Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Nigel Kirby" <naturespirit@clearwire.net>]

>From my experience, when I have just kept areas mulched, it hasn't made a
lot of difference to the soil below the mulch. A good layer of decomposed
organic matter builds up on the surface but when I scrape that away the clay
soil can be seen underneath looking pretty much as it did when I first
mulched it. Even areas I have had covered for years with leaves to make leaf
mold look like this when I scrape the composted leaves away. And I have a
lot of worms in my soil to pull the organic matter in!
What I have found to be the most effective in loosening my soil without
tillage has been planting cover crops. The roots do the loosening. I don't
even turn my cover crops in anymore. Instead I just cut them down, cutting
from the top down to cut them into smaller pieces and then cover that with
some straw. In fact, I just pulled some mulch back today so I could sow some
seeds and the cover crops had completely vanished. The soil was much softer
in these beds than in areas where I haven't cover cropped regularly.

Nige