Sue - I realize you may not be aware that it is a very hot button topic so in hopes of avoiding the controversy that always develops in threads about this subject I linked many previous debates and discussions on the question below. I hope you don't mind.

They are all over many of the forums here - but especially vegetable gardening, soil, and market gardening.

Personally I advocate tilling.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Till- no till debates

I have large perennial garden. Last year when my fence was being installed workers were drooling over how easy it was to dig deep. It did took me few years of leaving fall leaves on the beds to create garden I can almost work with my bare hands. What I am saying that you can get there just need time and understanding of the process. When you need it now and your soil is not great then you might need to till to help incorporate organic matter and loosen the soil. Depends on where you are in your soil journey

Ok Dave, you are correct, I had no idea it was a "hot button" topic. Who knew, lol? It often surprises me what turns out to be one. I don not frequent the other forums so would not have seen any discussions on them. I have not reviewed your link yet, but I certainly will, so thank you. Sorry I almost stirred it up.

Sue
Whenever I get conflicting advise I look for an authority I trust and see what they have to say on the subject. As a Texan I look to Texas A&M (Agricultural and Mechanical) University when I have a question regarding agriculture. Here is what they advise tomato gardeners to do.

Soil preparation
Work the garden soil only when it is
dry enough not to stick to the garden
tools. Several weeks before planting, work
the top 8 to 10 inches of soil. Remove all
rocks and trash from the soil and rake it to
break up large clods.
Tomatoes grow best in soils that have
lots of organic matter. If possible, spread 2
to 3 inches of organic material such as
compost, leaves, or rotted hay over the
planting area. Mix this organic material
into the top 4 to 6 inches of soil.

So yes, till your soil, perhaps it would be nice if it were true that untilled soil worked better but it's not.

Dave
I don't know you but I have learned a lot from you here and hold what you have to say in high regard. It saddens me not to hear open discussion from you on this or any topic. A few opinionated zealots behaving badly does not make a simple question into a hot button issue. Ceding this or any forum to them or their ilk rather than answering a request for help is a mistake we may well all wind up paying for.

Respectfully
Mike

This post was edited by ABlindHog on Sun, May 18, 14 at 23:20

Why "hot Button"?

This is a forum and bunch of mature people come here and express their views on any given subject. There shouldn't be anything personal here. I cannot understand some people here get excited when their views are challenged or rejected. I don's consider anybody here an undisputed authority and DEFINITELY I am not one and I am not looking for praise or recognition here. I just don't like to carry it personal level.

Now having saidall that, tilling or not tilling have their proponents and opponents. In the end of the day, you till or not till your garden it is your business not anybody else's .
I am a pro-tlling. And yes, I am willing to put up with a lot of hard work and sweat a bit, b'c I believe that it does good. Number one: any soil, be it a container or raised bed ..., tends to become compacted over time. And it is believe that compacted soil has poor drainage(for one) and might also compromise good root development.
Number Two: It is also believed that plants' roots can benefit from air. Obviously compacted soil would reduce that. Even micro organisms need air, since any garden soil is a kind of compost pile, in a very slow state.
For those reasons, (and not minding to do some hard work = exercise ) I do till my garden.

You do as you like, for whatever reason.

Personally I'm delighted that Dave saves threads for a specific topic and can then link to them for the benefit of others.

In the crop rotation thread he gave a link with 36 pages. for instance.

No one is being denied the right to share their own information about a topic. but having Dave do what he does allows for folks to not have to do a search here on a topic, saves one heck of a lot of typing and duplicate postings/

I wish I had the discipline to do what he does, but I don't. In that crop rotation thread I said I was too lazy to go thru those linked to threads on that topic even though I knew I'd posted in many of them, that's true, so went ahead and posted my own views on the topic.

Anyone can do that, but again, if Dave has already put topics in a file, it saves so much time for folks so they don't have to do their own search here themselves, and many don't do that anyway and most don't even check the FAQ's before asking a question either.

It's the I want an answer now, and want someone else to answe rme, I don't want to do it myself viewpoint, as emblematicof current trends.

He also reads/posts in quite a few different Forums here and I'm sure he must do links in those other Forums as well.

