Hey, nerds, farmer Jesse here. So our farm, and in fact, my entire farming education started out in a tillage model. it was thoughtful tillage of course, but I learned to farm doing consistent yearly soil turnover, sometimes twice yearly and sometimes just because the weeds got out of hand. So in today’s video, I’m going to talk about the ways in which reducing and eventually eliminating tillage changed our farm and honestly our farm business. And even more honestly, my sanity. If you’re curious how these soil changes play out with specific crops, check out our guide on no-till soil health for perfect eggplant crops. There have been some things that haven’t necessarily changed. we’ll get into those too. So let’s do it.
Benefits of No Tilling Farming and Garden
How No-Till Reduces Weed Pressure Over Time
First up, weed suppression. When you stop turning the soil over regularly with a tiller or disc or whatever, and especially when you start to cover the soil with a diversity of mulches, you simply see fewer weeds. There are several reasons for this. First is that the soil is designed or at least set up to constantly be replenishing itself, and weeds are one of those mechanisms. Hi Kitty Katt. Well, hello. Good morning. What’s up When a patch of soil is left bare from say, tillage, the soil, not knowing your own intentions to fill it up with plants that you want will stick something there to cover itself. I like to think of weeds as the emergency solar panels that the soil will erect as fast as it possibly can to prevent itself from running out of energy. Not to mix metaphors. Oh, so I can do that in the YouTube video.
How No-Till Farming Builds Soil Health and Energy
Why Bare Soil Triggers Weed Growth
Nice. But in the same way that we humans use food for energy, so too does the soil and plants generate the food that the soil needs, or more specifically soil life needs in the form of carbohydrates formed in photosynthesis. These carbohydrates or little molecular bundles of energy become plant roots leaves and little sugary cocktails called exudates that are secreted through the roots. And all of that forms eventual food for soil life that can use that energy to proliferate and build soil structure and feed larger and larger soil organisms. from the soil’s perspective, it either needs plants growing or mulches to feed on. Otherwise, the soil is going to just consume every last store of energy that it has until the soil pre becomes practically lifeless and production disappears. Another reason weeds proliferate in a tillage system is that many like amaranth are very small seeds that don’t have the energy to germinate at really deep depths, and some may even require sunlight to germinate so effectively, they need to be brought to the soil surface to germinate and eventually take over which tillage is masterfully good at doing.
How No-Till Keeps Weed Seeds Buried and Dormant
Then if one of these weeds gets fully mature, it can unleash thousands upon thousands of seeds on your soil, but keeping them buried will prevent the seeds from germinating in the first place. Also, weed seeds struggle to germinate in high carbonate environments like mulches. this is why some growers run into issues of germination for their own crops, for the crops that they want when they start planting into deep compost mulches. If the compost is too moy or hydrophobic, hydrophobic, just meaning maybe immature or highly carbonaceous compost that repel water. anyway, if the compost is too moist or hydrophobic, the seeds will not have the moisture and soil contact that they need to both germinate and then put a root down like maybe the seed germinates, but it doesn’t have enough small soil particles or compost particles around to sink its roots into, in which case it just dries out and dies. This is exactly why starting seedlings in healthy soil with the right moisture and particle contact matters so much—especially for finicky crops like peppers.
No-Till Farming and Natural Pest Reduction on Your Farm
Last thing I’ll say on weeds probably is that not tearing up your soil. Every spring encourages more seed predators. Some of those seed predators may be ants and other insects or birds, but some may also be mice or voles or something along those lines, which can be a problem. though anecdotally at least we have far fewer rodent issues than we used to when we were a tillage farm, potentially because they are fat and happy on worms and eating the seeds in our hay mulches. But I don’t know, that’s hard to say, and that won’t be the case for everyone. Every context and pest issue is unique to your farm and your area. There may be pests like gophers and deer and others who will not care if you’re a tillage farm or a no tillage operation, but do thank you for your plants, very polite things, these pests.
How Mulching Can Introduce New Pest Challenges
Now sometimes mulching can also bring in new pests such as slugs, and generally these ecological shifts will balance themselves out, which is nice to hear a few years down the road, but obviously in the moment, especially in your first years is not super helpful. I did this pest management video last week that may be of some help.
