Cost effective vegetable gardening?

I am not sure if there has been a similiar thread done before. I couldn't find one. So, I decided to start one here.

It seems that everyone has been starting gardens for the last few years to save money on produce. However, the cost/savings can go either way. If you decide to go the high end route, the true cost of a few tomatoes or peppers can easily be triple as those bought at the store. However, with the ever rising cost of produce, there is definent potential to save quite a bit of money with a productive veggie garden.

What are everyone's methods/tips for frugal vegetable gardening? What are the fruits/vegetables that are the biggest bang for the buck? Good sources for cheap or free supplies that you have found over the years?

Mine is to keep it simple. Don't use more inputs (i.e. fertilizers and pesticides) than what is absolutely nessecary. Also, I realized that it is better to work with the soil you have than to purchase and truck in new soil. Always make your own compost or purchase it from the county/city. Ours sells it at about $.70 per sq ft. That's $3 less than what I can buy it at home improvement centers and it is usually much better quality.

A few thoughts: Bottom line is money, but also consider intangibles.
Cheaper than a counseling, if you have high pressure job. Light up neighborhood...many of our neighbors are elderly, but still cook & APPRECIATE fresh veggies. In appreciation, one couple gave us a beautiful pair of handmade ceramic ducks.
Find free niche sources of compost, such as hay, straw, clippings & ect.
Companion planting of herbs will keep bug population down & provide edible zesty meals. Consider some supplies as long term investment. See cucumber trellis, in my garden blog. Panels & posts last forever, if you are careful with them.
Internet / library is source for best payback listing. Compare this to your eating habits & garden resources.

I don't have many tricks, since I'm a fairly new gardener myself, but I'm trying to be economical.

I have been using Solo plastic cups for my little pots to put plants into after seedling stage. They seem to be working fine so far, and 100 cups for $1 or $2 is a good price. I put one on some soil and plunge a knife through the bottom a few times for drainage, and I've been setting a few at a time into larger pots that are half-filled with soil, so that several stay together and make it easy to move them around 5 or 7 at a time and with no threat of wind blow-over. My only worry is that they are a little deeper than a normal small pot would be, so they hold more potting mix. Not sure if that's going to be a problem or not.

On the "cheaper than counseling," I agree that gardening is worth a few modest costs here or there for all the enjoyment and stress relief I get. A jug of organic fertilizer might cost $20 but heck, most people drop that much on a fast food meal that is gone in 10 minutes, while this and a few seeds can entertain me all summer. Good value, that's for sure.

Like you, dlbailey, I'm making my own compost. I've also cut down too-tall lantana (I think?) branches and will be using them as stakes if they maintain their strength through the summer.

My garden tags are made from an old window blind. It is perfect for me, very cheap (free!) and I just use a pencil to mark down what the plant is. The pencil hasn't faded on me yet.

That's all I can think of.

LiseP ~ if you have tomato plants in those solo cups, cut off the bottom and use the rest of the solo cup for a cutworm collar if the tomato is planted in ground. Works good and is pretty.

Another plus for growing your own is the better nutritional value.
Many nutrients are diminished by harvesting too early and trucking over long distance to market. Homegrown and freshly picked means more and better nutritional content.

One general thing I do, when purchasing anything, especially household goods, I always evaluate what needs the packaging or container may be able to serve me. One should not only think in context of environmentally friendly packaging, but useful, repurposing packaging. As more people purchase with this way in mind, more products will be packaged in this way.

So if the bottom line is truly money, then with a little creativity and resourcefulness, one should be able to have a garden at little to no cost. I understand that different people have different situations like rural vs urban environment, different degrees of access to materials, like composting, mulching, and so on, but, as I said, if the bottom line is truly money, then remember that "necessity is the mother of invention".

I buy "hardware" in bulk from places like greenhousemegastore.com or Harris Seeds grower site to save money, like pots or peat pellets or whatever, which provides a lot of savings. I bought a box of peat pellets three years ago and still have plenty left, WAY cheaper even then getting them on sale at end of season. Ditto with a box full of 4" plastic pots. I bought 100 7ft bamboo poles three years ago that I make full use of every summer and I expect those babies to last me a bunch more years. Buying 100 meant a big savings over buying a few at the big bucks store, even with shipping. I don't do plastic cups anymore. IME, they end up being more expensive because you have to keep buying them every year. If you can't use up a lot of these things yourself, go in with someone else and you'll both save.