I used to participate in other Forums here as well, and did so for many years. I suppose few of you even know that tomatoes were discussed initially in a different Forum here but kind of took over that Forum, so it was Spike, the former owner,who created this Forum just for tomatoes and also the disease Forum and picture Forum.The trade forum was here when I joined all those years ago, but Spike made several changes in that Forum as well, and had to since it was being abused.

Carolyn

It doesn't feel like a controversy to me either, maybe because I think both ways are fine. I used to till, even double-dug a fair sized garden with a shovel. But given a good set-up, fair soil, and access to plenty of good mulch, I might try it the other way.

I guess things only become controversies when one man's "never" meets another man's "always."

Mike - I agree with you but I also know from experience here that it is more than just a few zealots. Trolls come out of the mountains in herds on this topic. Add to them the people here who just want to argue - about every thing and you can see the problem.

Sue asked a simple question in all innocence and I have no doubt that had she been aware of the previous discussions she wouldn't have posted it.

But as the many linked previous discussions show it is a topic that can and has turn ugly and quickly dominate the whole forum while all other topics fall by the wayside. That serves no purpose I can see.

Sadly I also know that me saying what I said above very likely won't prevent it happening yet again.

But one can always hope that some folks will actually read some of the linked previous discussions, find the answers to their questions about it, and decide for themselves that it isn't worth getting in to yet again.

Dave

PS: and if interested my personal opinion on the topic is detailed in several of the linked threads.

Tilling is personal choice. It is choice that one must make based on their own experience, conditions and what they feel is "right." There is not a one size fits all answer to this or any other question.

I personally chose to till. First of all, where I live, I can not simply pile on organic matter to the soil surface and allow it to decompose like Lindalana does. Here in Colorado it would simply dry up and blow away. If I don't add material at all then I'm left with pure bentonite which doesn't grow much of anything (except weeds). By tilling I can add the material as well as loosen up the soil. To me, this is right. For me, this works.

The decision is up to you. Whichever way you feel is best is the one I would go with. Id tilling simply extra work with no substantial gain? Or, is it a necessity in order to achieve and maintain a good soil structure?

Time is a factor too. I knew some people who did a no-till garden in flat clay soil. The first year's harvest was nothing but fava beans, lots and lots of fava beans. (They used it as a green manure on the whole garden space.)

Something like that can be a fun project, but you aren't going zero-to-tomatoes with it.

I have a hard time believing the roots can spread as easily among the roots of last years plants in untilled soil as they would in the loose soil of a newly tilled garden. But it would be nice if it were true
This can be true in some instances. Greatly dependent upon soil composition and its horizon (thickness). But I do till. And MUST do it to create new garden areas where there are grasses and weeds and unknown stuff is in soil. But on existing and well-maintained garden soils, wholesale tilling I do not recommend. What is to be avoided, if possible, is soil compaction, which grinding promotes. Compacted soil is MUCH harder to cultivate (note, however, that many weeds do not seem to mind it) and its water retention and drainage properties go south. My recipe, IF possible, is to continually add organic material to surface of existing garden soil and lightly mix... do not render to bug dust.
Reggie

Dave, thanks for the links, I too am not enough on other forums to know that is it hot topic. Don´t understand why though... not better or worse than many other ones. I think one has to answer following questions as - what my soil looks like now... what are general benefits of tilling... what are disadvantages... where do I want to be with my soil in... whatever number of years...
Old fashioned way of thinking tilling loosens the soil and makes easy for the roots to develop... newer way of thinking that tilling destroys structure of the soil, soil food web, worms...
what do you have... what is more important to preserve or achieve ... now... in two years...
I have no choice in the matter as community gardens are tilled twice a year. I have met gardener in UP who has under his mulch of straw soil that is moving from the amount of the worms in it... he surely does not need any tilling done and has most healthy prize winning tomatoes at local fairs in the area...

Community gardens are mulched under an unfortunate layer of bureaucracy. Kind of like a HOA but without the personal touch. I offered a pickup truck load (about 2 and a half yards) of composted manure to a local community garden and they said unless I was a gardener there they wouldn't allow me to dump anything with them. Go figure.

if you admire the Mulch Guy, read up on Ruth Stout, a hard core long term leave-the-soil-alone gardener. She explains what she does and doesn't say everyone else is wrong. Just too hard working!