Reducing Labor by Eliminating Weekly Cultivation
Now, with the reduction of weed pressure comes a reduction in labor, and not just any labor, but long tedious cultivation in the hot sun. when I first started farming, I kind of thought cultivation was farming. It felt like the main job every week on the farm was to just stand there with a hoe going between the plants, around the plants below the plants, and then just doing that back and forth all day long. But in order to be a successful farmer or even gardener, your job should be primarily harvesting and planting, not fighting weeds when you till.
How Long It Takes for Weed Pressure to Drop in No-Till
However, weeds are going to be an issue at least for the first few years while you knock your weeded seed bank back, seed bank just being the stored seeds in your soil. These days, we cultivate only as needed, which is not very often depending on how well we set up a given bed. Not that we don’t get weeds, every farm does, just our weeded pressure does not steal my sleep anymore or keep me farming until dark. Now, I will say there are mulches where weeds are an issue. Like hay for instance, brings in a lot of weed seeds, but also hay seeds can germinate some grass. Seeds can germinate right in the hay and work their way down through the hay into the native soil. That can be an issue. So that takes understanding your mulches a little better and making sure to use them strategically. Cover crops are another powerful tool in this strategy—growing crimson clover as a cover crop is one of our favorites for suppressing weeds while feeding the soil at the same time.
Year-Round Planting Flexibility Without Tillage Equipment
Now, on our farm, cultivation requires just a couple hours every two weeks or so of work at peak season. Another big shift we’ve seen on our farm since moving away from tillage is our ability to plant and work at basically any time of the year. When we were a tillage farm, we had to wait for the soil to become adequately dry in the spring or late winter or after a rain event to work it at all for planting. Now we just clear crop with knives and replant that bed no matter if it’s February or July because we can do it without machinery. Silage tarp cans sort of keep the soil dry for you, but if you have a high water table and a high rainfall, it will remain wet under the tarp as well. Eliminating tillage and employing mulches ensures the soil is basically always ready for the next crop. This flexibility also makes hands-on techniques like hilling potatoes without tilling your soil much more practical—you can work the bed whenever the crop needs it, not just when conditions allow for machinery.
Economic and Operational Advantages of No-Till Farming
There’s an economic advantage, of course, to being ahead of other growers in your production, but there is also the organizational advantage to not having to wait for an opportunity to prepare the soil and then planting everything all at once. In other words, not relying on tillage allows you to spread the workload more evenly because you are not waiting on the weather as much as you would be in a tillage system.Spreading Farm Workload Evenly Without Weather Dependency.
Indeed, with both the wood chipped pathways and the living pathways, we can literally be working in the rain preparing and planting beds if need be, though usually we don’t have to be working in the rain precisely because we are able to spread out the workload.
How No-Till Mulching Improves Drought Resistance
Another way in which our farm has changed is that I’m almost always the last grower in the area to realize our area is in a drought. The mulches and general soil management help to retain moisture for longer than the soil ever did for me in a tillage system.
Building Soil Organic Matter to Retain Moisture Long-Term
Now of course, a lot of that depends on soil organic matter and the mulch that I’ve applied in the first one or even three seasons—and implementing winter soil building techniques during the off-season can significantly accelerate this process. As your soil builds up its infrastructure, soil, organic matter, and soil aggregates, et cetera, you will still feel droughts. But over time, that issue becomes more and more manageable slash less and less noticeable. We are not entirely a dry farm, but we do very little irrigating beyond misting our lettuce for heat and watering in things like carrots. of course, I will readily admit that our ability to partially dry farm is due to being in Kentucky Zone six B, where we are semi subtropical and get like 50 inches of rain per year. And part of that is just due to our good soil management where when that rain is not coming and it’s hot and or windy, we are covered both literally. This kind of soil health also opens up exciting possibilities for extending your growing season—for example, using no-till techniques for a second potato crop later in the summer is far more achievable when your soil stays loose, moist, and biologically active.
No-till gardening can also help to improve the overall health of the soil. Flowering herbs like borage as a companion plant in no-till beds can serve a similar role, attracting beneficial insects and adding organic matter without disturbing the soil structure. When the soil is not tilled, it is able to retain more moisture and nutrients, which can lead to healthier plants and higher yields. This makes no-till methods especially valuable when building perennial soil health for ginger crops, which thrive in rich, undisturbed growing environments. When it comes to flowers and ornamental plants, no-till gardening can be especially rewarding. The undisturbed soil creates a stable environment where roots can establish deeply and plants can thrive season after season. For example, pruning zinnias in no-till flower beds is a great way to encourage bushier growth and longer blooms without disturbing the healthy soil structure you have worked to build.
