Create a No-Till Garden and Retire Your Tiller Forever

By Garden Therapy | 

It is a wonderful feeling to discover a gardening hack that saves you time and effort without decreasing the health of your garden. Imagine the extra time you would have if you never tilled your garden again. Guess what? Not only can you save time with a no-till garden, you can improve the quality of your soil that way too!

My friend Shawna Coronado is a talented gardener, promoter of green lifestyles, and garden-hack pro. Shawna joins us today to share the details on how to create a no-till garden from her wonderful book 101 Organic Gardening Hacks. If you like this time-saving, soil-improving, organic gardening hack, you’ll love the other 100!

Retire Your Tiller

By Shawna Coronado

If you love your soil, stop flipping it over.

Sometimes the best way to improve something is to let it be. A no-till garden is a perfect example. And creating one also means less work for you. Imagine building a large garden without having to turn the soil over in your garden beds.

Turning soil kills the microbes living beneath the ground that contribute to a healthier root system by living symbiotically with your roots. There are billions of bacteria, millions of fungi, thousands of protozoa, and scores of other nematodes and organisms found in one small tablespoon of healthy soil. Hacking your garden soil with a few simple no-till tips can make for hugely successful growing because you keep those vital creatures alive and happy in your garden beds.

A no-till garden has other benefits. Because you are consistently smothering weeds with mulch or compost, they struggle to grow there, and an undisturbed, enriched soil requires far less fertilizer in order to support successful plants. The no-till technique works in almost any garden space and can help grow extremely healthy organic vegetables and herbs.

How to Create a No-Till Garden

Instead of turning your soil over for a garden, start by removing all of the grass, either by stripping the sod or smothering the grass (see Hack 79: “Kill Grass by Smothering It”).

1. Put down a 2-inch layer of rotted manure or compost on top of the bare soil. Do not turn the soil over.


2. Dig holes to plant your plants.


3. Mulch the garden the first year with wood chips or another natural mulch, such as pine needles, rotted leaves, or straw.


4. After the harvest at the end of the season, do not pull out the vegetable or herb plants by the root; cut their stems at the base of the soil and leave the roots in the ground to overwinter and eventually rot. Compost the cut plant matter.


5. Next planting year, cover the garden with another 2-inch layer of compost.


6. When planting new vegetables and herbs, only pull out roots from the previous year if they block an area for a new plant. Be sure to rotate the crop so that no plant from the previous season is planted in the same location in the current year.
   
   


7. In your third planting year, follow the same practices, but add a layer of mulch instead of a layer of compost.


8. In your fourth planting year, follow the same practices, but add a layer of soil instead of a layer of mulch.


9. In the fifth planting year, follow the same practices, but add a layer of rotted manure instead of a layer of soil.


10. In the sixth planting year, follow the same practices, but add a layer of compost instead of rotted manure.


11. Continue every season layering up the compost, mulch, soil, and rotted manure without ever turning over the soil.

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Shawna Coronado is an author, columnist, blogger, photographer, and spokesperson for organic gardening, green lifestyle living, and culinary preparation who campaigns for social good. Shawna’s goal in authoring gardening and green lifestyle books is to promote a world initiative to encourage healthy and sustainable living. She was featured as a Chicago Tribune “Remarkable Woman” and speaks internationally on building community, simple urban garden living, and green lifestyle tips for the everyday person. Shawna lives in the western suburbs of Chicago where she has a famous front lawn vegetable garden. You can learn more about her at www.shawnacoronado.com.

The post Create a No-Till Garden and Retire Your Tiller Forever appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.

This Do-It-Yourself Garden Hack Is The Secret To An Abundant Garden

My grandfather always had a robust garden filled with vegetables. His secret was rich, nutrient dense soil. He taught me that the plants we grow and soil have a symbiotic relationship. If the soil has nutrients, the plants will thrive. That said, many gardeners forget this vital tip and tend to lean towards chemical fertilizers as a way to quickly replenish their soil and grow their plants. Overtime, this can can cause the soil to become depleted of vital nutrients because the fertilizers kill or leaches out the nutritional aspects of the soil. As well, chemical fertilizers are not welcoming to microorganisms that live in the soil. You want to ensure the fertilizer method you use is biodynamic and efficient in the amount of materials used versus the amount of coverage area.

Why is Soil So Important?

