Curious to see how many growers are doing most of their work with a hoe?
I am growing with zero irrigation in subtropical Australia, on a heavy cracking clay soil. The only inputs I use for my more intensive growing areas are manure from my small goat herd, and charcoal/ash produced by burning and quenching the left over branches I cut to feed my animals.
This is how I prepare my growing spaces:
Hoe back the fallow weeds (often after letting the goats graze it). I used to pen my geese in the area at night to clear out the vegetation but dont have any at the moment. Recently I have started experimenting with a rolling wave of thick vetiver grass to weaken the weedy growth first. I’m not sure if it provides a huge time/effort saving since cutting and moving the material by hand takes approximately the same amount of time as simply hoeing. I will probably end up finding a better use for the vetiver grass biomass.
I then top dress the centre of my beds with charcoal first (1-2 cm deep), then a layer of uncomposted goat manure (~5 cm deep). The charcoal absorbs excess nitrogen from the manure, and the manure stabilises the alkaline minerals in the charcoal/ash. Charcoal is the only additive which improves my heavy soil texture over time. I don’t dig it in, just let the natural soil activity break it down and dig it deeper every year. If I dig organic matter into my soil it melts away within six months due to our hot/wet weather, then the clay collapses into a solid mass which is farworse than how it started. Finally I hoe the top few centimeters of top soil off my paths and onto the beds, lightly covering the charcoal and manure.
I direct sow seeds along the edge of the beds, where the manure is readily accessible to the crops but not too deep. My beds are wide enough that most crops get sowed on both sides in a double row. The loose soil on top of the deep manure/charcoal is unsuitable for most weeds to grow, and so loose they are easy to hoe out. The paths are kept bare but allowed to sprout a carpet of weeds. I selectively weed/hoe out the worst behaving species and let the nice ones self seed. This seems to turn the exposed subsoil of the paths into topsoil pretty quickly. When I do hoe the paths back I leave the weeds and topsoil in small compost heaps along the path, to be hoed onto the growing beds in time.
I usually use the growing area for one or two “intensive” seasons (about 6 months each), usually top dressing the beds with a bit more manure and sometimes ash for the species that like it. After that I usually grow a season of staple crops and gradually let the weeds take over again. It usually takes a couple of years before I come back to clear again.
Curious to see if anyone else has stumbled upon a similar growing technique.
Closest I can think of [zero mulch, zero compost, zero irrigation] is the Native American Hopi way. They grow their Hopi varieties of corn using dry land farming techniques. Its even less input. Basically if you space out the distance between plants then the roots are not all competing for the lower moisture content in any given portion of the ground.
Traditionally the Hopi don’t use the hoe, there was a planting stick but I forget what the native name of it was. Modern Hopi will use some tools such as a metal version of that stick or the wheel hoe. Same idea as the hand held hoe but the wheel lets you run a larger garden area in less time. The hoe being excellent at removing the undesired plants in the growing field from their root systems so again less competition per given area for the moisture in the soil.
And this is typical of the land around them they clear out and prepare a farming plot in.
It almost makes one want to reach out to the reservation to see if one could get some of their corn seed. They do have “Hopi” corn for sale at retail seed stores online, but you cannot be sure it hasn’t been high input farmed to grow seed stock for retail sale versus whats in use on the reservation harvested from a dry land plot.
Edit: Example, not just corn they are growing out there.
They have a lot of flour corn, etc. This is their blue corn, very pretty.
Steve Solomon talks about dust mulching through periodic hoeing in these systems. The main idea is to break the hydrological connection between water stored deep in the soil and the surface, so moisture is only lost through crop transpiration (which to be fair is by far the biggest driver compared to surface evaporation).
I have a theory that is kind of the opposite of that idea. If you dig soil deeply you also break up connections between deep stored water and the root zone. It is another reason to avoid digging deeply in some soil types and climates. I actually love my heavy clay now I understand it because it stores water long into droughts unlike loam or sand ever could.
Currently and in the past, I’ve only used hand tools like hoes and shovels to construct beds.
I’ve never used a tiller but plan on buying one for next season. The 2 cycle mantis tiller looks like the winner for my needs.
I don’t use manure or charcoal inputs consistently but have used manure and ash in the past.
I like this YouTuber. His method for constructing beds is exactly like what I do. I also like his accent and work ethic. People like him make this world a better place.
As you said clay has the opposite problem than the desert soil very slow water disbursement. I have what they call here black gumbo clay, high in nutrients but it has literally no tilthe and brings the joy of the large cracks in the summer and dry season and a smelly sticky muck in the rain season.
I almost gave up on the idea of gardening when I moved here but like you I have now grown to love my clay too for the very same reasons.