With seeds, I do buy some new every year, but I also never plant a whole pack, so I have seeds from several years back I can keep dipping into. This is cheaper even than buying a 99cent pack every year, and you get better quality and more variety. Almost any veggie seed should last three years, no problem. I have plenty that go back farther and that are still good. Last year I planted a bunch of Asian greens from 2000 and they were fine.

I tend to grow things I either can't find at all or that are expensive. I can get tons of organic squash for cheap in the fall, so I don't grow that. Same with carrots and onions. But organic eggplants, peppers, and even tomatoes are much more expensive and frankly I think mine taste better. So they are worth growing in terms of frugality, IMO.

However, I also grow some things that don't pay financially, just because I want to. Like I love to go out in the morning and eat some fresh peas right out of the pod. I know this is not an efficient vegetable, but I grow English peas every year just for that experience. And I grow tons of other stuff that I can't eat, like flowers. A soul has to eat too.

I usually buy one 50 pound bag of synthetic fertilizer and apply half before planting and then spread the rest out every few weeks while the garden is growing. I'm slowly weening myself off of it and just using compost and stuff. The fertilizer and the price of seeds is pretty much the only thing that I have to buy for the garden. So, maybe 50 total dollars per year, depending on how many plants I start from seed. We harvested almost 13 5 gallon buckets of potatoes, over 300 ears of corn, and easily more than 100 pounds of tomatoes.

Paracelsus, I agree with carrots and onions. They are still cheap in stores. I do grow cippolini because they are hard to find and expensive. For me, greens and lettuce are the most cost effective to grow. A packet of seeds actually cost less than a 1/2 lb bunch at the grocery store. This is insane to me because they are the easiest things to grow. Also, one package contains a few hundred seeds. I can grow them from September up 'til the beginning of summer heat at the end of April. Kale and Collards can even last all year. I just keep cutting them a few times a week. There must be at least a good 5-7 pounds in each plant. Broccoli is the same way, too. It is almost as easy to grow as greens and just as expensive at stores. Cauliflower and cabbage have always eluded me. (Early summers always ruin them.) So, I purchase these.

I save my seeds year after year, too. Some seed companies are so genorous. Cucumber, melon, eggplant, pepper and tomato packages contain about 30-50 seeds when I only need one or two plants. Of course, I always buy 15-20 new varieties each season because they are so addictive. This year, I have almost 100 types of tomatoes from saved seeds and good deals.

Another tip, if you live in zone 8 on down, pepper and eggplants can be overwintered easily, especially if grown in large pots. Overwintered sweet pepper plants can set fruit quite early - mid-april for here. Pepper plants are always twice as productive the next year. Making plants more productive and longer bearers is an additional savings. This saves on new starts, too. This doesn't work for tomatoes. They stop bearing after the first year. In addition to this, tomatoes and peppers can be given a cold treatment at 2-4 weeks of development to force them to flower more.

Plants don't have to be started indoors if you live in the right area. A coldframe or tunnel can work as well as a greenhouse or grow lights. But, they are cheaper and easier to construct. I have even been able to sow my tomatoes directly under my row covers the last few years. Just mark out the apropriate space with sticks and twine in a grid pattern. Unlike peppers and eggplant, they can handle a small chill (down to 55 degree soil) and still germinate and grow. Surpisingly, I get close to 100% germinataton and development each year. If a coldframe or tunnel is still out of the price range, these seeds can be started under bottomless water and soda bottles. Seeds can also be sown directly into the pots they will finish in, provided a cover for protection. Directly sowing seeds under protective surfaces maybe an extra bonus to tomato development. I read in a few articles that tomatoes are sensitive to being transplanted because of their delicate roots. For me, eggplant still do better to grow in pots under a coldframe, bottomless bottles or grow lights indoor. Peppers break even either direct-seeded under row covers or as starts under coldframes.

If you prefer to buy organic or at the farmer's market, than the savings is even bigger with your own garden. Also, don't be afraid to experiement a little to findout what is the easiest, cheapiest and best method for you and your garden. Some of my best techniques came by accident. Square-foot and biointensive gardening systems can really increase the return on the garden investment.

(Sorry if this info tends toward zone 9. I have only grown food in the Central Valley. That's all I know, right now.)

I was ready to save seeds, until I started reading about pollination control. Having grown up on farm, am realist when it comes to seedstock & quality therof.

Tradeoff is stocking up during end of season closeouts. Knowledge of seedlife & personal inventory is necessary.

For those that save seeds, how much time is involved?
How many varieties ( of same vegetable) do you work with?