Foremost, it is important to understand what soil actually is. According to the Soil Science Society of America, “Soil is not dirt.  It is a complex mix of ingredients: minerals, air, water, and organic matter – countless organisms and the decaying remains of once living things.  Soil is made of life.  Soil makes life.  And soil is life.” In order for plants to grow to their optimum capacity, they need nine different nutrients present in the soil.  While most of these elements and nutrients are naturally found in soil, sometimes they can become depleted and need to be added to keep the soil healthy.

• Carbon – found in air and water


• Hydrogen – found in air and water


• Oxygen – found in air and water


• Nitrogen – blood meal, fish emulsion, manure


• Phosphorus – bone meal, rock phosphate, superphosphate


• Potassium – greensand, mutriate or sulfate of potash, seaweed, wood ashes


• Calcium – gypsum, limestone, oyster shells, slag


• Magnesium – dolomite, magnesium sulfate (Epsom salt)


• Sulfur – sulfur, superphosphate

Creating a no-till garden or utilizing the sheet mulching method can add these vital elements and nutrients back to the soil. This is a type of whole-system approach to gardening that helps feed the soil while vegetables and crops are growing. Another way to do so is by using an old-fashioned compost tea will help restore many of these essential nutrients, microorganisms and vital minerals naturally.

It should be stated that the elements listed above are not the only things that should be present in the soil. Microbes such as protozoa, fungi, algae and bacterias should also be present, as they affect soil structure and fertility. In fact, millions upon millions of microbes are present in healthy soil and it is important to ensure they make your soil their home. Ensuring that you have a lot of biomass present in your soil will keep them thriving.

Compost Tea

Compost tea takes the beneficial bacteria and fungus present in compost and exponentially increases them through aeration and sugars. These bacteria and fungus are critical in root establishment – and the more bacteria you have in your soil, the better. In fact, if you diversify your bacterias, you will make a healthier soil and compost tea is one of the easiest ways to do this.

Benefits of Compost Tea

• Increases root development


• Suppresses plant diseases


• Creates a biodiverse soil food web


• Encourages plant growth and vitality


• Increases plant yield

The equipment you will need to make compost tea is as follows:

• 5-gallon bucket


• An aquarium pump large enough to run three bubblers or air stones


• Several feet of tubing


• A stick to stir the mixture


• Something to strain the tea, like an old pillowcase or nylon stocking

Tess’s Compost Tea

• 4 cups worm castings


• 4 ounces liquid seaweed


• 3 tablespoons unsulfered molasses (this creates a good ph balance)


• 3 tablespoons micorrhizal inoculant


• 1/4 cup azomite rock dust


• 1/4 cup rabbit manure (horse or cow manure works great too)

Note: I will also add some earthworm tea that I have from my earthworms and this adds even more nutrients to the brew!

1. Add water to a 5-gallon plastic bucket. If you are using tap water, allow water to sit for 24 hours in order for chlorine and other chemicals to dissipate.


2. Add liqui ingredients to water in 5-gallon bucket and stir until incorporated.


3. In pillowcase or nylon stocking, add dry ingredients (rock dust, inoculant, manure, worm castings, etc.) and tie onto stick and add to bucket.


4. Turn on aquarium pump with hose attached and oxygenate water for 18-24 hours. This will help the beneficial bacterias, minerals and sugars activate.


5. Periodically check on brew. There should be a nice foam at the top.


6. After 24 hours, turn off pump and remove dry ingredients (add to compost pile). Use compost tea as a foliar spray or root drench.

Note: Do not over-brew your compost tea. Twenty four hours is all it needs to get the protozoa and fungi kickstarted into reproduction. 

You can use the tea as often as you wish. I used this tea once a month on my garden, or when I thought the plants needed a little extra TLC. In fact, you can also use compost tea to prevent plant shock by soaking new plants in compost tea to add beneficial soil microorganisms right before it gets planted. used it as a foliar spray and as a root drench and my plants thrived. After a three month period, I was very impressed with the soil. It was fluffy, retained moisture and I noticed more beneficial insects coming around more. Another highlight of using compost tea was when harvest time came, the vegetables tasted sweeter than usual. I’m not sure if this was a result for the compost tea or just a fluke, but I felt that it had to be mentioned. As well, I had no issues with molds or diseases this year and believe it to be a result of the compost tea I used. This is by far the easiest way to get essential nutrients quickly into the soil, and I love that it can also be used as a foliar spray. As well, the initial investment of compost tea ingredients will provide for many uses; so I can make compost tea all year with the ingredients that I purchased in May!

