I'm in Texas and have found I have less weeds with no-till. Careless weeds are a real problem, so I mulch everything as long as I can get grass clippings or afford the mulch. I add amendments on top of the mulch then more mulch on top of the amendments, the old mulch breaks down very nicely and I have lots of activity in my soil. Saturday afternoon I had a jolly good time flinging hockey pucks from Starbucks (2 garbage bags) over a 9'x17' flowerbed; our Toy Fox Terrier had a grand time chasing them! We moved into the house in July 2003 and the yard was a real mess, careless weeds nearly as tall as I am, ground so hard I could not dig in it. I started putting my tea and coffee grounds on one flowerbed, neighbor gave use some old pecans which hubby ran through the grinder and I put those on that bed. In 2004 I started a compost pile which we harvested spring of 2005. 2005 we had to increase the size of the compost pile and this year it doubled and I'm already using it! I have more working now and hoping they are ready by spring ;) After 2 years of amendments our soil looks much better, some areas that have had more mulch, etc. smell like a forest floor with lots of worms. I NEED more leaves and grass clippings! Never enough! Peggy

Thank you all so much! I have not had a chance to get photos but hope to do so tomorrow. Al - The citrus have extremely yellow leaves and have not (apparently) grown since planted. Does that sounds like it needs more nitrogen? Do you have a suggestion for a good source of organic nitrogen? I used blood meal on my small lawn to get rid of the bur clover and it worked like a charm (also greened it all up prettily.) Would blood meal work in this situation? I've also heard that coffee grounds might be helpful with both acid and nitrogen and our local coffee shop will supply me for free - any thoughts on that? I think mulching with compost is an excellent idea - I may have to put some shredded bark on top to keep it from blowing away....(In spite of being shielded somewhat, we do get stiff breezes May-September.) Carla - I'm a huge fan of green manure and have a raised bed in clover now! Thanks for the links; I was unfamiliar with those sites. My problem with the orchard site is that a lot of the space between the trees was purposely planted with natives, and I would make some folks real angry if I messed with them :-) I'm real careful with my weeding! We don't have a lot of grass around here, but I'll try begging for clippings on our local bulletin board. Jim - my neighbor recommended iron filings and I did try this on a lime tree with good success (in a previous home.) I have never heard of it for roses, but that's good to know - my own garden is mostly fruit trees and roses. I'd love to do compost tea and though it is somewhat inconvenient I will probably try to do this, but I'm not sure it is something I want to undertake regularly. Does anyone have any advice on a watering schedule? I'm definitely going to widen the basins so they'll hold a bit more. Thanks all for your help, and I'll try to get those photos up tomorrow. Amy

Don't worry about the mulch. It will keep the grass from creeping back under the trees. This isn't a commercial grove. We can do things differently for different reasons. Commecial growers don't plant citrus trees in lawns. Just watch to make sure you don't have moisture building up against the trunks. I am assuming you are not in California, but perhaps in a more humid climate, so moisture control is important against the trunks. Water enough to keep the roots moist about 18" down. I just use a cheap plant stake stuck into the ground on occasion, to determine soil moisture. Certain commercial groves in California are using mulch, Nick. So, there are times where it is helpful, depending on the circumstance. Just take care that the bark doesn't stay wet. Leaves may be folding due to some transplant shock, which as mentioned, is normal. Also, leaf folding can be a sign the tree needs to be watered. Many commercial growers actually watch for this reaction, and know to irrigate. Check the soil to see. And lastly, make sure your trees are not in the line of lawn sprinklers, they will not tolerate being hit by lawn sprinklers. Patty S.

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