Saving seeds from all the open pollinated brassicas, melons, tomatoes and peppers is easy and good ammo for gifting and trading. The only drawback is if you need the space for other crops because it does take them awhile to ripen the seeds in the case of winter stuff. I've already saved a small fortune by planting from seeds I saved last year. I've had to order twice this year because no matter what I have, I always see something else I "need". Like paracelsus said "A soul has to eat too".

I reuse potting soil forever. I've got some that's been in use since 2005. I do add goodies to it and mix it up with compost which I never can get enough of. Every year I have to buy more for the ever expanding container garden. I noticed last year that even composted cow manure from Walmart and Lowes listed the nutrient content at less than 1% of NPK so it needs additives from the beginning.

I don't have a compost pile. Instead, I have large flower pots sitting under my fruit trees and place all the kitchen waste in them. I move them around periodically so all the trees get some of the nutrients that leach out with the rain. When they're leafed out, I can tell where the compost pot has been because the leaves will be dark and lush while the neglected side looks anemic.

I've discovered that green plant residue will decompose in water very rapidly in the warm months. Hollow zucchini plants will completely melt away in a week in mid-summer due to high microbial action. I like to fill a five gallon bucket with cut up spent plants and add water. It makes fast and easy compost tea without waiting very long. I still have to use commercial fertilizer but a very little will do. Beneficial soil microbes have been proven to turn nutrients into a form the plants can easily use. I try hard to avoid anything that would be toxic to them. I never set out to grow organically but seeing the power of healthy soil conditioned with microbes and earth worms has convinced me of their value.

Well, with fertilizer the NPK can be very misleading. It is not an end all or even a proper beginning into what makes a garden productive.

First, most chemical fertilizers have to be absorbed by plants and soil microbes very quickly before it is leached out. Organic fertilizers that double as amendments don't have this problem. Also, compost, manure and green manure add humus, sulfur and carbon to the soil. This alone is a very big boon to plant growth and development. Humus maintains soil fertility, moderates pH, absorbs water and so on. Carbon opens up the soil, is essential in the life cycle of beneficial microrganisms and brings in oxygen. Sulfur is an essential nutrient in plant growth. Organic fertilizers also have micronutrients like calcium, zinc and boron. In addition, a healthy soil will make elements like calcium, phosphorus, zinc and boron already in the soil available to plants. Often the soil already has the right nutrients, just not in the form that can be used by plants. A good soil foodweb will hold in nutrients for months to even years and slowly release them back to plants.

Second, soil conditions have just as much if not more to do with plant growth. Soil that is either too warm, cold, wet, dry or has too high or low of a pH can both bind nutrients making them unavaiable to plants or deplete them quickly. Adding a lot of diverse organic material will solve many of these problems.

Sorry, I wrote so much. I am very big on soil fertility and always looking to increase it in my own garden.

I think the cost of gardening can range from practically nothing to as much as you want to spend. Take a stick scratch some earth clean in the yard put some seed down that you recycled from something you ate, weed and some vegetables will grow. Will it produce as much or as good a quality as it could as easily, as you could with other methods, no, but it will produce food with some care and understanding of the needs of the plants you are trying to grow and the return on your financial investment will be great. Humans grew food this way for a long time. You can also go out and buy the most expensive tractor with all the toys, the most expensive seed and chemicals and raise the costliest tomato you've ever eaten. Where you end upon this spectrum has much to do with your personality type and there is no "wrong answer" to it. If you enjoy and can afford the latest piece of equipment then that is the answer for you. If you want to see just how cheap you can produce a garden go find a stick and dig in the garbage for some seed to start you off.

As far as saving seed I'm coming to the conclusion that in most cases it is tougher than most people give it credit for. I just did a germination test on some old bean seed I had. It is at least 5 years old. For 3 of those years it ended up in the garage when it was in the 90's in the summer and damp and humid in the winter. The seed therefore had about as bad a care as seed can have and it still has a 60% germination rate in a jar on the kitchen counter. I've also grown beans from navy pes beans that had to be at least 10 years old and the only care it had was to be stored in the cupboard in a cottage cheese container.

LisaP -I use a1/4 inch drill to put holes in the bottom of solo cups. I put them in a stack, run the drill in them as far as it will go, take off about the number I drilled and repeat. I can do a hundred in less than a minute. I've had excellent results with tomatoes and such.

-Doug

Thanks, Doug! Great tip on drilling the solo cups, I'll do it that way from now on!

