A tiller about killed me when I was trying to refurbish flowerbeds that were overgrown with bushes! My kids loved watching me being dragged around but once I cut all of the roots out, life is much better. People who have never used one before kill themselves the first time and give up. I plant my vegetables in raised beds from the dirt I got out of the garden! I’m too old to get down on the ground.

I started my garden with a shovel. At 54 years old and being disabled. Yes it hurt like crazy and yes it took me a while. But i had a yard and i had a shovel. It cost me 10 dollars for seeds that year. The next year I started a worm farm and used the casting to amend the soil every sense.

I have a No-till garden plot that is about 1/3 acre, and to till plots about the same size. It takes more time keeping up the No-till plot, but it is the healthiest and most productive. I've always thought that the most important thing is to grow your own food the best way you can.

When my Wife and I bought our home in 2015 we had a garden the first year. I believe everyone should invest in a good garden tiller they are well worth it.

I have a large Troybilt Horse tiller. However that came later in my gardening journey. At first I used a spade to turn the grass over, hoe, rake, plant and mulch with leaves, which I collected from "neighbors" in the fall. Later once I got a tiller, I tilled for each season's garden (South Texas). Now I rarely till and only to work compost into the top couple inches of the rows, that's past. I'm in a new location now with soil filled with rocks. No more tilling. Plan to sell the tiller and just use a hoe and rake. Keeping the soil biome undisturbed is better. I also side dress with compost during the growing season. Very good video and accurate based on my 50 years of gardening.

Before retirement, I lived in Smyrna TN. The soil was red clay. It was even hard to get grass to grow because in the summer, the clay set like concrete. I dug four pits five feet wide by thirty feet long and built back up in layers. Each layer was seven wheelbarrows of product raked down evenly. First layer mulch, second a prepaired garden soil that was available at a local nurserie , it was a well amended product with sand, manure, musurme compost, all kinds of stuff. The third layer was the original red clay. I then tilled all three layers two times to be well mixed. I did this until it was overflowing a bit because it would settle over time. Each year l covered with leafs when avalable in the winner. I used the prepaired soil as a heavy mulch covering about six inches deep after harvest to keep a winter cover. Sometimes, when i found hard places, I would till in a heavy dose of sand. I had this garden for about fifteen years. Each year, it became more and more loamy to the point that i no longer had to till . It took a while, but for the last nine years, i seldom used more than a hoe and rake to tend. I did use a backhoe to dig the trenches. I kelp a large compost pile because the city of Murfreesboro had free leaf mulch in the spring, that was a great blessing. My new garden in Cottage Grove TN is eight beds six feet by forty-two feet. This next season will be my third year garden. I have dirt here. I have tilled sawmill shavings down to eighteen inches deep, and it is starting to become very loamy. Last year was a great garden. I am working torwards this to become a no till garden. The deal is that you have to have loamy soil with lots of organic matter. For this winter, i have an eight inch layer of leaf on each bed, and i can't wait till spring. It takes a lot of effort to set this up, but it works great and gets easier each year to tend. What really got me interested in this organic system was a former coworker. He said for many years, as long as he had been gardening every fall, he would till in as many truck loads of leafs as he could get his hands on. His garden was almost too loamy to walk in, and he never did feterlize.

Whole bunch of common sense Travis. Well done.

Goodness, I'm 2 minutes in and felt like I was back in my back woods southern Baptist church 😂😂 not in a bad way, you tell em!

Yes! The battle is real over our weeds here in the south! A combination and common sense need to be used as well as a plan that will take time. Good biodiversity takes time.

You are spot on with your thoughts and diagnoses. I have been guarding for 60 plus years and only in the last 10 years have I practiced "no till". No till is much more time consuming with about the same or lessor results. I had the privilege to work with my grandfather for a few decades before he passed and "no till" was even a thought, and after we built up the soil everything fell into place on its own. We never needed fertilizers, pesticides crop rotation or any of the new fangeled mumbo jumbo stuff the kids do today. If you stuck it in the ground it grew and tasted fantastic.

