
  • Square Foot Gardening
  • Garden Pests and Plant Disease
  • Garden Weeds
  • Fertilizing the Garden
  • Watering the Garden
  • Vegetable Growing Instructions
    • How to Grow Tomatoes
    • How to Grow Cucumbers
    • How to Grow Sweet Peppers
    • How to Grow Beans
    • How to Grow Carrots
    • How to Grow Summer Squash
    • How to Grow Onions
    • How to Grow Hot Peppers
    • How to Grow Lettuce
    • How to Grow Peas
  • Vegetable Gardening Products
  • Got Vegetable Gardening Questions?

Categories

  • Gardening for Beginners
  • Vegetable Gardening

Copyright © 2023 · Foodie Pro Theme by Shay Bocks · Built on the Genesis Framework · Powered by WordPress