December, 25, 2014

Good morning, Merry Christmas everyone. We almost had a whiteish Christmas. I was hoping to do my weekly harvest Wednesday, but that just didn't happen. I hope to get it done today some how and have veggies for market on Saturday. There will not be any Friday deliveries this week. Next week's long range weather forecast is looking a bit sketchy at this time but that is a whole week away. Any way Merry Christmas and I hope to see everyone at market Saturday, If not in the New Year.

It is a nice feeling to have most of my open beds ready for spring planting. With all of the fall rains the beds have remained moist and easy to turn. If I were to use a rototiller, this garden task would not take as long.

There are many reasons why I don't use mechanized tillers in the garden. This is not to say I do not use lawn mowers and weed eaters. I have used a reel push mower with little success and there really is not enough room for a swing blade to knock down grass and weeds. Thus is why I resort to these two power tools.

I turn in compost after each crop is finished. There is a movement towards no till. I believe the reason behind it is that by turning the soil it oxygenates the soil and causes it to become over active and deplete the soil of its organic mater. Yes I do stimulate the soil but I also feed it after each crop too.

Using a shovel is not even as “intrusive” as a mechanized tiller because I make one turn of the soil. Unlike a rototiller which would be more like an egg beater in a bowl. Because I use a shovel to turn the soil in order to be able to plant the next crop, I find pockets of compost that were not fully incorporated into the soil. I think that this method could be called minimum till.

With no till any compost would be only incorporated in the very surface when planting seeds or seedlings and soil organisms along with precipitation would move these goodies into the soil horizon. A much slower process. Especially since we do not get abundant year round rains.

So I prefer to use my shovel and minimally turn the soil. Yes this is a lot of work but there are a lot of benefits that I can reap from this exercise besides getting exercise.

There is nothing like the quite of a no stroke engine!

I can be aware of all that is going on around me. Like the quiet that over comes the barnyard when a hawk flies over head. Or when some hen is taking wayyyy to long to egg and there are hens stacked up like cord wood to use THAT!! nest box.

I can inspect the soil as I go, Something that is very difficult with a tiller. I can remove root knot nematode galls. Since this is where the eggs are, this may help reduce their populations. Something else that is difficult to do with a tiller. This allows me to get an idea how big of a wire worm population I have. As I have noted in an earlier email they were almost non existent this year. Again this would be difficult with a tiller.

When I use a shovel I can begin to till a lot sooner after a rain than what I could with a tiller. I do get some soil sticking to the shovel but a spatula resolves this. And of course there are times when it is too wet for a shovel.

My garden is home to a lot of spade foot toads (at least 10 to 15 in most beds). They burrow down 3 to 6 inches. A tiller would hit virtually every one of them. With a shovel I still hit a few but not very many. I like to think of them as another piece of my biological control.

For many years I was a landscaper up in Oregon and by necessity I had to use internal combustion engines daily. It really is nice not having to any more.

When I first moved to Alpine I had a rototiller and used it all the time. It also was the early years of the garden that I had a “real” job working for the Texas Forest Service. We would easily drive 1500 miles a week and some weeks more than that. Because we were doing brush surveys on ranch land, the roads , shall we say were not pristine supper highways. I started to use a shovel at this time. It did wonders for me to get that exercise to loosen up my back. I worked for the Forest Service for 4 years and really got to like that kind of solitude one can have with a shovel and a whole garden of soil to turn.