My main issue with Back To Eden movie beside the uneseccary fundamentalist mumbo jumbo is that he uses mulch but calls it wood chips then people go out and try wood chips and wonder why it doesn't work or takes 9 months, the best channel for No-Till is the No-Till Growers market garden channel

I am in Ohio and have pure clay. I use a combination of methods but it works great. I put a tarp on the area in the fall that I want to use for a new garden bed. In the spring I uncover it and till it up. The grass it totally dead and gone by then. That clay almost kills me but I get it done. I then add a lot of compost and peat and till those into the clay. And I mean a LOT. I then have a great garden bed ready to plant.

When I put woodchips all over my garden, I had slugs really bad. It was okay once it finally broke down into soil, but it took years. I also couldn't start things from seed the way I like to do with all the woodchips in the way. It did break down into great soil, but I ended up tilling my garden. I moved to a new place and won't make the same mistake.

I think some people don’t realize how hard the soil is in some geographical areas. In my area, southwest Louisiana, the soil is high in clay and super hard. Tilling is a must for at least a few years. This is my 3rd year with this 60x80 plot and the soil is almost perfect. I’ve tilled in at least 60 yds of compost. The clay is finally broken up for a good 6 inches of loamy soil. I’m suspecting I won’t have to till any more or at least very rarely after this year.

Bought a no till book years ago. First chapter starts, " Lay out your Garden plot and till." Pretty much like you are saying. My small Garden is raised beds and mineral buckets. I have a Troy-built Horse, but at the moment i'm rebuilding it. When its finished, I am going to expand to BTE on some. I have axcess to mountians of wood chips. and my kids are Amazon freaks. They save me all the cardboard i can use. Been Gardening for four decades. In my younger days I had large Gardens. but at 73, iv'e slowed down a bit. Let my Garden get out of hand last year and the Bermuda grass and wild Morning Glories(some call it strangle weed) took it over. Also theTEXAS heat was brutal.

I created a perennial herb garden in a flower bed overgrown with Bermuda grass last year in SW Missouri. It took 3 months of digging out the grass with rhizomes like steel cables to get it cleared. Now I will continue with no till with compost and organic material. I have used lasagne gardening with success before but that would not have been successful in this area. I liked the till until you don't have to till concept!

I have done traditional and Eden. I find that a mixture is ideal (at least for me). 1. Scrap off all the grass (don't till it in because it will dump weed seeds into the dirt --- also Bermuda will just keep growing if you flip it). 2. Double-dig the spot to remove stones and break up the grassroots (you can do this with a tiller if you move the dirt around ---- I just use a shovel, as I like to dig). However, you should go deep. [Optional] --- This is a great time to trench compost if you want to. Old stumps, unfinished compost, and last year's garden waste clean up in the Fall can be added under a first shovel layer. 3. Layer thick cardboard (sometimes two layers) and build on top. 4. Compost, clean soil, & peat on top. I normally only use about 2 inches to keep cost down. I don't like wood chips --- have not had any luck with it --- too many bugs, hard to get, and eats up the Nitrogen. The first year will suck ---- but I have found that will be true no matter the method until the plot normalizes. I therefore recommend building it in Fall and over wintering something like carrots, mustard, or garlic. Don't except them to grow to eat (a lot of the roots won't get through the cardboard), just to build up a bio and root structure. In the Spring, it will be almost ready. By that second year, it is wonderful and you only have to put on your ferts and a thin layer of compost to top it back up to normal level. The level will keep dropping a lot for the first 3-4 years as the dirt underneath converts. After, it drops less. (in the new bed I build about 3 years ago it is perfect black soil down almost 16 inches, even though the native soil is hard clay here --- I do throw clay chunks into the garden from time to time for micronutrients ) ----- It is more work all at once, traditional tends to be more work over a longer period (because you have to keep coming out and tilling), Eden normally requires a super thick layer of woodchip or compost (e.g., 3-4 inches or more!) to keep the weeds down the first couple of years. For me both traditional and Eden don't seem to work because I don't have the time to keep going out and fussing with it or spending all that money on compost.

