No-till Gardening Questions
The lesson learned is you have to ad organic matter to your no till beds and avoid stepping on them. In reality, I step on the beds occasionally. The soil doesn't compact if you don't do this too often. Every fall I top them off with mulch and during the year I keep a layer of mulch on them. In combination with staying off of my beds, they reward my with nice dark healthy soil.
What if I've been tilling?
Stop. I'd recommend marking out beds this spring and planting clover in the paths. You don't have to have raised beds to have no till beds. A lot of people are under the impression that raised beds are necessary for no-till gardening. Some of my beds are raised and some are ground level. The keys are to add organic matter to the top, stop tilling and stop walking on them. A lot of the organic matter you add to the soil when you till is lost to the air. Someone recently did an experiment where they measured the amount of carbon being gassed out of the soil after tilling in the crop residues. It equaled the amount of carbon in the crop residues that were tilled under. So all that carbon went up in gas and not into the soil as organic matter. Tilling adds a lot of oxygen to the soil, and this is not a good thing. It allows bacteria to explode in number and eat up all your organic matter.
You can either direct seed or place transplants into your beds. For direct seeding, pull out any weeds that have started and direct seed. If you're using transplants. You can mulch with newspaper and leaves to control weeds. Poke holes into the paper and plant your transplants into the ground. Replace the mulch. You're all set.
Will I be able to plant as many plants with this method?
Yes. Recommendations for row spacing are based on you walking in those rows. But your no-till garden is divided in to plant areas and walking areas. Your walking areas should be wide enough to get your garden cart into. Because you're going to have no walking in between your plants you can plant them closer together. Space your seeds as close as the minimum distance on the package in all directions. For example, lettuce should be about 6" apart. So I make rows 6" apart and then
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