I experienced the same amendment melting power when I applied beauty wood chips from the nursery to areas that became a wet sticky mess when I first moved in and needed to get the bins out for the rubbish truck.
My current method/system was actually implemented for stabilizing the clay to protect my house cement foundation. The constant expansion and shrinkage of the clay soil under the foundation is a common problem for homeowners here. It is never a question of “if” you will get a cracked foundation but always “when”. Foundation repairs are extremely costly for homeowners in this area so its a good incentive to try something. Time will tell how well it performs but I can now pull back my covering and see moist clay and no shrinkage and no cracks even in the heat of a dry summer so I think I am on to a good start.
I plant trees directly in the clay soil. There are still some nursery stores here that provide the old advice of changing or amending your soils in the hole you plant the tree in. And unlike the Hopi and dry land farming I can bring in the distance between my trees as there is more moisture to go around now.
For the vegetables I have built up a layer on top of the clay with some tilthe so the shallow feeder roots can go out into that and find oxygen while any deeper tap roots are free to go down and penetrate the clay layer with all its nutrients and moisture but reduced oxygen.
I am animal restricted zoning so I cannot bring in manure produced on site. The manure you buy in is a gamble in this country due to grazon aminopyralid and similar persistent herbicides used now on animal feed that pass through the animal digestive systems and can last many years in the soil you apply them to. This would be fine if I was growing grass monocots but would mean all the broad leaf plants would be stunted or not grow at all for years. Burn restrictions means I cannot make charcoal on site so that was out but in the rural areas it can be done here.
I had watched Jim Putnam who ran a nursery and a commercial and residential landscaping service in North Carolina. He is focused more on landscape plants and a little bit of vegetable gardening off to one side. One thing that drew me is he has clay soils and has transformed his clay soils over a few years with creating a tithe layer on top, not digging it in, and not using most of the amendments the retail nursery business sells to homeowners.
Heading over to Georgia, this is what Travis does for his weed suppression and animal system. Travis does more intense growing on his land year round so he invests in cover crop seeds so that after a growing area has been prepared and used, he broadcasts out the mixed cover crops to suppress the weeds. Then he uses the destructive nature of the chickens on his property to selectively bring down the cover crop and manure the ground and do light surface layer scratching. He can usually get two rounds of chicken system moving across each growing area before he prepares for the next grow out of food. Same basic idea as with Joel Salitin at Polyface farms, but working with food growing plots rather than pasture.
That would fit with what Joseph Lofthouse has said about his (Utah desert sand) soil: when he plants, he compacts the soil down as much as possible. That’s what farmers in his area have done for generations. I’m thinking desert sand probably benefits from being compacted tightly because it makes it easier for plant roots to get down to the water, which tends to be very deep down indeed because sand drains so quickly.
That and plant deeper for dry land farming, in the third Hopi video you see them marking out and walking down the rows creating compacted lines in the soil. In conventional farming techniques it is usually recommend setting corn seed down at depths of an inch, but Hopi farmers will dig down as far from 6 to 18 inches to reach the moist soil, below the surface. Then he’ll place 10 to 20 corn kernels in each hole, move another three paces down the row, and repeat the process.
Surface tilth in clay soils is all you need to make it easier to direct sow seeds. My oldest beds which have been through a couple production cycles have a lovely darkened crumbly layer now (though it still sets fairly hard when it is bone dry). In some ways I think I like this property since it reduces the potential for erosion. Perfect friable soil only accumulates on flood plains for a reason.
Using animal pressure to clear weedy vegetation is an amazing tool if you can tap into it. I loved my geese when I had them since a 50 cm chicken wire fence was all it took to keep them concentrated as a night pen, and then kept them out when I moved them elsewhere and started cropping. I now have established vetiver grass around my growing area, so I could concievably shift over to a bamboo fencing system when I get geese again. I just hate having to untangle rusty metal wire when I am done with it.
@Austin- my method of building beds is very similar to what this youtuber is doing. I prefer to use a hoe and I’m much less precise about it. The paths fill with water during heavy rain, sparing the crops from collar rot, but also helping all the water slow down and recharge my deep clay soil. I just avoid going into the garden at these times. Without walls the soil slowly moves back into the paths, but I just hoe it up again periodically (and the first time is x10 as much work as follow up reshaping). I hate the idea of walls since they provide an obstacle for hoeing out weeds (and grasses love hiding underneath them).
Wow, it’s awesome that the corn will germinate for them when planted that deeply! I’m guessing they selected for it by virtue of all the ones that couldn’t handle it dying.