Everyone should garden the best way they can for their area. The final purpose is to grow vegetables for your family and provide food on the table. Use inground or above ground. I do like Travis and use both methods. Everyone should stop bashing someone else's method of gardening. Do what's best for you. Gardening is not a 100 yd sprint but a 26 mile marathon. It takes time.

There are so many alternative approaches to soil preparation and preservation, many of which work well. Besides, even when we don’t know the things we will learn over time, we still enjoy some gardening success. Great video from which I learned something.

I think it's also important to look at how each system scales with different sized plots. For a suburbanite making a 4x8 plot, laying down a refrigerator box with some lawn clippings is probably easier and certainly cheaper than renting or buying a tiller. For an acre field, there's no way you can get enough cardboard and woodchips. I like to think that in gardening, you can have two out of the three of Fast, Easy, or Cheap. Lasagna gardening and other no-dig methods are cheap and (in terms of physical labor) pretty easy on the body, but they aren't fast. A tiller or tractor is fast and easy, but if you don't already have one, they're not cheap. The row of folks with field hoes is either fast and easy or fast and cheap, depending on if you've hired those folks or you are those folks. It'll all grow food. Just like with deciding what crops to grow, figuring out how to grow them is a matter of what works for you and your environment.

bermuda grass -- the bane of my exsitence!!!!

Absolutely perfect advice. I started putting cardboard covered with straw, in the walkways around my large fabric pots, (200gal). I had heard that it would stop the Bermuda grass, (rysome), but it did no such thing. It actually encourages the grass to send out more feeders looking for light... I'm now pulling all the cardboard and straw up, and trying to kill the grass, that also grew through the fabric pots....

I turn over new ground in the winter with a shovel, a little bit at a time. Then I till it in the spring. Its hard to till this Tennessee clay if you don't turn it over first.

Have you ever looked into a broadfork for no till? Breaks up soil without disturbing it as much as a tiller. I just recently broke up 2 nice long rows pretty quickly with a Meadow Creature broadfork. This thing is an absolute beast! It was so much easier on my back than a heavy tiller. It doesn't exactly finely break up soil like a tiller but wow it got deeper than my tiller ever could have. Took a hoe and broke up the clumps. My plan is to cover crop and terminate before May to introduce some organic matter into the clay with more compost and charged biochar before planting my veggies... then I will layer between the rows straw or semi-composted wood chips. I am absolutely blown away at how efficient the broadfork was and I highly recommend anyone with a garden to own one.

I live in west Texas and you have to till for a few years just to get compost and such in the soil enough to even get it half way worth messing with

I always say whatever works for you. As people critique my way but it works for me. 1st year had neighbor come down and till. Waited 2 weeks and tilled again while amending chicken manure from his chickens he raises for Tyson. Then i used the DeWitt Sunbelt fabric in the 15 ft by 300 rolls and laid it on the entire garden. I grow everything on 64 ft rows using cattle panels on the side with t post. The second year, i just amend in the holes as i plant. In the 3rd year, i pull it all up. He spreads a load of manure and uses a smaller tractor with disc and cultipaker, and when i put fabric back down, i turn the whole plot 180 degrees, so stuff in east is now at the west end. I do markets and preserve, and the plot at house is 100 x 264, and the one at moms is 100 x 100. I just dont have enough time outside of planting and picking to weed and do up keep. It works perfectly for me, but some will crucifie about plastics and disc

I have a very poor clay, alkaline soil garden that is 30x60. I use a 6 foot rototiller on my tractor 🚜 in the fall to blend in all the plants. In late winter I clean out my chicken house , spread it lightly and blend it again. We can't plant here outdoors until mid may so I rototill it again to get all the weeds before planting. I am firm believer in rototilling.

