Great question and great timig. I am just researching the same thing. I am considering a 1 time only dig and will no till forever thereafter. Be aware that machines can create a hardpan underneath that loose soil! So it looks good on top and the roots run into a compressed layer underneath. There are so many lists of pros and cons of tilling. My main concern is low productivity inthe first year. The no till sheet mulching folks admit stuff breaks down slowly, fertility boost may not come until after a 2nd year, cardboard in particular may be slow, soil temperatures are slowed by all that mulch...I would say timing is important to do the no till. Done at the end of summer for a spring planting might work. There are hardpan busting root crops but all these things take time...Lastly, consider how steep your land is. If is has any slope at all and rains are considerable and you till, say bye bye to your nutrients and top soil. Dig some swales. (See Alcohol Can Be A Gas, Gaia's Garden and for more on hand digging/hardpans,the right tools: Gardening when is Counts)

The land has only a slight slope, and very little rain, so I don't think too many nutrients will be washing away. Right now the soil tests show a lack of everything but potash. I won't be putting any fertilizer on until next year. The tiller only goes about 6 inches deep, so I've been using a spading fork to go deeper. I'm seriously thinking of getting one of those broadforks to loosen up the ground below where the tiller goes.
Thanks for the other things to look up.

Tilling does many things to soil, kind of mixing in the necessary stuff that makes a good soil but nowhere near as good as the soil bacteria that are greatly disturbed by tilling would. There are studies that do show that it takes about 6 months for the Soil Food Web to recover after the soil is tilled.
Tilling introduces large volumes of air into the soil which is not really good and is why you need to let your soil "rest" for a time after tilling, to let that excess entrained air escape.
Tilling, more often then not, brings up more "weed" seeds adn is one of the reasons given for the need to till several times before planting so that the "weed" seeds you bring up can germinate, start to grow, and get turned in (and hopefully killed) when you do till again.
However, there may be a good reason to have to till your soil one time, to incorporate a large amount of organic matter that is growing on the soil that might not be able to be mulched into the soil.

ok, here's my problem with that kimmsr. I've read you're against tilling n stuff, and i believe it and everything, but how efficient is the microbes at pulling the OM down into your soil. Reason i say only microbes is cuz i'm dealing with dead soil w/ no worms to bring the OM underground.

and how effective is cover cropping if you don't till it in? is it pointless?

The pro-tilling school of thought has just as many advocates and just as much supporting research as does the no-till camp. There are pros and cons to both philosophies and only your own personal experience with your soil can determine which approach is best for you.

But there is a BIG crucial difference between tilling to break the soil initially to make a garden and continuing to till already well prepared beds. So given that your goal right now is breaking soil/sod, an initial tilling is required. Especially so since you have discovered all the rocks. ;) Gravel poses no problems - rocks do. Over time, additional big ricks will work their way to the surface and can be pitched as they appear.

This is not to say that you have to deep till the entire area but you do have to at least break up the sod, roots, and get the majority of the bigger rocks out. Go for 3-4" in depth - that will give you a definitive soil break for the area.

And then you can back off the tiller and use the more SFW beneficial approach of heavy compost & mulching. Allow the bed to rest over the winter and while it won't yet be great - that will take a couple of years - it will be ready to plant come spring. Continuing to work in by hand additional compost and mulches will soon get you a good 8-10" of viable soil.

You can compensate for the shallow soil for the root vegetables by using raised rows for them. Just rake the soil up into 6" tall mounds for the rows of root veggies. Lay down a thick layer of straw or hay mulch between the rows in the ditches and allow it to compost in place.

Cover crops, when used, must be tilled in to be of benefit but only a light superficial tilling is needed.

Dave

Here are my views on the subject of tilling. Well let me tell some about my situation so you can pick and choose what bits might be useful to you. I'm in central Florida and my soil is sand. I still don't like digging though. I don't till for two reasons. One, I don't own a tiller, am not about to buy one and doing it manually just seems like too much work. Two, digging seems to disturb the worms/microbes and there are tons of weeds that like growing in disturbed soil. I'm into the sheet mulching/composting and lasagna garden methods. Our sandy soil needs all the help it can get in the way of organic matter to hold moisture. The huge amounts of organic matter and raised bed (well more like slight mound) gardening methods help agains nematodes that are a problem here.