Once again, my grandfather was right about giving the soil what it needs to thrive and proved it by the bountiful harvests he had year after year. I highly recommend using this in preparation for your upcoming gardens. I have had nothing but success with this natural fertilizer method and look forward to my next harvest.

The post This Do-It-Yourself Garden Hack Is The Secret To An Abundant Garden appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.

How to Make a $12 DIY Compost Bin (and 50 Things You Can Compost In It)

Have you ever priced out those compost bins that you can buy? They have all sorts of bells and whistles, like cranks that turn the contents for you and fancy slide-out trays at the bottom. They can also cost hundreds of dollars. Since that was totally out of my budget, I decided to make a simple DIY compost bin for a whole lot less money.

Of course, you can always pile of a heap of compost in your yard or garden, and that’s exactly what I did when I lived in the country.  Now that  I’m living in town, I decided I should be a little more civilized. Of course, not $300-for-a-container-civilized.

Because we have raccoons, foxes, squirrels and other varmints, I needed a closed container, lest I lure the little $*%#s into my garden. S0, I spent $12 to make a compost bin from a 32-gallon latch tote and it only took about 15 minutes. You can get these in all sorts of colors to blend with your fencing or your outdoor decor. I got a happy, cheerful coral color.

This is the easiest DIY ever.

How to Make a Super-Easy DIY Compost Bin

Drill 6-12 holes in the bottom of your bin, then drill a few holes in each side. (The number of holes will depend on the shape of your bin.

Here’s what mine looked like when I finished drilling the holes.

Then, put the lid on the bin to provide a little bit of stability. Finally, drill another half dozen or so holes in the lid of the bin.

That. Is. It.

Can you believe how stupid-easy that was?

Get your compost off to the right start.

Don’t just go pile rotting produce in there or you’ll have a stinky mess. You have to balance out the greens and the browns. (We’ll talk about Greens and Browns in a moment.)

To get your compost off to a good start, lay some ripped up cardboard or newspaper (not the kind with color, just black and white) in the bottom of the bin. Top that with some straw or leaves, then top that with some garden soil. You may need to buy a bag if you don’t have any to spare. I filled my container about a third of the way with these items.

Place your bin in a convenient spot so that you don’t have to climb a fence and hang upside down like a bat to get to it. Make things easy on yourself. I put mine right in the garden, lurking between a shrub and a small tree. This way, when my glorious compost-to-be is done, I don’t have to lug it half a mile. I can just tip it over and spread it out.

How to make the magic happen

Now, let’s create lush soil out of the stuff that people usually throw in the trash.

The smaller the pieces are that you put into your compost pile the faster you will have beautiful soil from it. You can run your fruit and veggie scraps through the blender and run outdoor clippings over with the lawnmower for best results. Paper can be run through the shredder.

Each time you add something to your compost pile, give a little stir. I keep a rake handle nearby for stirring things up. Things are decomposing when they’re giving off a lot of heat. If there isn’t any heat in there, your composting magic is not occurring.

Now, remember how I was talking about balancing your greens and your browns? Here’s how that works.

Things with lots of carbon are Browns and things with lots of nitrogen are Greens. According to CompostGuide.com:

The ideal ratio approaches 25 parts browns to 1 part greens. Judge the amounts roughly equal by weight. Too much carbon will cause the pile to break down too slowly, while too much nitrogen can cause odor. The carbon provides energy for the microbes, and the nitrogen provides protein.

To clarify: If your compost begins to smell bad, you need to add Browns. If it isn’t composting fast enough, you need to add Greens.

50+ Things You Can Compost in Your New DIY Compost Bin

Here are the Browns and Greens you can add to your compost pile, heap, bin, or whatever.