I don't have a tiller, however, I like the lasagna method. I put down cardboard and bark dust and went for it. I like weed fabric but I didn't have any so I went without. Tarping is a good method to kill the grass and weeds, but it takes time. My soil is good now but we had that hard clay soil and it is very wet here. The wood chips were delivered for free by chip-drop. This is the third spring now. I have chicken manure from my chickens, and leaves from my neighbors trees so I have been using that. I am now making compost. I like raised bed and container gardening the best because of my back and my age. Now i have helpers, bugs, worms, birds and volunteer plants, to name a few. It is a lot easier now.

I watch your channel because it's balanced. You gave this subject plenty of due diligence. I do my own style of no-till/ hay mulch gardening. One of my grandmothers gardened that way and never struggled with water. I live in a climate with super high humidity and inconsistent summer rain. Irrigation isn't a great option at my site. So, I mulch to retain the moisture we do get. Our soil quality was impressive at the start, and continues to get better! I don't omit cultivation in every spot. We have field bindweed in some areas and it simply requires me to keep cutting it back, so that's surface disturbance. Every year it's a small amount less because I'm taking it's energy away. Covering bindweed just doesn't work here. I think some people get away with burying it because they have heavier clay soil and wetter summers. I'm just always trying to build resilience into my system. I'd love to integrate chickens into our garden like you do, and I might start laying out my garden in more long rows for more convenience. I love to change things. That's why I garden.

Just tarp and leave it for a couple months. Then i go in and cultivation is so easy. If you have the time i recommend. Ive been adding sections over time. Need a good tarp .

I have experience with all sorts of “new” gardens and each one was built with variations of methods as each plot had very different soil depths and weed banks. Regarding tilling or no tilling, My friend’s property in England has good depth to it but was poor quality and that garden has done really well with tilling, tarping, a 2nd tilling after a light covering with organic matter then tarping for a month or so each go. Then we planted and he just adds a few centimetres of compost yearly to continue. My soil is rock (my island, Newfoundland in Canada is nicknamed “the rock”) and it is just that …. Hard, big granite rock with a couple of inches of soil on top. In my own garden I used cardboard and a combo of homemade compost, and forest floor soil, then seaweed (rich in both of that here fortunately) on top, and shredded leaves and hay mulch over all of it. It worked really well and still grows beautiful food 6 years later. (After that first building/layering, I only add a small amount of compost to where I grow something). I think no till, low til and tilling each have places depending on what you have initially and what the grower’ need are. It’s all an experiment to me but “God Loves A Tryer”, hey?!

That cat of yours knows when you are filming! cracked me up!

In Virginia we have extremes of hot and cold plus clay soil. Some tilling required.

We have a suburban clay yard that had topsoil scraped off... turned sod upside down in a hole of 3, 4 inch layers dug... took years to get several 3x8 raised beds. A lot of compost, leaves, and grass clippings were obtained from our city landscape drop off area.

I really enjoy your channel. I have followed you for some time now! I have a very small channel. I have thought about this for awhile. You might want to do a video on this concept, a garden really can take on many meanings. Vegetable gardens-landscape gardens-food plots-orchards and so on. There multiple ways to handle the gardens with good results and bad. I have made so many good decisions and bad decisions. Hope to be one of your Gardening friends 🤠👍 Dave Nichols lil’o’farm

I personally think the best method is to put the compost down and some clean mulch, till in both a few times over the 2 months, water and let them break down and build soil life.

We primarily raised bed & container garden but added an inground plot (20' x 25') last year. January 2023 first covered with a silage tarp. Three weeks later tilled with my battery powered Ryobi tiller (small tool but got the job done). Raked out debris (mostly dollar weeds). Recovered with tarp for a few weeks and tilled one more time. Recovered with tarp until planting. Planted sweet corn for the first time. Used my Hoss double wheel hoe to make furrows to lay drip tape. Planted corn and harvested approximately 100 ears from 150 seeds planted. The racoons bellied up to the buffet and had a few. I'm not against the "Back to Eden" gardening, but I went from a grass/dollar weed area to planting corn with success in two months. Love your channel and tips! Have a blessed day from Panama City, Florida, zone 9a

Yes! In a northern climate, if I had it to do over again, I would do a shallow till a few times in the fall, then layer it with compost and wood chips. In the spring of the first year, I’d write out a fertilizer and cultivating schedule and stick to it. I’d also have low expectations, and be happy with whatever worked. After 4 years, I can say that adding compost and old straw bale mulch has made for an abundant garden. But the first two years were rough.