And what’s the other one Metaphysically I know that because I’ve farmed this area in a tillage system and droughts are much harsher. plus you have to give everything significantly more space between crops than we do now in order to have reliable production or you have to irrigate extensively. This advantage becomes especially clear with warm season crops like okra, where no-till soil prep for warm season crops can make the difference between a struggling plant and a thriving one.
How No-Till Reduces Disease and Pest Pressure on Crops
Another thing that has changed for us is that pests and disease pressure is way down. Some of that is logical or at least obvious. For instance, tomato plants are less likely kitty cat don’t do it, kitty here over here. Some of that is logical or at least obvious. For instance, tomato plants are less likely to deal with leaf blights early on and other diseases if rain is not splashing soil onto the bottom leaves. the other part of that is that the soil is just healthier and happier. Healthy, happy soil leads to healthy happy plants.
How Healthy Soil Microbes Protect Plants From Pathogens
What’s happening is that the, the proverbial city below the surface is able to rebuild itself. It fills itself with a diversity of residents, microbes, primarily who have a vested interest in protecting your crops. They ward off pathogens and pests because that protects them and their food source. Again, I’m not saying no-till practices will solve every disease and pest issue you have. We still get disease, pest and weeded issues sometimes, but what I will say is no-till practices will not allow pest or diseases to be your primary obstacle to running a successful business or garden. If done well, they will give you some time to rest.
No-Till Farming and Improved Work-Life Balance for Growers
That’s been another huge shift for us. Rest, I start every farm day between seven 30 and 8:00 AM and end every day like eight hours later, which includes a midday nap. I am not out cultivating or seating until dark to beat the rain or get caught up seven days a week like I used to be.
I’m resting or playing soccer with the kids or watching the bear on Hulu, which coming from the restaurant industry, that show is so accurate. It’s anxiety inducing. Like I’m, I’m like afraid my chef is gonna throw a cutting board at me. I don’t even have a chef anymore to be sure.
Balancing Seasonal Workload Through Better Business Management
During peak season. I’m still working six days a week for about three months. then the rest of the year it’s like five days or sometimes fewer. the nature of farming, we call it summertime, makes it really hard to level that load. But even that leveling could be achieved less so by soil practices is much by business management. IE selling more in the winter so you don’t have to do as much in the summer. But reducing the workload has been directly proportional to my enjoyment of farming and my own health. For example, planting pole beans in a no-till garden is one way to put these practices into action with minimal soil disturbance. When we were a tillage farm, I could not see the longevity of this business at all.
It was bound to wear me down eventually. Oh, speaking of wearing down, that was probably the worst segue in in my YouTube history.
How No-Till Practices Reduce Soil Erosion on Your Farm
Erosion is another issue I didn’t mention when discussing the soil, but erosion has subsided as well. When you don’t have a bunch of loose, bare soil around and you at least cover the bare soil that you do have with mulches, it’s not going to blow away or wash away, at least not nearly to the level it will if it’s uncovered.
Why Mulch Is Easier to Replace Than Damaged Topsoil
Will the compost or mulches sometimes blow or wash away and heavy rain events Yeah, absolutely. But those can be easily replaced unlike the soil, because rebuilding soil infrastructure is a much slower task. I also like that I’m not caked in mud through any part of the season because the soil is covered and the pathways are either mulched or alive. Once your beds are covered and ready, the next step is deciding what to sow in your prepared beds to make the most of that healthy soil structure. well not covered in mud, at least in the garden when you have kids, they will ensure there is mud somewhere.
Is No-Till Farming Right for Your Garden or Farm?
But anyway, I think that’s it for now. Let me know how no-till has or hasn’t changed your farm or garden. And I think I’m gonna wrap it up there like this video. If you like this video, if you are not subscribed to this channel, make sure to hit the subscribe button and if you are subscribed, you’re awesome. To support more videos and the forthcoming series of farm videos shot by my partner at no-till growers.com, Jackson Roulette, which you will enjoy soon. You can pick up a copy of the Living Soil Handbook or a hat or other merch at no-till growers.com. Become a patron@patreon.com slash no-till growers or just hit that super thanks button. Super. Thanks for watching. We’ll see you later. Bye. Okay, come back to you Kat.