We usually choose a minimal tillage method involving forking but not heavy spading—a modification of the biointensive approach promoted by John Jeavons in How to Grow More Vegetables. As in Jeavons’ method, we are aiming to create raised beds where we concentrate amendments, water, and care, guarding them from compaction and planting more densely than we would plant a conventional flat, rototilled garden or field. However, our shallow, rocky soils make Jeavons’ double-digging method almost impossible to achieve here, since we can rarely penetrate two spade’s-depths—and also counterproductive, since it would tend to bring more rocks and subsoil to the surface, where we don’t want them. Instead, we generally cultivate to a single tool’s-depth with a digging fork, which allows us to extract quackgrass and other rhizomes in large pieces (without slicing them as a spade would do), while gently loosening and lifting the soil and letting amendments placed on the surface to be incorporated evenly within the top ten inches or so of soil. (Usually these amendments consist of compost and/or composted manure, oyster shell flower to boost pH and add calcium, and occasionally rock dust to add minerals—see, again, the Composting and Soil Fertility [0] section.)

Raised-bed gardening has many advantages. The combination of raised growing area and lightening of the soil through concentrated addition of organic matter allows better drainage (especially important in our heavy clay soils), so that beds dry out and warm up faster in the spring. Especially in deeply cultivated raised beds, plant roots can spread downward rather than laterally, allowing much closer spacing. Plants have better sun exposure, while shade-loving plants are also easier to plant close to—and in the shadow of—larger sun-lovers because of their closer spacing. By concentrating fertility and care, raised beds can make best use of available resources. The closer spacing of plants not only leaves less room for weeds, but also reduces water loss by shading the soil. Meanwhile, the spongy texture of adequately-amended and properly-cared-for raised bed soil not only facilitates drainage, but helps hold needed moisture during dry periods. It is little wonder that the Beetless’ SHE SAID RAISED BED [0] is one of their most optimistic, upbeat numbers.

Nevertheless, the reality remains that we have a A HARD CLAY SOIL [0]. Without a massive importation of loam and extra organic matter, our beds still have a long way to go before they resemble those dreamlike, deep, spongy, fertile beds that Alan Chadwick (John Jeavons’ biointensive mentor) created at UC Santa Cruz and Green Gulch Farm. We do not have the resources available to import the soil and materials needed to create ideal gardening conditions here; instead, like most of the rest of the world, “what we’ve got is what we’ve got” (to paraphrase the Beetless), and we are working to improve it rather than hoping to trade it in. We’re thankful that, despite its drawbacks, clay does have higher nutrient-holding capacity than coarser particles like sand.

Flat particles of clay are also much more easily compacted, especially when wet. Compaction is always undesirable, since it squeezes air out of the soil, reduces the soil’s ability to hold nutrients, reduces the capacity for drainage, and makes it more difficult for seeds to sprout and for plant roots and rootlets to spread. Beds should be no wider than can be easily accessed from either one side of the bed or the other, so that gardeners walk, stand, kneel, crouch, sit, and lie only in the paths between beds. (If beds are particularly wide or accessible from only one side, stepping stones can be placed to allow access further in.) It is usually easiest to cultivate or harvest from just one half of a bed at a time, using the path immediately adjacent to that half, and coming down the path on the other side to reach the other half of the bed. In sum, unless we want to ruin our soil structure and make pottery instead, we are well-advised to listen to the Beetless’ plea on behalf of their garden beds: DON’T STEP ON ME. (Curiously, this song, like this advice, was not always well-received by those who heard it—“another case of rubbing fans the wrong way,” is how the APPENDIX [0] puts it. The gentle art of staying positive and supportive while trying to protect raised beds from being compacted is an ever-evolving one, in which we can safely say that no compassionate yet conscientious gardener has yet achieved perfection.)

Working the soil when it is too wet is another way to cause compaction. If the tines of the fork leave visible marks (shiny compacted surfaces) on the soil, the soil is too wet to work. If you can pick up a handful of soil, squeeze it together, and drop it onto the bed without it crumbling easily back into soil, then it is too wet to work. If you can mold it into pottery, it is too wet to work—or else it is part of the clay subsoil, not the topsoil you are wanting to garden in. Soil can also become too dry to work with ease; if penetrating the surface with a fork seems like a daunting chore, the soil probably needs more moisture. Ironically, working the soil when it is too wet will cause it to become even more difficult to work when it is too dry, since the smushed-together clay particles will form a hardened, baked, almost concrete-like texture when they dry out. If you need to moisten too-dry soil in order to work it, do so carefully; you can hand-water lightly, or water long enough in advance that the bed has a chance to dry out adequately before working. Thinking ahead about proper soil moisture for bed preparation, and then timing watering and other activities accordingly, is an essential, learned skill that will prevent both the unnecessary work of flailing away at soil that has baked too dry, and the destructive work of cultivating soil that is too wet.