I have 44 raised beds, large greenhouse, and started the no till process in an area, I put down 3 feet of wood chips over thick cardboard, added soil/compost in a few areas where I wanted to plant. I water it often and with duck poo water. It has turn out really well. It will be a year and it’s beautiful black dirt beneath. I have ducks and chickens they help with bugs. At 56, I can’t handle the tiller. Way to many ailments. Just do what works for you. no matter how you do it. 😊

Depends on where you live what kind of soil you have no till works great where I live. I put down cardboard covered with compost about 10 to 12 inches never tilled it a few stubborn weeds grew through it but not many. I kept on top of it for the first year I haven't had any real weed issues since of course I get some that blow in every year but very easy to keep on top of. I grew up tilling I would never go back to it. Getting established is more work initially but once it's established much easier, I'm not against traditional gardening some places it's your best option.

I always get a good education watching your videos and always look forward to the next one. Great job!

I've done both and now I have raised beds. I live on a sand hill and getting older has a lot to do with too!😂

I had good luck killing grass and forming beds by flipping the sod. I did this in early November before the ground froze, let it sit with roots exposed through the coldest part of winter, then added compost in late February. This works in zone 6 if temps get to zero fahrenheit.

Perfect timing I will be making my first in ground beds this year! Thanks

I've had good results over bermuda grass by waiting until the grass is starting to green up before putting down cardboard. It takes at about six to eight weeks for the cardboard to break down, so if you put the cardboard down too soon, it won't be there to stop the Bermuda grass. This means that you will not have a spring garden in that spot. On top of the card board, I put for to eight inches of compost. After about three weeks, summer transplant crops ( in my area ) can be planted. Holes for tomatos, summer squash, peppers, sweet taters, etc. can be dug down to the cardboard and the roots placed right on top of it. When the cardboard rots, the roots can get down into the real soil. With the compost, you won't have any weeds from seeds. About ten weeks eight weeks after putting down the cardboard, you will see a few sprigs of bermuda popping up. Take care of these asap by getting out as much of attached rhizome as you can. There will be the occasional sprig popping up for about eight more weeks. If you take cultivate and rake out the bermuda grass before putting down the cardboard, you won't have the problem of some sprigs popping up. It probably takes more effort to remove the bermuda initially, then it does to remove the sprigs, but one must be diligent about removing rhe sprigs. Even if you are not removing the bermuda, you can reduce the number of sprigs popping through by cutting the rhizomes with a shovel. Fewer rhizomes will then have the energy to search for a way to the sunlight for the six or more weeks it takes the cardboard to break down. You can also plant through fabric on top of the compost for the first year to reduce the amount of effort it takes to establish a new bed. I've successfully done this many times and all the variations I've tried were easier than dealing with the weeds in a new in-ground plot.

on a 14 X 5 plot I did cardboard and 7 inches of compost. It killed most things but the bermuda grass grew through it. I took about 2 years of pulling shoots to fully get rid of it.

Great advice. Keep the great videos coming.

Great advice Travis! Your my go to gardener 😊

"backyard armchair quarterbacks!!!" Love it... I imagine they see themselves as amazing farmers. Perhaps some are, perhaps there's a LOT more imagination going on than ACTUAL farming or gardening!

Thank you very much....

I agree, tilling is not bad, especially if you're starting with a compacted, grass covered ground. That soil doesn't have much biology in it to be begin with and you need to break it up to allow air and water to penetrate.

