Tilling Or No Tilling? What is the best approach for your farm?

I can’t determinately recall

when exactly I heard about the “no till” method of agriculture in reference to growing food, but I remember being almost immediately smitten, for it involved several key components that were of my beliefs and values when it came to working in kin with the land. Its frame is in ecological harmony, soil biology, and regenerative practices. No-till gardening is a regenerative approach to cultivating soil that prioritizes the preservation of its natural structure and biology. Rather than mechanically turning or disturbing the earth, this method fosters a living soil ecosystem by layering organic matter on the surface—much like how nature builds soil in a forest. By avoiding tillage, we protect beneficial microbes, fungi, and earthworms, enhance carbon retention, and reduce erosion and nutrient loss. Over time, this leads to a more resilient, fertile, and self-sustaining growing environment that aligns with ecological principles rather than disrupting them.

You would imagine that applying No Till would be beneficial in any growing situation, but in reality, there is no one size fits all. And so… How do we know if this would be a good fit for your farm or homestead? The answers are in the soil.

Take a look at your ground when you have had no rain for some time.

What does your soil look like? Reach down. Can you easily grab a hand full? Is it dark, rich and crubly? Or is it hard, light in color and dry? Perhaps clay like? All of the answers you gave here is a great indication where you should begin your journey in gardening if you are deciding that IN GROUND gardening is where its at for you. You could simply avoid all of the learning curves and do raised bed gardening, however this involves renewing bed soil every season, limiting your growing space and yield, building beds and comes with its own set of pros and cons - but if you are adamant, as I was, about improving your soil health and leaving behind something better over time, than follow along on this journey to your new obsession filled with failure, madness and the deliciously indescribable sensation of the apophany’s that occur when all of this information comes full circle and you finally master it.

Just like at home in California in the location in the mountains where we began homesteading, we have clay like soil here in eastern KY. Experimenting + watching some of the locals, I knew that some vegetable plants did well without amendment and others did very poorly. Our land here has never been worked for soil improvement and so I spent countless more nights whenever I could manage the time, searching for answers on what the proper decisions were moving forward. You see I tried a couple variations of the no till with NO success. The laying of the cardboard and using pure compost on top. It was horrifically expensive, and I didn’t feel as if I was improving soil in any conceivable way, and especially not in a timely fashion. This is when I found information on “first till” method.

The idea behind this is, if your soil is already compromised, hasn’t been worked or improved than there isn’t any beneficial living economy to protect in the first place- therefor no benefit to gardening straight on top. If your soil suffers from depletion and compaction, it may take YEARS for the nutrients and goodness to seep from your compost and breakdown into the ground. You can see this in action on “No Till Growers” page on Youtube (look for the video titled “how to start a garden from scratch”). So there I had it. The missing link. What I love about the notion of first till and what it represents to me, is how it plays to my way of thinking of things in a multifaceted way. I’ve never really believed in life that there is only one hard and fast way of accomplishing a thing and knowing that you may have to “break the rules” in “No Till” gardening by tilling proves that ever more.

First till method can be done with a tiller set at a shallow base such as 4 to 8” or even with a broad fork. The idea here is that you are opening up the native soil so that it can be properly injected with new living organisms to help establish ecosystem and economy, speeding up the process of healing the soil and building a better life and better thriving plants.

S O H E R E I S H O W W E D I D O U R F I R S T T I L L

so that we never have to till again.

• Marking off our desired sections, we did an extremely shallow till simply to remove grass and plants to expose soil properly and give us our squares and rows to work within. We were careful to note any slopes or poorly draining areas. Where the garden is located in the front of the cottage, we are at a gradual slope from North to South / Southeast. Therefore, we created our mound beds running WITH the slope to help with drainage. Had we gone against the slope and ran them East to West, a good rain (which is frequent here in KY) would have simply ran down and washed them out from underneath.

• Once our squared sections were exposed and shaped, we laid down our rows of compost. Using stakes and string, we measured out 4’ wide beds, by 10’ long. We then added more string and stakes to create our walkways between, which I wanted at 2 1/2 to 3’ wide sections as shown below.

• After compost was laid in the string (took 25 bags to create 4’X10’) we adjusted the tiller to 2” and tilled in the compost. Not so much that it was completely mixed with native soil, but so that we knew we were injecting much of that goodness. Completely unnecessary, but I went through the entire bed with my hands and reached in, almost hand tilling to get rid of any dirt clods, clay clumps etc.

• Taking a rake, I raked in the compost that got a little kicked out by the tiller making a neat little mound. Be careful not to make the mound to high creating walls so to speak in the sides, this will just cause compaction. Its not going to be completely perfect !

• You’re ready to plant! Thats it. Get your plants in the ground and water them well. Some plants do not require this style of gardening, for example, corn, beans and peas. These are plants that are actually quite perfect for injecting great things into the ground as cover and crimp crops.

Since our soil is most agreeably NOT the best. We only took a bag or so of compost and broad forked it into the ground just a bit to loosen the compaction, and planted corn.

Now, there are 101 ways to start a garden from scratch and of course the more time you have for doing so, makes it so that things are done right and you are less likely to have to retrace your steps in the future. What I have laid out for you here today in this article is a bit like the fast track. Sure I may have to deal with some weeding as the season goes along since I didn’t have the time to mulch and tarp, however, this will still do well, and if you are pressed for time with your panting and you know something is still going to give you satisfactory results, I think we can all agree that it’s worth a go.

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