If they are tilling twice a year they're not going to ruin things. It's one of those things that just IS. They're both improving things and screwing things up at the same time and neither outcome is critical. Just add organic stuff until it looks good and then double it. See if you can scrape off and reserve your mulches before they till. If not, that's OK too.

Avoid anything that comes from a garden center or big box store in a bag, especially if the label has the word "miracle" on it. That's advice from Car Talk. Who can argue with them?

I'm tilling for now but hope someday not to have to. I only have an electric tiller for my small plot and when I can get enough organic matter into the soil I really hope to stop even that. One day I will order a big load of "landscape mix" and till that in and hope that will be it.
Dave you have succeeded in turning a hot button issue into another hot button issue, go figure.

Cold_weather, thanks for the name, sounds like my kind of people! I am much into ¨One straw revolution¨ ¨do nothing¨ way of thinking...

I like the way the subject is discussed. No HOT BUTTONS !!

I consider it a personal option/preference/choice. Though I believe in tilling. I could be wrong. Until I see a controlled scientific/university study side by side on two parcels of land for a few years, I will stick to my gun you do to yours.

I was always a till type gardener until I got into full on organics. I came to understand that soil biology is negatively effected through intensive tillage. I've come across numerous studies in the past which observed decreased beneficial bacteria and mycorrhizae in tilled land in comparison to virgin soil. .

My short answer would be this: If you don't care about your soil, and feed high salt synthetic fertilizers than you MUST till because the soil food web will be down to nothing in a few years and the soil will be aerated mostly by you and occasionally by the rain (which wouldn't be sufficient without added aeration of some sort: tilling, soil animals etc). In a no-till set up, the biological activity will bring more than enough o2 to the rhizosphere.

With synthetic ferts you must also be more regular in your feeding schedule because you will be the only thing supplying the plants nutrients. Not to mention, highly soluble synthetics don't stick around for long (apart from time released).

If you're an organic gardener and want your plants to be more self sufficient (and more natural) then I would say double dig for the first year. Then work on improving soil quality through the use of compost, mulching techniques, organic amendments, cover crops, mycorrhizae/bacterial inoculations etc.

Don't take it the wrong way, I'm a proponent for both organic and synthetic gardening and have had great results with both; yet I find that growing styles are greatly influenced by circumstances. I garden indoors hydroponically because soil/organics is just too messy for my situation. While outdoors I find it counter productive to "kill" the very things that help our plants (and the soil as a whole) to thrive, in more ways than one.. Not to mention, soil microbes/fungi make OUR lives much easier in terms of labor, and strengthen the immune system of the plants.

Also keep in mind that the fruit itself will acquire different tastes depending on your grow style.. Organically grown fruit will have higher brix (sugar) levels than it's counter part, making for a better tasting end result.

Some will argue that roots need o2 . . . well we all know that.. Take a walk around your local forest and tell me the last time the land was tilled. It's all the various insects, earthworms and decaying organic matter that help to influence the oxygen that's brought into the soil.. We can also get into the levels of dissolved oxygen in rain water that are in a ready form when they reach the root zone. (http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=4478656)

Anybody can say that tilling is necessary, but ask them why no-till setups lack o2. I'd be completely open to legitimate responses, and love to learn new things whenever possible =).

Here's a quick quote from the USDA on soil biology, followed by the web address:
"Intensive tillage triggers spurts of activity among bacteria and other organisms that consume organic matter (convert it to CO2), depleting the active fraction first. Practices that build soil organic matter (reduced tillage and regular additions of organic material) will raise the proportion of active organic matter long before increases in total organic matter can be measured. As soil organic matter levels rise, soil organisms play a role in its conversion to humus - a relatively stable form of carbon sequestered in soils for decades or even centuries."

http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detailfull/soils/health/biology/?cid=nrcs142p2_053868

Here are a few more sources supporting my statements:

http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/a0100e/a0100e07.htm

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/faculty/davies/research/mycorrhizae.html

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=4478656

annnnnnd breath! lol sorry for being so long winded but there was a lot of info there.. Hopefully it will be of some help to you when making your decision.

-Mike

Good post Mike.

Even though I taught Soil Microbiology for many years I'm not going to comment, except for the following:

You posted:

(Also keep in mind that the fruit itself will acquire different tastes depending on your grow style.. Organically grown fruit will have higher brix (sugar) levels than it's counter part, making for a better tasting end result.)

