Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] [SANET-MG] Fw: [Market Farming] Not-till for diversified

market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Market Farming

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Road's End Farm <organic87 AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: farms AT peachlocal.com, Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] [SANET-MG] Fw: [Market Farming] Not-till for diversified
  • Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2010 13:43:34 -0500



On Dec 18, 2010, at 12:43 PM, Chrys Ostrander wrote:


I'm enjoying this discussion of no-till for diversified crops.

Your question about what to do for your first tomato planting has me thinking about cover crops that would be planted the previous late summer/early fall that are winter-killed. These include oats and buckwheat and probably others. This way you have a nice, dead, thick mulch to stick your transplants into (being in the "mid-Atlantic", I'm assuming you have freezing winter temps).


I think we've had this one before a year or two ago; but I'll pop in here to say this one again: Be prepared for a flush of weed growth when the dead cover crop starts to break down. Most systems using this technique use herbicide at this point. (Rodale has had some limited success doing this without herbicides, with a cover crop killed by crimping at exactly the right point in its growth, using exactly the right sort of crimping equipment, and only when the cover crop had established extremely good growth with very few or no weeds mixed in with the cover; otherwise they had to till to control weeds -- that's the last I looked at their info anyway, a year or two ago. There might be updates on their site.)

If you don't mind using herbicides, this isn't a problem. If you can till to control the weed flush, it's also a controllable problem, though of course then it's not a no-till system; but might nevertheless reduce your tillage significantly if it works for you to plant without tilling between the cover crop and the tomatoes.


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





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page