I agree. Composting in rows at the beginning is the way. I also agree that back to Eden or no-till is a goal...and it takes years to achieve. It can be done many ways, but don't expect a cornucopia of produce until it is established. If you place a foot of wood chips in an orchard of mature trees of course you will see a benefit quite quickly, but if you try to grow lettuce or tomatoes in it...good luck.

Good talk Travis, always enjoy your videos. No in ground gardening for me, nothing but rocks and crabgrass here were I live. It’s only tubs setting on ground covering from now on. Keep up the great work and videos.

Easiest way to start off a no till garden and git rid of grass it fill a raised garden bed at least 12 inches high with a 50-50 mix of woidchips/municiple green waste and mushroom comlost/home made compost plant some nitrogen fixing legumes water in and pull up the garden bed leaving the soil and by the time the legumes finishes growing you've got perfect dirt less growing medium

Another good video, Sir . I have used the lasagna method to make a couple of 4'x8' beds, and it certainly works. With that said, I wouldn't want to try a large plot with that method. My current main garden area was tilled in the past, which managed to spread grass rhizomes EVERYWHERE. I have since converted to 4' wide beds with permanent wood chip walkways. That allows me to concentrate nutrients and weed suppression in the beds. I love that "till until you don't have to " philosophy. I think that would apply whether you have a tiller or hand tools. I use hand tools now and still have to fight a few rhizomes, but it's getting easier all the time. As I started getting older, I couldn't make sense of tilling every year, just so I could walk and fight weeds on 80% of it. To each his own, just grow some groceries however you have to.

Very good information thank you

We have an in-ground garden and we grow enough produce to preserve a lot of it!

Explaining so simply makes more sense, I’ve just got my first allotment in the UK with bindweed and will be attempting your combination method to hopefully get some big harvests also wood chip is quite a easy thing to get in the north of England will be flowing your videos closely for some awesome help! Much love

I live just across the border from you and recently requested a couple truck loads of wood chips for free from our local city government. They deliver it to the house and everything, but there is no guaranteed delivery time. However, it may be worth looking into for some folks that also live in cities and don't have trailers, etc... I have nothing against tilling, but I would have to go rent a tiller and bring it to/from the house, as well, so I figured I may as well get a few truck load of free organic matter. I can always use as regular mulch in flower beds, or just let it cook for a year or two and turn into compost. Cheers from down the road.

Great video. I have a 24x36’ plot I’ll be planting in Spring but I have a small tiller. I think I’ll do the cultivation technique because the weed bank here in the forest is intense. If I can reduce it I’m all for it but this way I don’t have to buy 800 bags of compost lol. 😂I can buy some still but I won’t need as much and I’d love to use my native soil if possible. I’m in Texas so I’ll have lots of sandy soil but it’ll be great for sweet potatoes and cowpeas and maybe some squash, corn and beans. I planned to put down landscape fabric for my walkways between my garden beds but didn’t want to have all my garden be composed of garden beds. When I plant a block of corn I’d rather it be in-ground personally. I did that last year and planted squash all around it and it was great. This year I’ll have my deer fencing around my new plot and rabbit wire at the bottom so I’m going to be planting almost exclusively in there. I do want to build some raised beds eventually but finances preclude me from doing that just yet for lack of soil to fill it with (I have enough lumber to build some but I have a lack of time to do it all at once). We will see but I definitely want to get started growing in-ground if possible. I’m excited to start!

Im on the fence i want to do it one way but see it both ways. But the no til is more work atleast at first. Ive had success doing both. Ive moved and have to start over but im taking what ive learned from both to make my garden. We all should be watching dtg. I doubt anyone wants to hear how ive done things. But ive leaned more to no til but its not over night success

Great points! I had to slowly improve my clay soil over three years and tilled two of them before being able to do no till. I have more life in my soil than ever before it’s amazing.

As expected another great video, Thank You! We are now definitely going to no till gardening. Then as you mentioned, "Till until you do not have to till". Reminds us of something Jesse Frost may have said? Where we live the clay is utra hard. Combined with Bermuda Grass. So, after MANY years and trying to rid of Bermuda Grass our progress will slowly go on. What other choice do we have?

