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  • From: road's end farm <organic101 AT linkny.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] No-till in the organic mainstream
  • Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 11:00:36 -0500


On Jan 29, 2007, at 11:28 AM, Tradingpost wrote:
there's nothing mysterious about no-till
annual organics. Evidently the NOFA-NY crowd didn't include Eliot Coleman
from Maine, who's been doing it for years, and quite successfully as in my
original post from his book.

No, I don't think Eliot Coleman was physically present at the meeting. I think that all or most of us have read him, however. Although Four Season Harvest is primarily and explicitly aimed at the home gardener, there's a great deal in there that translates well to the smaller scale market gardener, and some to larger scale operations; and of course he has also written specifically for the market grower.

However, he isn't describing what I think of as a no-till system. I've rechecked your reference from your original post (to pp. 38-40 of Four Season Harvest) in my copy. On, p. 40, he writes that the beds are aerated once a year with a broadfork, "doing by hand what large scale organic farms do with a winged chisel plow". Page 40 also says "We spread compost on the surface and mix it in shallowly". On p. 44 he says "incorporate the green matter residues by turning over the soil shallowly with a spade" or "chop the surface clean with a hoe to prevent regrowth, rake the bed smooth". He does also discuss, as an alternative, planting into a mowed green manure that is left in place in the field. It's my actual experience, as well as that of others, that this will cause a flush of enthusiastic weeds a couple of weeks later. Coleman doesn't discuss this effect; but what he does about it is quite clear. On pp. 62-64 he discusses, at some length, the importance of controlling weeds in his system through frequent shallow hoeing.

To translate this to a farm scale: chisel plow once a year; incorporate compost and/or green manure crops shallowly (possibly with a spader); control weeds as they germinate with shallow cultivation (presumably, according to crop, growth stage of crop, and soil type, with anything from a wiggle hoe to basket weeders; there are lots of options.)

That's not what I meant by a no-till system. If what you meant was just not using a moldboard plow or similar implements, yes, there are lots of people farming organically with little or no use of actual plowing.

Are you yourself using an entirely no-till organic farm-scale system? If so, could you describe it for us?

By the way -- as with any farm or garden system, not everything that works for Coleman will work for everyone else. The Coleman collineal hoe, for instance, is very likely great if you have light sandy soil without rocks. I have one hanging in the barn; the very light blade lasted something like ten minutes before bending uselessly out of shape. There are sturdier hoes that are used in the same or similar fashion; try a good swan hoe or diamond hoe. (My favorite, the Doug Black hoe, doesn't seem to be available anywhere.)

-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale




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