We seem to be moving in a similar direction in terms of bed prep. We try once a year to spread ash and charcoal, then a layer of scrapings from the chook yard or compost if we have it. The chooks get most of the garden waste so we don’t make much compost. They do a better job anyway. Paths are often covered with hay. If we can be bothered, we hoe anything growing in the paths that is unwanted. We occasionally scrape off the top few centimetres of the paths and toss this onto the beds. The only digging that gets done in the beds is when transplanting seedlings (dig a little hole into which the seedling is dropped) or when harvesting roots. In some beds, the oldest, we can often just pull out carrots and even parsnips at times. Doesn’t work with potatoes, at least not yet.
External inputs: chook food, seaweed granules, organic fertiliser (mainly for the tree seedlings because they’re in their pots a long time).
In my garden mulch is the most important addition. This is due to my soil which is pure sand. Mulch acts as water conserving layer and it adds fertility to the soil. It slowly decomposes adding organic matter to the soil. It supresses weeds entirely, so no work of digging, hoeing. And mostly no watering, except in extreme draught, but it is like 10% to what others use in their non-mulched gardens nearby.
I use any amount of compost I make, I do not buy it. I compost everything I can get but without external inputs (no manures, etc.). I use bokashi composting in the kitchen, vermicomposting in the garden and hot composting of a big pile once or twice a year. I collect all fallen leaves, grass clippings, hay from my meadow and any other organic matter.
I have tried to grown corn “Hopi style”, but I had zero seed germination, so either these were wrong varieties, or I was doing something wrong. Same seeds in my mulched garden, not fertilized, not watered and not weeded give very nice yields.
Due to a small size of my gardens I cannot afford to fallow any beds, just the opposite, I grow in all of them every year. Moreover, in some beds I get up to 3 crops in a season, despite of our winter. These beds require addition of 5 cm of compost once a year to replenish what I take out of the garden with harvest. This applies to so-called kitchen garden. In the main crop garden, where potatoes, squashes and corn are mostly grown, as I said, I use just a very thick mulch.
I did a very informal test with a standard breed (i.e., inbred) yellow sweet corn. I went into rebellion mode when the Hopi guy said no other corn will come up from that far down.
At 6 inches it nearly all came up, it just took longer. At 12 inches I think I got one plant. I put 10 in each hole, if I remember correctly.
I got a few kernels to plant the following year.
If someone wanted to work on it… I mean, if weak sweet corn can do it, maybe other corn could do better. It did take a long time to come up, so take that into consideration.
The Hopi have been dry land farming for more than 2000 years so the early Hopi did all the selection work and through oral tradition of passing down techniques it’s now just word of mouth that only hopi corn can do this and no other corn. Or more correctly the corn that didn’t like being buried deep died before reaching the surface and the corn kernels that did reach the surface grew on to pass on their DNA. So eventually all the kernels being grown and planted have the DNA for survive deep planting and reach the surface. Any throw off from that keeps getting culled out of the mix by not reaching the surface. The Hopi plant many kernels in each hole. Not just to account for any that don’t have the ability to reach the surface but also to account for losses from drought, pests, etc. in the growing season ahead. A constant survival of the fittest corn kernels self selecting for those genes that grow well in their particular environment. Put other corn varieties through similar treatment and you should be able to get a large population that will penetrate the surface then you can go even further down to put even more pressure on the next generation of corn seed until you reach the Hopi levels.
That’s all really encouraging to read! My soil is pure sand, too, and I’m hoping to use a deep mulch of autumn leaves everywhere and water as little as possible.
How much rain do you get in the summer? I’m thinking I’ll try watering once a week, unless we get rain. (Which we usually don’t at all in the summer, but this June has been weird and incredibly rainy, so who knows?)
Emily, it is complicated, or rather it is getting complicated. Let me explain.
Until two years ago, life was simple. In november, when all the leaves have fallen, I was gathering them and using as a mulch. Until spring, all rain and snow that melted was providing water that was infiltrated under mulch and that was enough until July rains. Then, we had 3 rain-free weeks in August, but it was not an issue since plants were using July water.
It has changed though. Last year and now we have extreme lack of rainfall and therefore drought. I need to observe my plants carefully and I am almost certain that I will have to start watering them, due to this weather.
My annual rainfall average was 550 mm, curently it is approx. 350 mm. Te biggest rainfall used to be in July ( 89 mm).
Same, with compost and wood chip cover, my soil basically never dries out. My specific property catches water from the surrounding properties so the wood chips also help slow, absorb, and hold this moisture. It’s amazing how fast they disappear. My long-term plan is to switch over to all strawberry and St John’s Wort ground cover, but want to restore the soil first.
