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  • Amy Ivy is executive director of Cornell Cooperative Extension, Clinton County. Office phone numbers: Clinton County 561-7450, Essex County 962-4810, Franklin County 483-7403. Website: http://www.cce.cornell.edu/ecgardening. E-mail questions to askMG@cornell.edu

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February 20, 2012

Keep garden tilling to a minimum

AMY IVY, Cornell Cooperative Extension Press-Republican

It's far too early to begin digging in your garden, but it's never too early to be thinking and planning.

Probably the single most important aspect to successful gardening — and yet the most commonly overlooked — is the soil. Aside from the surface, it's pretty much out of our sight so it's a challenge for us to appreciate what's going on down below.

Gardeners should always be looking for ways to add organic matter to their soil. As your soil quality and organic matter increases, earthworms and microorganisms increase as well, and they're hungry. As they digest organic matter, they convert the nutrients in the soil into forms that plants can take up; it's a rather elegant cycle. Sources of organic matter is the topic for another article. Today, I want to focus on managing the organic matter you already have.

First, if you want to know how much organic matter is in your soil, I suggest you have a complete soil test done. You can stop by our office for a form or follow this link to the lab and its forms: http://is.gd/GaBwZN. It costs $12 for a home-garden test, and just be sure you are using the home-garden form.

Home gardeners don't need to have this test done more than every several years, but it does give you a nice snapshot of where you're starting from. A normal range for organic matter in fields is 1.5 to 2 percent. A reading of 5 percent is a good goal for a home garden where you can add a lot more organic matter than a large-scale grower reasonably could. Intensive home gardens may have readings up to 8 percent, a number that may seem surprisingly low to you.

I've been in several discussions lately about the benefits of tilling soil. Now that we have a better understanding of the complex living systems in healthy soil, we are encouraging growers to till less and less. Many of gardeners are surprised to hear this, since turning the soil seems like such an essential part of gardening. But what we're finding is that when it comes to working your soil, less is more.

Yes, there are times when you need to turn your soil — when you want to blend in compost, manure, lime, a cover crop, peat moss, rotted wood chips, etc. But try to limit this to once or twice a year.

When rototillers became more affordable and easy to use with rear-mounted tines, most serious gardeners invested the mechanical devices. Soil is gorgeous just after being tilled — it's fluffy, smooth and uniform with no chunks or clods. To us, it looks ideal. I know gardeners who till between their rows every few weeks because it looks so nice. Shallow cultivating, an inch or so deep, with a hoe to keep weeds in check is different. Tilling mixes the soil 4- to 6-inches deep or more.

But the process of tilling actually pulverizes the all-important soil aggregates. Yes, it makes the soil more fluffy, but only temporarily. It quickly settles into a denser substance than before. Ideal garden soil should resemble moist chocolate cake; dark in color, with large crumbs. The soil aggregates are these cake crumbs.

Another downside to tilling is that it introduces a lot of air to the soil. Plant roots need air, but they don't need that much air. And all that extra air is like opening the flue on a wood stove. It supercharges the beneficial soil microbes so they go on a "feeding frenzy," gobbling up more organic matter than normal. This gets that elegant balance I referred to earlier out of whack.

So it's not that all tilling is bad, just limit it to once or twice a year, and avoid pulverizing your soil.

Amy Ivy is executive director of Cornell Cooperative Extension, Clinton County. Office phone numbers: Clinton County, 561-7450, Essex County, 962-4810, Franklin County, 483-7403. Website: www.cce.cornell.edu/ecgardening. Email questions to askMG@cornell.edu.

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