Browns are things like:

• Paper napkins


• Paper towels


• Toilet paper (not with human waste on it)


• Raked leaves


• Newspaper without colored ink


• Junk mail without colored ink


• Sawdust from untreated wood


• Pine needles (don’t go crazy, they can be very acidic)


• Pine cones (also acidic)


• Straw


• Peat moss


• Shredded cardboard


• Envelopes (remove the little plastic window and shred the paper)


• Cotton balls (pulled apart)


• Shredded toilet paper or paper towel tubes


• Shredded egg cartons


• Crushed nut shells


• Shredded twigs and branches


• Coffee Filters


• Lint from the dryer

Greens are things like:

• Fruit skins


• Apple cores but not the pits from stone fruits unless you grind them up


• Vegetable peels


• Vegetable trimmings (like the bottom of the celery)


• Fruits and veggies that have been in the freezer too long


• Grass clippings


• Clippings from shrubbery


• Potato peel


• Human hair


• Pet hair


• Egg shells


• Tea bags (remove the staples) and tea leaves


• Clippings from non-toxic houseplants


• Dead bugs


• Dead cut flowers


• Stale cereal


• Feathers


• Bread


• Leftover hot cereal


• Onion skins


• Leftover fruits


• Leftover vegetables


• Dust bunnies


• Banana Peels


• Stale chips


• Stale crackers


• Coffee grounds


• Coffee filters


• Pet bedding from non-carnivorous animals


• Manure from non-carnivorous animals


• Contents of the dust pan


• Contents of the vacuum cleaner


• Pulp from the juicer

If the pH needs to be adjusted you can add ashes from the fireplace or woodstove. Just a little, though, or you will turn your soil too alkaline and decomposition will not occur.

(Note: While the manures of humans and carnivorous animals are compostable under certain conditions, great care must be taken with that or serious food-borne illness could occur. Those instructions are not included in this article. Check out The Humanure Handbook if you want to take composting to that level.)

What do you compost?

Did I leave something that you commonly put in the compost off my list? Share in the comments below. Did you make your own compost bin? Let us know how you did it!

4 Secrets to Becoming a Successful Gardener

Gardening is a skill and anyone who tells you something different is not being totally honest.  That being said, having a successful gardening experience depends on many outside factors including, but not limited to soil conditions, available sunlight, the length of the growing season, seed quality, pest control and even a bit of luck.  Still, many of these factors can be overcome with skill, perseverance, and experience.

In this article, Dan Chiras shares his time-proven tips on what it takes to become a successful gardener.

If Dan’s name sounds familiar, it is because he is the author of two Prepper Book Festival titles, Survive in Style: The Prepper’s Guide to Living Comfortably through Disasters and Power From the Sun: A Practical Guide to Solar Electricity.  Today, however, the focus is on gardening and on acquiring a much-converted green thumb.

Growing a Green Thumb

Over the years, many people with whom I’ve discussed gardening confess to lacking a green thumb. My response is always the same: gardening is a lot easier than you’d think. With a little knowledge, anyone can graduate into that elite cadre of green-thumb gardeners.

If you’d like to be one of them, read on. I’ll let you in on the main secrets of successful gardening.

Green Thumb Gardeners are Soil Builders

Individuals with the greenest thumbs are typically those with the richest soils. Although a gardener may have purchased a home that came with a yard endowed with rich topsoil, the excellent soil in which they grow their fruits and vegetables is most likely due to the fact that they’ve spent several years building it. That is, they have enriched their soil with good old organic compost.

Great gardeners are also avid “mulchers.” Mulch is a layer of organic material like straw or bark that reduces the evaporation of water from the soil. This, in turn, helps plants meet their needs, even on blisteringly hot days. It also helps you by reducing the amount of water you need to apply to your garden. It saves energy, water, and time.

Mulch also helps hold weeds at bay. If you’ve applied a thick enough layer, mulch will prevent weeds from growing. They can’t get the sunlight they need. Those weeds that do manage to pry their way through the mulch are much easier to pull. Weeds come up more easily when yanked from moist soils.

Moist soils also increase the likelihood you will remove most, if not all, of their roots when you pull them out. If severed, roots of weeds often give rise to new plants. Whatever you do, don’t cut weeds off at the base of the stem and leave the roots in place. Some weeds (like Russian thistle) come back with a vengeance. So, be sure to pull weeds root and all.

Mulch decomposes over time, adding to your soil’s fertility. There’s no need to dig it in. Just keep adding mulch on top of old mulch that’s breaking down and becoming part of your topsoil. That’s the way Mother Nature builds soil.

Remember this green thumb aspirants: nourish and protect your soil with compost and mulch and it will return the favor many times over.