For wood chips, check with chip drop or a local tree service; both will deliver for free.

If you pay to have your yard done (i.e., weed and fert), then you need to at least till the grass up. It would be even better to remove the top layer of grass and soil. The reason is that the key to weed-free grass is not having weeds start (i.e., prevent them from germinating --- can't prevent the seeds as they are flying around everywhere). Weed killer is too expensive and will hurt the grass if used too much. This normally the difference between paying a company to take care of your yard and just using Scotts 3 Step yourself. So lawn companies put down "tons" of preemergent --- honestly too much, based on my years working on yards. This stuff can stay for over a year in the top layer and prevents germination. So even if you build on top of it, it can prevent root growth once it hits that layer.

The till or no till argument is quite subjective. We all don’t have the same type of soil nor do we all plant the same crops. We should all do what works for us. That applies to most things in life as well.

No till definitely has taken way more to set up. And if you dont start it right, you can mess it up for up to 2 years (till mulch breaks down).

yup, you gotta dig over or till hard compacted ground, no dig wont make the ground light and fluffy and full of life under the cardboard will be compact none aerated soil with not much in it.

All rock here had to do no till

I’m in WV. nothing is level so have to modify n figure for erosion.

Maybe I’m missing something, but Eden there were no weeds, roots, rocks etc. to deal with. So not using a tiller would make things harder. I don’t understand why not use a tiller, it doesn’t change the soil, it stirs it and if you add compost, that’s a good thing.

I put about 6 inches of wood chips over half my garden about 2 years ago. It worked okay in that I wasn't as concerned about watering as often. I had fig trees along one side of the garden and now the roots have formed a mat between the wood chips and the soil.im moving the fire since they froze to the dirt during this years Artic blast.question: can I till whats left of the chips into the soil and if so what do I need to do to supplement the nitrogen imbalance?

What about a turning plow

I have mid Georgia red clay with some loam, fair drainage, over farmed soil infested with nut sedge and bermuda grass. What would you do for a classic veggie garden in this situation? I do have a tractor with a sub soiler, an old double bottom plow, so I am thinking after scalping, use the sub soiler, then the plow, then the tiller with the repeat method. Then, what about a green manure cover crop tilled in and a later planting for the hot summer?

If you put down lots of cardboard then put bales of hay on it…. This will totally make the grass die and have a first round of mulch!! Give it a try! You will love it!!

I have a question for you. With hard compacted soil, I’ve tilled and added compost, and I have a good 6 inches of good soil. Maybe 8 in some areas. Beneath that it’s super hard. My tiller only goes so deep. Is that deep enough for proper root development or should I try to get deeper or build it up more? One thing I do is when I hill up a row of tomatoes, potatoes, or corn, I till between the rows to get a little deeper since the top few inches have been pulled away.

I live in Early Co. GA. Lots of red clay 😣 i just have a small garden but I use a pick axe. I think that's what its called, skinny axe on one side and a skinny hoe on the other.

I ❤ you Trav!!!! However, no. Let me clarify something for you... Gardeners are Demi-Gods, farmers are GODS!!! I am a gardener, I grow fruits and vegetables along with pollinatir flowers. I prefer garden beds and no-dig method because....It's easier to control soil temperature, moisture and growing seasons in beds and above ground as opposed to in-ground. Warm water and coverings can be used in beds as opposed to waiting for the ground to thaw for example. Gardeners are doing things on a much larger scale using vast areas of land therefore in-ground method is preferred. I have access to a tiller but my preferred method is above ground. Although I'm a gardener, I subscribe to your channel and enjoy your videos because I take the information you're sharing, which is large-scale (BIG) and chop it down so that it is applicable to my methods. Gardener vs Farmer. ❤ you Trav!🥬🥒🫑🍎🍅🥬🌶🫛🥦

I used to plow my garden, but I noticed that the ground got more rocky the more you plow it.

