Compost include such materials as leaves to help make a no-till garden.

Calla Edwards, former NDSU Extension agent in McLean County is currently the Kansas State University Butler County Research and Extension horticulture agent, having moved to her new position last fall.

Gardeners may have heard about no-till gardening, but many wonder if creating that kind of garden is really a benefit or not.

Calla Edwards, former NDSU Extension agent in McLean County, created her own no-till garden at home, as well as one for the North Dakota 4-H camp and the Washburn community garden.

Edwards is currently the Kansas State University Butler County Research and Extension horticulture agent, having moved to her new position last fall.

“As the horticulture agent here, I help people with their lawns, gardens, and soil testing so gardens can be more productive, and I give presentations on gardening,” she said.

Edwards said her no-till garden did well in North Dakota during the 2021 drought.

“Even last year when the drought persisted, people with no-till gardens did well handling the challenges the drought presented,” she said. “I didn’t have to water as much as I used to before I turned my garden into a no-till garden – and I didn’t have to weed as much, either.”

How did Edwards become interested in gardening? She grew up in her parents’ nursery and greenhouse business, and that solidified her interest. Later, she received a degree in horticulture business from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

“I first started working in Extension in 2016 and most of the producers I work with are involved in no-till or minimum-till farming,” she said.

Edwards talked about soil health and being a good steward of the land in her county, and how many of the no-till producers in North Dakota protected their soil.

“It had me thinking about how I gardened growing up,” she said. “We had the tiller and we got it out every spring. We worked the ground and added some compost. We planted our plants and spent most of the summer picking our produce and weeding.”

But as an Extension agent, Edwards wondered if that was the right way to garden for soil health, as she thought about putting in her own garden.

“Maybe there was another way to garden that would make me a better steward of my land,” she said.

A friend of hers told her that he did a form of no-till gardening, where he didn’t work the ground, and he had good results with his garden.

There are different kinds of no-till gardening, Edwards found out.

“While no-till gardening has been called many names, the goals are always the same: to improve soil organic material, reduce weeding, and improve soil structure,” she explained.

Lasagna gardening, which is also known as sheet mulching, sheet composting, or no-dig gardening, was first coined in 1998 by a gardener who was a military wife and moved every three years.

“Much like making lasagna in your kitchen, lasagna gardening involves creating layers of material, like our meats, cheeses, and pasta in the dish,” she said. “Those layers of material go on the soil to protect it.”

The goals of no-dig gardening are to improve soil quality and reduce weeding.

“Since we are not working up the soil every year, we are improving the soil structure, which allows moisture to infiltrate the soil, and allows beneficial mycorrhiza, bacteria, fungi and insects to be more active in the soil instead of being disturbed and chased out every year,” she said.

In addition, no-till gardening helps with reducing weeding. Because gardeners don’t turn the soil over or till, they aren’t bringing new weed seeds to the surface.

“We’re also removing one of the competitive advantages we have, and weeds thrive in disturbed soils or soils with poor structure, where our vegetables prefer soils with good structure so that they can grow and thrive.

There are a couple of ways to do no-till gardening.

The first one is the most traditional way, which involves forming a thick bed of mulch (6-10 inches).

“Basically, anything you can compost, you can use to form this bed of mulch. This form of composting is cold composting, so it takes a long time to break down when you compare it to traditional composting,” she said.

Edwards pointed out that if a gardener plans on using a corn cob, or anything that takes a long time to break down, that it would not be the best material for forming the layer of mulch.

Once the bed of mulch is established, the gardener should lay out beds approximately 3-4 feet wide.

“One of the things that makes this form of gardening so effective is that there a defined pathway where you can walk in your garden,” Edwards said. “Humans don’t weigh a lot, but over time, we can compact the soil slightly in areas we walk continuously, so we don’t want to walk in our flower or vegetable beds.”

When gardeners are ready to plant their garden, they will need to scrape away mulch in those beds, but only where they are going to plant plants or rows of seeds.

Once the plants are planted or the seeds come up and they are taller than the mulch, gardeners can push the mulch back around the plant. That way, weeds don’t get light and don’t germinate.

There is a second type of gardening that Edwards used in building her no-till gardens – one that uses a weed mat or barrier on top of the soil.

“I’ve used a weed mat on our community garden in McLean County, at my own house, and on a 4-H camp garden the last few years and it has been very effective for me,” she said.

Edwards cuts strips or holes in the mat where she wants the plant to come through, and plants her vegetable or flower plants.

“Then I place my compost around them, much like I would do in the lasagna gardening,” Edwards said.

That compost, those grass clippings, compose throughout the summer and go down into the soil.

“Every couple of years, I will pull the weed mat up, and I will spread mulch or compost or grass clippings underneath the weed mat,” she said.

In 2020, McLean County had an early killing frost, followed by nice weather.

“What we can also do is plant a cover crop of oats, or peas or lettuce, something to cover the soil, and wait for another killing frost. Then, I would cover it back up with the weed mat,” she explained. “That way, I am keeping that soil armor, and also keeping nutrients in the soil.”

This method has been very successful for her.

Edwards pointed out new gardeners will use a different method for a no-till garden than existing gardeners will use for their no-till garden.

“When you start a new no-till garden, you would start it in the fall and pick your spot; then mow your grass and weeds really short and leave clippings where they fall,” Edwards said.

Edwards pointed out that if there are some noxious weeds like Creeping Jenny or Canada thistle, gardeners may want to spray a herbicide first.

Cover the ground with about four layers of newspapers or cardboard.

“These will help remove the light and kill off any plants you don’t want to come through,” she said, adding gardeners should moisten the area really well.

Gardeners will want to add a couple-inch layer of compost over that.

“Then you will want to add your traditional lasagna over that, a layer of green material, such as pine needles or dead plant material, and on top of that a layer of green living plant material,” Edwards said. Again, add water to the entire area well, and let it sit over the winter.

In the spring, the gardener will scrape away and plant.

With an existing garden that is being switched to a no-till garden, the gardener can skip the first few steps and begin with adding layers to the “lasagna.”

Edwards said she had bindweed issues when she started one of her gardens.

“Every year over the last four years, there has been less and less bindweed because we have been choking it out,” she said.

There are several benefits to no-till gardening that Edwards has seen in her own gardens, and increased moisture retention is one of the main benefits she has found.

“I don’t have to water as much as I used to because as we improve the soil structure, the water infiltrates better, and it is not being closed to cold and lost to evaporation,” she said. “Because we have that layer of mulch, the soil is not being exposed to sun.”

There are also increased nutrients from the improved soil health, less soil erosion, and there is less need for fertilizer to get better yields.

“I have found with no-till gardens, I haven’t had to spend so much time working in the gardens,” she said. “I also don’t have as much time to weed as I used to – less than 30 minutes a week weeding onions, carrots, and corn.”

Edwards added it was nice to go on a vacation and come back and not find a “jungle.”

For more on no-till gardening, see “Spring Fever 2021: No-till gardening” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhXHzL53Ge0&list=PLnn8HanJ32l7aEjO8b7pdln10F_8CBxF4&index=3.

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A mid-December winter storm left North Dakotans with nowhere to go as schools and interstates closed due to a mix of snow and ice blasting the state.

Compost include such materials as leaves to help make a no-till garden.

Calla Edwards, former NDSU Extension agent in McLean County is currently the Kansas State University Butler County Research and Extension horticulture agent, having moved to her new position last fall.

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