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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

On Jan 26, 2009, at 9:06 AM, Clansgian AT wmconnect.com wrote:

> If I were breaking new sod for a garden, I'd plow it with my horse  
> in the
> winter and again in spring.  Lacking a horse, I'd consider using a  
> rototiller but
> only to a depth of 4" or so to destroy the growing points of the  
> sod.  I
> think a tiller churns up the ground too much and destroys its  
> structure.

An old book named Plowman's Folly showed how a moldboard plow ruins  
good soil. Among its sins, it leaves a hard, pan-like subterranean  
surface through which young roots have difficulty penetrating. The  
author, Edward Faulkner, noted that to that time no one had ever  
advanced a scientific reason for plowing. That one book turned  
convention on its head and changed the way farmers prepared soil for  
planting.
> I've gardened with methods of preparing the ground all the way from a
> rear-tine counter rotating rototiller churning the living b'jesus  
> out of the soil to
> the no-till (at all) method of just adding compost to the surface.   
> My very
> clear conclusion is that a somewhat-till method is best.  Now of  
> days I turn the
> top 8" or so of each bed with a shovel, just gently turn the soil  
> over a bit,
> and then rake the top 2" of that with a rake.

James is learning. In another decade or so he will find that his  
shovel is needed not at all and the rake will suffice.

Rototilling destroys soil in much the same way as the moldboard plow.  
The spinning tines make a hard, shiny "bottom" six or eight inches  
below the soil surface which impedes roots and drainage. As for the  
churning of the soil, please consider the trillions of soil organisms  
that have established a perfectly balanced community of life in that  
top foot or so of growing soil. Now consider what those spinning tines  
do to that community. I liken it to a mile-tall monster tearing up  
cities to plant its monster plants. Which is not an altogether  
negative image.

Now go read Masanobu Fukuoka and Ruth Stout and other author's books  
and learn about the natural, no-till way of gardening. Your back, your  
soil community and your pantry will be the better for it.

Gene GeRue
www.RURALIZE.com