We tilled last summer for our first in ground garden, a 22 x 22 space. Covered with silage tarp over winter but spread some of our chicken coop deep bedding over the plot about a month ago and then re-tarped. Should we till that in now? Or wait? We're in N.MS, zone 8a. We're dealing with heavy red clay soil but it's much improved since last yr. Will the chicken manure be broken down enough by April to plant? Anyone that has knowledge on this, please feel free to respond.

It's not an either or. Most no till folk i know aren't never till. As you said, till till you don't have to till no more. No till it's the goal because it has the best soil health and growth longterm.

I get free wood chips from a local arborist to put around my raised beds and I can’t imagine hauling enough chips in my little wheel barrel to try Back to Eden gardening. I think it’d kill me.

I like your way best. Please don’t ask me how I know about cardboard…I won’t sound like a lady no more 😅

I think every gardener needs a tiller.

Those back to Eden gardeners probably don't live where it gets a 100%F with a 100% humidity. Talk about disease issues and root rot 😏

What do the Universities say, and the USDA say about it??

When will you have more fig trees for sale? I want to start me a fruit orchard.

What kind of tiller do you recommend? I have a fair amount of wet clay, and not sure if different tillers are better for different soils?

Any advice on which tillers are best?

had my butt kicked by my garden in early summer. everything was going great until sudden decline. after many misses, adding dolomite and potassium brought it back to better shape. it's all about those nutrients, rather than making garden fairies happy, as they're just imagination. calcium and potassium readily leech away with irrigation and in high demand by flowers/veg/fruit. 20:20:20 didnt help.

Worms🪱🍂😊

If I was to use wood chips in a garden, I would do it just exactly like 3 Basket Living done with his...till them under and keep tilling them until they broke down completely. There's faster and better ways of building good soil with better organic materials. It'll be a cold day in hell before I put any wood chips on my garden.

I think you misunderstood the whole point wich is getting healthier soil, which is not achieved by tilling.

This old lady is using a broadfork.

no-tillers are the vegans of the gardening world. lol

No reason to have a grass free garden. I have thick clover and Bermuda cover but that forage for the rabbits and quail. I raise a lot of quail and butcher rabbits so tractors are going up and down rows all year. A grass plant need different nutrients than a pepper or okra so they don't compete with each other. Grass high nutrition okra high phos

Back to Eden and no till are different approaches. I don't care for back to Eden for a garden maybe an orchard takes years for the wood chips to breakdown and you have to rack them back to plant to much work

I live in Virginia ,I don't know what your talking about. I till ,I also use nature in fall shredded leaves promotes go compost ,but if you have a bagger on lawnmower use your grass as mulch !!! I rarely have more than 20 pieces of weeds in a season ask me more

You would create a terrible mess if you have Bermuda grass you would scatter those risomes and have a huge task if you till it.

I prefer the third option. Hydroponics. When I say hydroponics, you are probably thinking about growing in water, but I'm talking about growing in cocoa coir. This is how most of the organic blueberries are grown globally now, and it's starting to be the standard for other crops as well. It is cheaper than no-till, as you can buy cocoa coir in bulk extremely cheap, and it can be reused for many years. I grow all three ways: hydroponically, no-till, and conventionally. Hydroponics done correctly is unmatchable in quality, time to maturity, and yields. No-till is a red herring, as commercial hydroponic farms using cocoa coir are now able to be labeled as organic in the USA. Other small farmers are wasting their time talking about soil biology, while the real research being done right now is in substrate hydroponics. To me the soil is nothing more than something for roots to hold on to. Plants can't tell whether they are getting nitrogen from cow manure or from a synthetic fertilizer, and they could care less. My hydroponic fertilizer has all the micronutrients plants need, which surely your soil is lacking in. So, the compound inequality is hydroponics > conventional > no-till. They are breeding for hydroponic corn, and when they perfect that lots of people are going to be out of a job. Give it about ten to fifteen years and you will see I am correct. I'm in academia in agriculture. No crop rotation. No weeding. No cover cropping. No "soil biology" nonsense. Less insect pressure. By George, it's the future! YEEHAW.