The primary determinants of taste of a variety are the genes that a variety has, And there are many many variables that play into that as to how grown, what amendments used, if so, which ones,how much and when, what the soil is like, what the season was like, and also knowing that taste is both personal and perceptual and there's even a human genetic component involved,

But in the past I've read many sources having to do with claims about organically grown fruits and veggies having a better taste, and yes, sometimes saying that Brix levels are higher, But soluble sugar contents don't tell the whole story about taste, and IMO, there is no clear consensus on this issue of taste and growing organically, or not.

And I just don't have the time to fetch links and info about that, but anyone can Google it and see what they find,

Carolyn

Carolyn,

Wow, I'm honored thanks! =)
Where'd ya teach? I've been into organics for a couple years, but only in the past year or so have I really started diving into soil micros etc... It's really a fun rabbit hole, and I'm beginning to see just how far down it goes..

I said:
"making for a better tasting end result."
That was a very general I made and I should have been more specific. Your right on target with correlating taste etc with individual strains and personal conceptions. I based the statement more on my anecdotal experience yet again, it wasn't a controlled situation and really the only way to compare would be by the use of clones and control groups. Perhaps I'll give it a run next year just for my own comparative purposes.

My results were based on my application of black strap molasses, and I did note increased sweetness, as well as my "control group" LoL - i.e my father who has grown tomatoes for approximately 40 years was bewildered on their sweetness, though this is anecdotal for sure..

Edit: Typo

This post was edited by michael723 on Thu, May 22, 14 at 12:19

Mike, if you click on my user name you'll see a bit about me. and that includes where I taught Soil Microbiology and so much more, after leaving teaching med students.

I've been reading/posting online since 1982 at various message sites and researching many many topics through the years.

I was helping my dad in the tomato fields when I was maybe 5-7 years old, and have grown tomatoes wherever I was and moved back East in 1982 when I had all the space I needed to grow whatever I wanted.

So I've been up close and personal with tomatoes for many years. I'll be 75 in June. been retired since 1999 and to date have grown about 4,000 varieties.

I severed all four quads in my right leg in 2004 and since then have not been able to do my own growing b/ I've had to use a walker. But I make an annual seed offer elsewhere and my job is to find seed of varieties that will be new to all or most and I have several folks who do the seed production for me for that seed offer as well as my SSE listings, although 2014 is the last time I'll be doing that. And there are several owners of commercial sites who also donate seeds and I do send seeds for trial to the owners of seed companies that I[ve known for a long time.

A few varieties are still grown here at home, cared for by Freda who does all my cleaning, gardening, etc and here's the few that will be grown here this season:

1. Sugar Giant- 3 of 4 germinated
2. Sweet Ozark Orange- 3 of 4 germinated
3. Black Opal- 3 of 4
4. Moms Heart- 4 of 4
5. Purple Bumble Bee- 4 of 5
6. Emerald Pear- 5 of 5
7. Pink Bumble Bee- 2 of 7
8. Iceberg- 1 of 5
9. Casino Chip- 7 of 8
10.Stoinas Bulgareia- 4 of 4
11. Domac- 2 of 4
12. Georges Giant- 3 of 4
13.Yoders Red Beefsteak- 2 of 4
14. Michaela's Pink- 4 of 4

The above are being grown for me by a local man whom I've been mentoring. A few of the names he misspelled and there are varieties there from Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Italy and other countries, but heavy on the small snacking ones since I can't get out to where they are to harvest, Freda has to do that for me.

Carolyn, who has many wonderful friends via her SSE listings since about 1990 and has never thrown out any of the saved seed, and also has made lots of friends from many countries as well. Seeing pictures of their gardens, hearing about the foods they like, what they like to grow, etc, has been just great.

Carolyn,

Your life story is inspirational! I too was helping my dad in the garden when young, but on a much smaller scale. I'm so sorry for your current medical situation and I have the highest wishes for your speedy recovery if at all possible!

Geez if we could sit down over a cup of coffee I think I could pick your brain for hours! lol =)
Those are some beautiful varieties you're working with; I haven't had the pleasure of growing any of those just yet.

Hope to speak again soon; I will be sure to heed any advice you may have for me in the future!