Be ready to duck Sprtsguy. Such a question often brings out the "No till" people en masse with dire warnings of your having destroyed your soil structure and killed off all the worms and soil food web.

I was raised on a farm where plowing and cultivating was standard operating procedure without doing all that. I have plowed and tilled my gardens all these years without that happening. I have been making my own compost and amending my garden for a number of years now and have personally observed improvements in it with each passing season. I will concede that the better you get your soil built up, the less tilling is necessary.

I am confident that you are on the right path to an excellent garden and lots of good tomatoes. if you care to click here it will take you to a thread on the soil, compost and mulch forum where I posted some pictures and my opinions about amending and turning it under. You will have to scroll down to my posting made at 12:58 today, which is currently second from the bottom.
Good luck with your gardening and let us know how it goes.
Bill P.

I'm building soil too. I agree that a tiller really helps when you're just starting. I tilled in 24 yards of manure this fall using my 5' tiller on the back of my tractor. I can do my 40' x 80' garden to a depth of about 12" in about 30 minutes.

{{gwi:24456}}

Any thoughts on tilling?...

I till existing garden once in fall and once in spring, mostly for weed control and to somewhat mix in amendments. (Of course, tiller is great to prep sodded areas to create new garden space).

BUT, I do not overdo it (at most, 2 passes on existing garden soil). Because, although it may look nice, over-tilled soil is damaged soil. Damaged soil is not good for most hort activities. And damaged soil takes time to recover.

Reg

I seem to remember that turning buries the existing spores of early blight so it is more likely to cut infection than tilling would. Since my garden is reasonably small, I hand dig and feel that limits the size of the plot to something I can take care of. Since the garden is planted over a period of several months, from peas in March or early April to tomatoes and such the end of May, I can tackle the job slowly.

Lazy gardener here. I never once tilled or dug.

Here's what I did many years ago. I had some raised beds built out of cedar. It's 17 years now and the cedar still is holding pretty good. Put down layers of newspapers in fall to smother the lawn. Filled the beds with mushroom compost and great topsoil and added my amendments.

All I do now is lasagna compost every fall at garden cleanup time and add a compost mulch each spring at planting time. I never try and walk on the soil. It stays nice and fluffy. Works great for me...and easy!

I tried lasagna compost once, but the noodles kept coming to the surface.
Dave

Dave,

Try the San Giorgio brand. They stay down better... :)

More tomato sauce will help too.

Should I cook them first?
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Pros and cons to both approaches - tilling or no-till - and I do some of both. Just do what is best for you, your back, and your gardening area.

That said, I will agree that raised beds seldom benefit from it and like reginald said - even with in-ground beds, don't OVER-till. ;)

Dave

till no till... cook no cook...

I guess I'm fairly lazy in both areas - I till once a year... and don't cook the noodles...

Oldroser did bring up an important point above when it was noted that only turning, not tilling, can bury spores of the fungal foliage diseases as well as the bacterial ones, thus there's less chance of splashback reinfiection. And the foliage diseases are what's the greatest problem for most tomato growers.

Of couse it depends on the size garden devoted to tomatoes, how agile, translate good health you're in, as well as your degree of motivation.

If it weren't for a farmer friend turning under everything in the Fall, and then he'd plant a cover crop, and then turn over again in the Spring, there's no way I could have continued to plant tomatoes each year in my 1/4 acre patch for about 16 years. And that b'c of disease buildup.

Just something to consider.

Carolyn

We don't till the tomato garden any more... I'm a lazy gardener! We just started doing the lasagna method last year and will do several more layers this year so the old stuff, including the fungus spores, will be at least 8" under several layers, including cardboard. I hope this will keep the plants this year from any reinfection.

What's the best brand of lasagna to use?
All I have ever used is manure, uncooked.

The lasagna "brand" I use is whatever's on sale. LOL

In fall after clean-up I use shredded leaves and untreated grass clippings topped off with a couple inches of compost.

In spring it is a pleasure to plant. The soil is fluffy and full of earthworms. After the plants go in I add a couple inches more of compost on top. Then mulch.