The No-Till Veggie Garden

 The first season of our experiment with not tilling our vegetable garden is up and running. Our veggie garden consists of two large tillable areas and one area of raised beds in the center, all told about 3,000 square feet. When we first moved here this whole area was blackberries, maple trees, clumps of filberts and bramble. FM cleared it by hand over the course of a year or two and our first attempts at veggie gardening yielded good crops. Beginner's luck, maybe. Good soil, too. We rented a large cultivator for the first few years to bust up the field grass and then we added organic amendments and compost. 

Every spring thereafter we used a small rototiller to break up the two open areas and we would direct sow all manner of seeds and plant transplants from the greenhouse for broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, onions, shallots and leeks. This has been working well but the weeds are overwhelming and I also sensed the soil was getting compacted, especially just under the surface past where the rototiller blades hit. My interest in no-till veggie gardening continued to grow until we wrapped our heads around what steps we would take to break the annual cycle of using our rototiller and actually do this. Reasons to not break up the soil are that the soil is healthier when its structure is intact. Weed seeds don't come to the surface (and I'm sure there are billions of weed seeds in this soil) when it's not disturbed and if the soil is mulched it also holds in water much better than if it were exposed to all day sun.

Here then is a peek at how our experiment is going in late July.

The eastern edge of the veggie garden in mid-July.

Beginning last autumn we started covering the open harvested areas with leaves collected from the garden and also spent straw from the chicken coop. Once I decided what would grow where we added more coverings in the form of more spent straw in what would become rows between veggies. This photo is from April. We also added a layer of composted horse manure but quickly realized it is really dry and difficult to plant into. It should have been added last autumn to give it the winter to break down. But we are learning and mistakes are made.

 Since this is a rather large veggie garden I knew we would need more mulch. Enter Chip Drop which came through for me with about two units (about 15 cubic yards) of arborist's wood chips in mid-June. We wheel-barrowed load after load down here to make nice deep, wide rows.

I had already planted starts of broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage so had to work around the veggies. Kind of a pain but we didn't have a choice. Chip Drop is not something you order on demand, you get it when you get it, if at all.

As you can see most of the ground is now covered in wood chips. The idea is that as we harvest food we'll cover any bare soil with mulch to keep it covered. That's the key, keeping the soil covered. It will continue to be wood chips when they are available as well as spent chicken coop straw as well as leaves from the garden. Anything organic will do. It will continue to break down and add nutrients to the soil without any disturbance.

Here is the eastern garden with the raised beds in the center. Beyond the corrugated metal wall is the western garden. We rotate crops every year, this year the eastern half has cauliflower, corn, onions, leeks, some beans, dill and beets.

The south edge of the upper or western garden complete with FM's new retaining wall. Here you can see black beans, one of our new favorites. They are called Willamette Valley black and are very easy. They dry in the pod and are bush types. Very delicious and resilient to drought.

Speaking of water, we are super impressed at how much water stays in the soil with wood chips practically stopping evaporation. We're watering less than half as much as we did last year and weeding is seemingly almost eliminated. I know that's not entirely true, there are weeds lurking under that mulch but it has helped so much.

Cucumbers coming on strong after a bit of a struggle getting going in dry compost. I love the little Beit-alpha types for they are sweet and small and thin-skinned. Seeds purchased from High Mowing Organic Seeds. Tomatoes are doing great, I'm experimenting with grafted and non-grafted versions of Brandywine, my very favorite, given to me by my friend Anne (the goddess of starting tomato seeds).

While moles upended most of my artichokes, a few have survived and are ready to harvest.

Broccoli is better than ever this year, this is Covina.

Covina broccoli from High Mowing Organic Seeds.

We have a fine crop of cabbage, too.

Farao cabbage from Territorial Seeds, these have been sweet, blemish free and tight. I also have Passat from High Mowing and they are equally as good, this variety just matured a little faster. FM says sauerkraut is in our near future. Hooray!

The raised beds are all over the map this year. They did not get wood chips but are producing well, primarily lettuce and kale. The strawberries were epic this year from all the spring rain but fizzled out quickly. I'll rebuild their bed later this summer and start fresh.

Ornamental Roman chamomile for groundcover is taking over. It's so lovely when you step on it, the fragrance is sweet.