Hand-tillage is almost always more gentle on the soil than mechanical cultivation. Rototillers destroy soil structure by pulverizing the soil, and also create a hardpan (a zone of compacted soil) at the depth of the tines. (The tiller-depth compaction and much of the rhizomatous weed problem in some of our garden areas can be traced directly to past use of both tractor-hauled and hand-pushed tillers. Rototillers are also, hands-down, the most effective way to break up, multiply, and distribute quackgrass and other rhizomes, as well as vigorous perennial roots such as comfrey, each piece of which can develop into a new plant.) Among tractor implements, discs are far less destructive to soil than the old moldboard plow, but still can cause compaction and disturbance of soil layers, not to mention the toll they can take on life forms ranging from soil microbes to ground-nesting birds to charismatic rodents and rabbits). Judicious use of subsoilers and various other mechanical aids can be helpful in establishing or maintaining food-growing areas, but mechanical tillage always has its downsides. The Beetless celebrate the use of hand-tools in I WANT TO DIG BY HAND [0], while also cautioning, in SHE DUG YOU [0], that even hand tools can wreak terrible destruction when improperly used. Poorly-executed and poorly-timed double-digging can upend and compact soil while destroying much of its life; as the Beetless’ sing, “When you’re dug like that, it makes me really sad.” The farmer who sings I TILL has even more to regret, offering a litany of errors and tales of destruction resulting from the fact that “’cause I’m ‘xpected to, I till.” As the Beetless’ APPENDIX [0] explains, their own romance with tractors was short-lived, and DRIVE MY TRACTOR was unceremoniously dropped from their repertoire.

One more method of bed preparation bears mention here: mulching. In existing beds, mulch refers to any material applied to the surface of the soil to provide nutrients and organic matter, to prevent evaporation of moisture, to reduce weeds, to prevent soil erosion (see YOU'RE GONNA LOSE THAT SOIL [0]), and/or to moderate, raise, or reduce soil temperature. Dark materials applied as mulch will convert sunlight into heat; they are sometimes used to induce better fruiting and ripening of heat-loving “American” crops, although, depending on when, where, and how thickly they are applied, they can also serve to insulate soil and keep it from warming up. Light-colored materials, on the other hand, will keep the soil from converting as much sunlight into heat, while reflecting more of it back onto plant leaves.

We have spread compost and/or composted manure as mulch on beds when incorporating it immediately is not possible or desirable because of either excess soil moisture or pre-existing plants. We typically mulch our garlic beds with hay after planting in the fall, which both suppresses weeds and helps hold in moisture; sometimes this means that we need to water only once (or not at all) before harvest in July. We have shaded seedbeds with mulch to help hold moisture in until sprouting. A frequent downside of mulch is that is provides perfect habitat for slugs, which love to eat our vegetables. We tend to not use mulch around any crops that are slug-susceptible, especially when slugs are also plentiful. (See HERE COME THE SLUGS [0].) We also avoid mulching beds that we are eager to dry out so that they can be worked, especially in the spring.

In general, “nature abhors bare soil.” Just as the close plant spacings of biointensive gardening prevent excessive bare soil, so too can mulch. As mentioned above, in certain circumstances (usually related to drying beds, warming soil, or keeping pests at bay), we do want bare soil, but in most cases, soil life thrives and erosion is avoided when the surface is covered with plants and/or decomposing organic matter.

Mulching can also be used to convert areas not recently gardened (or never before gardened) into garden beds. This is called “sheet mulching,” and usually consists of laying down layers of various materials intended to suppress whatever is growing underneath them while providing fertile conditions for new plants to grow. Cardboard or newspaper is usually used as a first layer, although, in PAPERBACK MULCHER [0], the Beetless claim that paperback books work just as well. Various types of organic matter and minerals can be layered on top. In general, the thicker the mulch, and the more closely it’s monitored, the more effective it is in achieving desired results. In areas of particularly persistent perennial weeds, mulch that is not deep enough (and even some that IS quite deep) can have the opposite effect: it succeeds in suppressing the annual weeds, but just makes the perennial weeds stronger. Rhizomes form thick networks underneath the cardboard before bursting through cracks into the luscious fertilizer above, and large perennial root masses also have plenty of stored energy to bide their time. This has happened to us, more than once—some of our worst perennial weed patches are the results of sheet-mulching experiments gone awry. On the other hand, with adequate inputs of organic matter and labor (to persistently remove resprouting perennial weeds), a properly-managed sheet mulching project can be an excellent way to rescue or create new growing areas. Potatoes grow particularly well in sheet mulch, and are easier to harvest at the end of the season than potatoes grown in straight soil (which is why I DIG A POTATO disappeared from performance repertoires and is remembered only through a mention in the Beetless’ APPENDIX [0]).

The multitudinous functions of mulch find enthusiastic expression in MULCH! [0], which takes a bed’s-eye view of the subject. IT'S ALL GOOD MULCH [0] delves into some of its many possible forms and sources, bookended by Joychoi’s hypnotic drone: “It’s all good mulch, for me to take, organic matter all around me.” For more mulch-pertinent information, we once again recommend referencing the  Composting and Soil Fertility [0] section.

 
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