As to how long it takes for a lasagna garden to be ready, well that will depend on the materials used to build it, what you want to plant, and how well things compost in your area over the season in question. Corrugated cardboard actually breaks down pretty quickly so long as it isn't the glossy stuff. Worms love moist corrugated cardboard. Big drawback with this type of gardening is the need for huge amounts of organic matter to build the beds. I usually get the cardboard slip sheets (that are used between layers of stuff on pallets) from cost co or other membership stores. Ya need stuff to dump onto the cardboard as you spread it out or it will blow away. Newspaper can be layed out wet in thick matts to help with this issue. But then you need lots of other organic matter like grass clippings, leaves, spoilt hay, mulch, compost, mushroom compost, straw etc. If you don't want to mess with huge loads of such things, skip the lasagna garden. I just figure dumping bags of leaves around the garden is easier for me than digging.

As to needing to till in a cover crop to get the benefit, that is not always the case. If one had to till in order to use a cover crop, then how would a no till garden use one? I have tried several cover crops in my no till gardening. Important things to note are how can you kill it if you don't till it. Some crops will winter kill or summer kill and the dead matter is the organic matter and mulch (worked with buckwheat for me.) Other crops can be killed by cutting/mowing them after they flower but before seed develops (I did this with wheat once.)

I suppose I haven't been much help in deciding if you will till more. Myself, I probably wouldn't unless I wanted the rocks for some garden pond project.

Here is a link that might be useful: www.TCLynx.com

wow, slipsheets, never thought about that, i use them at my job, a food lion distribution center. so i have unlimited amounds of those, also i like the idea of just making raised rows, instead of entire plots, i have a lasagna bed going now, about 3.5 ft wide, as long as the row is, and was gettn kinda discouraged thinkn about lasagna bedding the whole plot, that would take tons!! I went out there today and looked under the ucg's, leaves, kitchen scraps, grass clippings, and cardboard and seen some a night crawler that i got from dads when i got the leaves, it was huge and aggessive, i was surprised cuz i didn't think it would live w/o being to actually go into the soil.....

so in conclusion: instead of worrying about bringing the OM down into the soil, focus on building OM up FROM the soil????

Thanks for all the advice. I went to your website, tclynx, and when I grow up I want to have a garden like yours! I think I'll till part of it and lasagna the rest and see which one does the best next year.

West, you misread what I write. I am not against tilling, when necessary. I am against wasting ones time, energy, and money tilling soil when it is not necessary and when the soil does not need to be tilled. As I stated above, there may be a good reason to till your soil, once, but if proper preperation is done there should not be a good reason to till after that.

kimmsr, have you posted any pics of your garden or gardens? I'd really like to see them. Thanks.

I don't have any pictures, do not have any means of taking pictures, and have no plans to spend my money on getting some means of taking pictures. Plus there is nothing to stop someone from getting pictures of a garden and posting them here claiming that to be theirs.

Tilling always raises a debate here. IMO, it is impossible for someone somewhere to say what anyone somewhere else should do with their soil. No one has all the facts or knows all the conditions where they live let alone where they don't.
If you have the space for it, I suggest two areas that you treat as till/ no till, keep records on them over the course of a couple years.
No till has a lot going for it, but you really need to know what you're doing, and practitioners that I know are doing it on land that was tilled a generation prior- Grampa and Dad pulled the rocks out.

We tilled our new garden last year, and never saw an earthworm. We then incorporated a lot of organic material and by spring, we had big fat earthworms everywhere. Yes, maybe you might disturb them for a bit, but they move right back in if the new environment is appetizing.

I usually till three times a year--twice in the spring to prepare the beds, and then once in the fall to prepare them for winter (although I am less likely to do the fall tilling). I don't use mulch, and I just top dress with composted manure regularly. Yet I have tons of worms in my soil. I use wide beds and try to plant whatever I am growing as close together as possible. Yes, they say this increases disease and bugs, but IME, it has not done so. What it does do is conserve moisture and protect the soil. Then it is a cinch to hand hoe the few weeds that do appear. Thing is, I only till down about 3 inches max. I have never seen the necessity of going deeper.

My neighbor is an old-school tiller, and he tills down to 8 inches(!) on a regular basis, at least once a week. He likes to till his grass clippings in, which he fertilizes with synthetics that include herbicides. He uses rows instead of beds, so a lot of the soil is tilled. His garden soil is completely dead. He likes it, though, because for him, a soft soil is a good soil, and it is most definitely soft. He does in fact raise good tomatoes. So do I, and he can't figure out how I do it.:)

It takes all kinds to make a horse race.

I don't understand tilling once a week or more! If he is doing it for weed control, maybe he should get a cultivator.
I like a friable soil as well, but that is overkill.

crankyoldman, how big is your garden?

I don't understand tilling once a week or more! If he is doing it for weed control, maybe he should get a cultivator.
I like a friable soil as well, but that is overkill.

crankyoldman, how big is your garden?