Italian parsley in the asparagus bed. I grow it here because it attracts a beneficial insect (I can't recall which one, a wasp of some kind) that takes care of any asparagus beetle. Our boy Hobbes like to sit in here and watch the world go by. He's 19, and a Bengal, and he does as he pleases.

Oaxacan green corn and a volunteer Verbena bonariensis and sunflower.

The orchard is looking good, this is our Diospyros kaki 'Saijo', persimmon.

Onions and more black beans. I found Maria Nagy's Transylvanian red onion seeds at Adaptive Seeds and couldn't wait to try them (it's the region my dear sister-in-law is from) and they were definitely the biggest, hardiest of all the onions started from seed this year. I'm excited to try them soon!

FM doing a little hose management and getting ready to water in the morning. FM has renamed July to now be known as "Sprinklemonth." Yes, he is a bit hose-crazy.

Row of cauliflower, leeks on the left and corn on the right. This photo is from a couple of weeks ago, the corn has grown substantially since.

Calendula are EVERYWHERE. I started with 'Radio' and 'Strawberry Blonde' and now I have crosses of both. While I rip out 90% of them, I do love them so some stay.

Purple Italian cauliflower on the left and 'Goodman' on the right. The 'Goodman' variety is definitely the winner, the former struggles to produce a flower in summer.

This is 'Goodman' - and it is excellent. We haven't had success with cauliflower the past three years but this year is the best crop we've ever had. I think it's due to the wood chip mulch and not tilling.

Onions . . . a definite favorite.

Some carrots sown last autumn went to flower, I'm going to let the seeds mature and collect them and see what I get.

Fortex pole beans are our very favorite. I found these at North Circle Seeds, though I see they are currently not carrying them. Still a lovely company. I plan on ordering from them again.

It's a lose-win situation with the rhubarb. I thought they were killed outright when FM buried them under soil while building a retaining wall. Not so! They popped through and grew like crazy. The lose part of the equation is that the heat wave a couple of weeks ago fried them. Still, there's some growing going on.

Speaking of the heat wave, it did a number on a few blueberry bushes. You can just make out the ends of this one are crispy.

FM's new grape support is doing its job well. This is one of three grape vines on the property. What we don't eat the chickens will. They love the grapes! Actually, they love anything from the garden.

This year we are growing the following: Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, leeks, onions, shallots, beets, black beans, pole beans, delicata squash, pie pumpkins, zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers, loofah gourds, birdhouse gourds, garlic, dill, chives, tarragon, parsley, thyme, basil, corn, lettuce, potatoes, kale, carrots, rhubarb, blueberries, gooseberries, raspberries, grapes, strawberries, asparagus, artichokes and a variety of fruit in our orchard. I keep track so I know what I've grown from year to year. The chickens don't care, they love it all.

While we're not even a year into this no-till business, I can see already the result is fantastic. There will be changes as we continue to learn but so far the hardest part has been resisting the impulse to want fluffy, dark soil via the rototiller. That's a temporary bit of satisfaction, however, as the tiller brings up all the weed seeds. I want to garden smarter, not harder, so this method was definitely worth a try and I'm so glad we did. As we continue to harvest throughout the season we'll do our best to keep the soil covered. It's this coverage that keeps weeds down and water in the soil. As wood chips decay they add organic material to the soil and the soil becomes increasingly healthier. While it was just as hard as ever to get plants and seeds in the ground this year, I'm hoping in consequent years that the soil is so fluffy I can plant them with my hands alone, without using a trowel. A girl can dream. All I can say now is that the cauliflower is delicious (think Indian recipes....crunchy and oh so yummy), the broccoli as fresh and meaty as can be and cucumbers are on the way. The garlic has been harvested and is curing, life is good. The cabbage has seen us in fresh cabbage salad many times already and the beets are huge this year. All in all, I'm super happy.

Stay tuned next time as we switch gears and start the journey into the many fantastic gardens visited in the Puget Sound/Seattle area last weekend with 100+ of my favorite people, gardeners and garden bloggers/Instagrammers/Tik Tokkers/Facebookers. There is a lot to share and I'll do it over the course of the next several months.

That's a wrap for this week at Chickadee Gardens. As always, thank you so much for reading and commenting, we do love hearing from you all!