My experience in every country I have taught in, including the US, is that when I am told no-till failed, it was the fault of the farmer or gardener, not the method. I did it for three years in a community garden until it closed. I have done it at home for several years.
Here are some websites, etc. The principles are the same whether gardening or farming. Size is the only difference. Someone said it is hard to find info on no-till. You know why? Nobody can make any money off of it. I heard an archbishop said in a meeting that when the majority of the farmers in an area go no-till, the farm dealers leave. They have no more business. All the farmer needs is a small tractor and a no-till planter. Do not buy anything, from anybody for the garden or farm. You can have as good yields as anyone with organic, no-till. Fukaoka Farm, Japan, has been no-till [rice, small grains, vegetables] for 70 years. An Indian farmer has been no-till [vegetables] for 5 years. A Malawi farmer has been no-till [vegetables] on permanent beds for 25 years. A Honduras farmer has been no-till [vegetables & fruit] on permanent beds on the contour (730 slope] for 8 years. Ruth Stout [USA] had a no-till garden for 30 years and 7,000 people visited her garden. rolf-derpsch.com <http://www.rolf-derpsch.com/> [English, Espaqol, Deutsche], http://larryhaftl.com/ffo/farchive.html *Fukuoka natural farming [English, frangaise, italiana, deutsche, Portuguese, espaqol], http://mulch.mannlib.cornell.edu/cclists.html#mulch, [English, Espaqol, F rangaise], newfarm.org/depts/notill/index.shtml; cedarmeadowfarm.com<http://www.cedarmeadows.com/> has land that has not been plowed for thirty years. [I have been there] * Read Ruth Stout's two little books and see the video. Weeds can be a problem but by the end of the second crop, they go down fast. Remember that when you have weeds and till to kill them, you are bringing up to the surface a new crop of weed seed to sprout. Also, as the soil improves, the past weeds you had will stop coming up and a few new ones will appear until there are almost no weeds. We had seven beds, 6 ft. x 70 feet. By the end of the second year, I could pull every weed in the beds and paths in 15 minutes per week. Every garden around us and their paths was full of blue weed, one of the worst in the USA. They had to hoe them every week. Every square foot of their garden. Ken Hargesheimer If I could just present only one document to a gardener or farmer I would present 2 pages written by Roland Bunch. Here is a little of it but if you want the two pages, email me. That was the day we began to realize the incredible degree to which organic matter can restore soils. Work in a dozen countries has convinced us that the vast majority of soils can be made highly fertile. How? By using our first principle*: **maximize organic matter production. * Mulches of crop residues and fast-growing gm/cc's drastically reduce the weed problem. We had learned a second principle:* **keep the soil covered. * Why the zero tillage gm/cc systems of northern Honduras--and Fukuoka's--produce so well, while many traditional zero tillage systems do not. Thus we added a third principle*: **use zero tillage [no-till]. * EPAGRI's investigation and dissemination of over 60 species of gm/cc partly to avoid diseases and insect pests, confirmed another, more widely known fourth principle:* **maintain biological diversity. * The fifth principle is undoubtedly the most unconventional:* **feed plants through the mulch. * Tests by the USDA showed that this technique [no-till & mulching] gave a 100 percent increase in production over conventional fertilizer and tilling. Howard Garrett, <.dirtdoctor.com>, Dallas Morning News, 3 March 00 ______________________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: https://secure.mallorn.com/mailman/listinfo/community_garden
