To Till or not to Till: That is the Question.

If you have looked into installing a garden to grow your food in a healthier or more organic way. Then I’m sure you have read or heard people talking about whether it's better to till or not to till. Depending on what you have seen, I’m sure you have seen several reasons in support of either direction. With how much information there is about the topic already, you could wonder why take the time to muddy the waters.  After the many statements and conversations I’ve had with many people, I've come to feel that many don’t have a good grasp of whether they should till or not till, and when, if ever it may be worth tilling.

It is also a good time to state that there is no perfect way to garden that is good for all people in all climates. There are definitely better means and methods than others, and that is where I feel this question lies.

We all know what tilling is. It's taking a rototiller, no matter how small or how large, and tearing up the ground, killing the plants, and mixing them into the soil. It can also be used to mix in, say, compost or other topical treatments into the soil. When it comes to no till, sometimes it can get a little confusing because there are many names and styles of gardening that can fall under the no till.

So let's take a look at what no till is aside from just not tilling before we dive into the question of which way is a better means and methods. To start, let's get some garden styles, practices, and techniques that you may have heard about that fall under the umbrella of no-till gardening. Sheet mulching, also known as Lasagna gardening, chop and drop, Broad Fork, Surface feeding, cover crops, Direct seeding or direct drilling, slot planting, back to eden, the Ruth Stout Method, and Hugelkultur. If you haven’t heard of some of these, that’s fine; they are all different methods or techniques that, at their core, allow you to garden without tilling and help to incorporate nutrients into the soil.

So what are some of the downfalls of both practices? We will start with tilling.

When you till, several things take place.

• Breakdown of soil structure and particle size, there is the mechanical aspect of tilling.
• Mixing of soil levels and everything in them.

At first glance, I’m sure you could say “ok, well that's not bad”. Before we make these claims, let's take a deeper look at what is really going on with these two things that are taking place. First, for the breakdown of soil, it's more than just the roots and other organic debris, so it can break down quicker for plant nutrition; it’s the soil particles themselves. This is why fields that have been tilled for a long time have a hard pan under the soil that is moister, and roots do not penetrate, and why there is a technique called subsoiling, and special tractor implements have been made to accomplish this task. The smaller size of particles allows for greater compaction of soil, thus affecting how easily the plant roots spread out to get nutrients, as well as how the water and air travel through the soil. These effects are all negative, and the irony of it is that people will use tilling to improve them when, in reality, the long-term effects just make the situation worse.

Now, what about the mixing? Isn’t it good to get soil amendments down to where the roots will be? Before we get to that, let's look at what else is happening in this mixing. The mixing breaks up the highways and byways that the microorganisms create and the mycelium network from the mushrooms. Both the mycelium and the microorganism network like sunlight, which is why they are underground. Both of these networks work very hard at keeping your plants healthy. To keep it simple, they both either directly or indirectly work symbiotically with the plants. One example of this relationship is that these highways extend a lot longer in all directions and actively draw nutrients into the plant in exchange for sugars that the plant creates during photosynthesis.  When you destroy these networks, it takes time and energy for them to rebuild the organisms and mycelium that get brought to the surface are killed and are of no use. When it comes to getting the nutrients to the root level, this is counterproductive because everything that gets watered or it rains, the nutrients leach deeper into the soil, and with the lack of organism networks, because the tilling means much of these nutrients that are now deeper than the surface are now leaching past what the roots can utilize. This mixing also draws up seeds from the seed bank, allowing them to sprout. If it's been a while since the last time it was tilled, it can usually increase the presence of weeds and, a lot of times, bring up new weeds that haven’t been a problem. So as you can see, there aren’t many benefits to tilling. Unless your goal is to just kill the vegetation that is there to get a jump start on getting everything bare.

Now onto the negatives of no till

• It's against the grain of mainstream / commercial gardening. I know to some this is a positive.
• Requires a new mindset and management practices.
• It can make planting seeds or plants a little more difficult.

Depending on how you view it, you may not be seeing any issues with the above negatives, or you could say it’s a deal breaker. But like above, when you think through the negatives as well as some of the positives. I think you will agree that no till is the better way to go.

Why going against the grain isn’t always the easiest. Depending on who you associate with and where you get your assistance, you will never hear the end of it and will constantly get negative feedback. For a new mindset and management practices, sometimes they can be hard to change, but for those who are new to gardening, this may not be much of an issue. When it comes to planting seeds or transplants, you will have to fight through more and larger amounts of organic matter, making some small-scale tools either useless or more of a struggle to use.

When you look at the positives, it's easy to see why anyone would be willing to deal with the negatives of this style. First, you don’t disturb the soil mycology, keeping the networks largely undisturbed, allowing your plants the greatest access to nutrients that are too deep and out of reach of their root system. You also keep the soil covered during the process, minimizing erosion and solar sterilization of the surface. The soil stays moist for longer and more readily absorbs the moisture when it rains. Every time it rains, the leaching of nutrients from the surface helps to give a longer-lasting fertilizer to the plants' roots. As the organic matter gets built up in the soil, so does the life of the soil. This life allows your plants to thrive as everything thrives from the soil to the plants. You also start reversing the damage done from the past.