One year to the next

Mike Birch

Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 8:00 AM

Hello, It has been a warm July so far. Looks like the tomatoes are liking it.

We're still working on improving our soil. This is the first year we've been on the same piece of ground for more than a year. It is good for us to see how the soil reacts to our farming practices. You can read all sorts of books, but seeing it in action makes it real.

Last year and this year together we bought 100 yards of compost and have laid it out three inches deep on our beds. We don't till it in, we just let it sit there. From looking at beds we put down last year, it looks like it gets incorporated without the tilling. My line of thinking is tilling brings up weed seeds and pulverizes the soil community.

Not to say we're strictly no till. Before we lay down the compost for the first time, Clare tills the soil to kill the perennial grasses. After the first crop is harvested, she bed preps it with a glaser hoe, avoiding tilling between planting. At that point she puts down more compost. Not tilling lets her get into the bed quicker. She doesn't have to wait for the tilled in material to break down. Decomposing material can create competition with the plants for nitrogen.

While her shoulders say hoeing is a lot of work, she says it isn't any harder than tilling. We have a hand tiller, and it takes a lot to wrestle it around.

We know a farmer we respect a lot. He's been farming for a long time now, and he says with his rotation method his soils improve every year. It is exciting to think we could find ourselves in a similar situation.

Most importantly, we hope our CSA members have noticed a difference from last year to this year.

Thanks for taking this journey with us.