Here is a photo showing Dan’s bountiful green garden.

Green Thumb Gardeners are Vigilant

Another key factor that contributes to a green thumb is vigilance. In my experience, the most successful gardeners are the most attentive. They’re in their gardens every day or two pulling weeds while they (the weeds, that is) are still young. They also keep an eye on their plants for signs of disease or insect damage. When they spot a problem, they address it quickly.

Attentive gardeners also pay close attention to weather and soil moisture and use these parameters to determine when watering should occur. They don’t necessarily follow a watering schedule. That’s because how often you need to water your garden and how much water you need to apply depends on many factors, such as the temperature, rainfall, and humidity, the organic content of your topsoil, the water requirements of plants, and how much mulch you have applied.

An accomplished gardener doesn’t water because it’s been five days since he or she last hauled out the sprinkler. He or she waters when the soil and plants say “How about a drink?”

The best way to determine when it’s time to water is to dig into the soil with your hands or a trowel. If the soil’s moist an inch or so down, and your plants have established deep root systems, you can probably hold off on watering. If the soil is dry, retrieve the hose and sprinkler from your garden shed and take care of things.

An ever-vigilant gardener pays attention to his or her plants for wilting leaves. They are a tell-tale sign that the soil is drying out. Water immediately. Better yet, pay closer attention to soil moisture content and weather so plants don’t have to cry out for emergency action.

Vigilance is important at harvest time, too. Overlook a zucchini for a day or two and it will transform into a log suitable for building a small log cabin or carving out a dugout canoe. If you don’t check your green beans during the harvest season very often, you’ll find those tender green beans have grown large and become leathery.

A Green-Thumb Gardener Knows Plants

Successful gardeners understand that not all plants are created equal. Some like acidic soil. Some like sandy soil. Some like lots of sunshine. Some thrive in partial sun or shade.

While that seems like a lot of information to hold in your cranium, it doesn’t take long to understand the requirements of common vegetables and flowers. Seed packets can help you learn about the requirements of fruits, vegetables, berries, and flowers you’d like to grow. Read the information that comes with seedlings you purchase at your local nursery. Books on gardening also contain a wealth of information on the topic.

Armed with this knowledge, head to your garden to plot a strategy for successfully planting sun lovers and the rest of the gang. Veggies that grow well in partial sun, are typically delegated to the less sunny locations in a garden or are planted in the shade of taller plants like tomatoes and corn.

It’s Not about the Tools

A green-thumb isn’t about owning a lot of fancy tools or the latest garden gadgets. You just have to build great soil and then continue to replenish it with compost and mulch each year until you hang up your gardening gloves one last time.

You need to be vigilant, as well, paying attention to weeds, disease, wilting, insects, and soil moisture. A two-minute stroll through your garden each day is all that it takes. It’s a great time to have that evening glass of wine.

A great gardener watches the weather and tends to her garden as dictated by temperature, rainfall, and humidity. Lest we forget, a great gardener plants according to their plants’ needs for sunshine.

There’s more to being a successful garden, but that’s it in a nutshell. If your life is too busy to start a garden, consider hiring someone to help out. Or, enroll your children and/or spouse to help with this task. Kids often love to garden alongside eager adults! If the world goes to hell in a hand basket, your garden will be up and running.

To learn more about food self-sufficiency through gardening, check out my book, Survive in Style: The Prepper’s Guide to Living Comfortably through Disasters.  It is available on my website and also at Lehman’s along with all of my other books.

Additional Resources

There are plenty of great resources available for free on the internet.  Here are a few.

For more information on composting, log on to http://www.howtocompost.org/.

For mulching, visit http://www.diynetwork.com/how-to/outdoors/landscaping/mulch-your-way-to-better-landscape-design.

And for tips on irrigating a garden go to https://cals.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/mg/vegetable/irrigating.html.

The Final Word

In my younger years, I had a reputation for having a green thumb.  It came naturally, or so I thought.  Initially, I did all of my gardening in containers.  Later, as I expanded to raise beds, I realized that having a green thumb was not a natural trait. It was a skill.

Whether you have gardened successfully in the past or are just getting started, Dan’s secrets, and especially his emphasis on building up the soil, are well taken.  I don’t know about you, but I am ready to get started!

Enjoy your next adventure through common sense and thoughtful preparation!