And I am so glad you are having good results with them.

My seedlings are struggling, but I think I didn't adjust my plants well enough between inside and outside. Since it was a cloudy temperate patch of weather, I thought they would be okay to leave them all out there, but maybe it was too much a shock. Or maybe they will perk up in a few days after all. I worried that maybe the solo cups are a little too deep for my little seedlings, but I've got plenty of holes and fast draining soil, so I will hope for the best. I did use some hydrogen peroxide in the water to ward off the damping off stuff, but maybe I used too much. Maybe, maybe! LOL. If I get even a few actual plants out of all these seeds, though, it will still be worth the effort.

Doug I love your post. I think a lot of people forget that man has been cultivating crops for a long time without the aid of toys and gadgets, artificial lights, etc. A shovel and a rake were my tools for the first garden.

I've had some excellent results from volunteers that came up from store bought produce. Seed saving from the unknowns which are likely to be commercial hybrids is discouraged but it surely isn't all bad. I'd highly recommend it to anyone that felt they didn't want to risk the price of a pack of seeds.

Lise the peroxide dissipates very quickly leaving a more sanitized situation. It just retards the growth of fungus and such. Once your plants have fresh air, sun and warmth they don't need it. Once those conditions are met they'll want food.

Thanks, twiggybuds. The leaves are looking a little brown-tinged on the edges, so I wasn't sure if it was too much hydrogen peroxide or too much sun. Now I think it's the latter. They're getting plenty of moisture so I know they haven't dried out but they are little and have stayed little and just aren't doing much of anything. I think I didn't take that "hardening off" advice seriously enough. It looked like cloudy warm weather so I thought, 'just stick them out there!' Live and learn!
This is my first year trying to start veggies indoors.

Oh well, that's why Lowe's sells plants, right? But I'm going to keep babying these, and also start some new little ones, just so I can see if I can figure out how to grow from seed.

Many of mine have twisted leaves in the gh and growth has been very slow except for the early varieties from Siberia and other tundra locations. I think it's the cold and excessive cloudy weather. Even on a fairly moderate day, there was always a cold wind until a couple days ago. The only ones I have out are in pots and are protected with row cover. A very cloudy day is good but just overcast is not. I've gotten sunburned before on an overcast day. So I'd think it was sun or cold. My nights are still in the 30s and they're growing. This is my 5th sunny day in a row and it's making a major difference.

I held on to a couple that had frozen heads and now they're putting on new growth from the cotyledons on up. I don't know if they'll turn out to be normal but they're trying.

I just love Dave's Garden! This information is wonderful! Thank you all so much for the excellent info you shared!

I was ready some other forums about no-till gardening. This inspires me to actual practice the things I learned while working at the university garden. Tomorrow, I am buying some hay to put on my beds. My focus this year is to improve soil fertility and have a better intercropping system to at least double my yields. I really want to get as much as I can out of the garden.

Another goal is to utilize as many free resources as possible. I already go almost everyday to get grounds at Starbucks. This Fall, I will collect as many leaves and pumpkins as possible for mulch and compost.

dlbailey
Glad you are inspired! Nebraska was pioneer in Minimum/No-Till farming
Don't want to be condescending, but a few caveats with "hay".
Alfalfa hay, oat, wheat & rye straw are best humus builders.
Grass hay can be harder to break down and you will have to fight new seedlings or grass clumps at end of season..
Ask supplier if hay/straw has weeds & what kind.
I am still fighting Bindweed, from 2005 straw.
If you want material broken down, weed whacker works well.
Pull apart 4" sections & it can be broken down in 30 seconds.
Seeds in wheat, oats, rye & etc are freebie Green Manure crop.

Dl, I add the hay that my DH mows and bags on my garden rows all summer. In the spring, I work what's left on the rows into the soil. I started doing it out of neccessity to help keep the weeds down, but found it has improved the soil texture tremendously. I just have to dry it a bit in the walkways, before putting it on the rows.

No-till gardening and no-till farming are two different things. In no-till gardening, there is a ton of off-site input: added mulches, compost, leaves, etc. Great if you have a small garden, too expensive if you have a large one. I think I calculated that in my old garden I would have needed 2 tons of material every season to cover it to the depth that is advised with lasagne gardening, which is a good example of no-till. You can do it with less, but you still are going to need stuff from off site.

No-till farming usually involves the heavy use of herbicides. It's not about adding stuff on top of the soil, like no-till gardening is.

Tilling is not evil. It depends on how deep and how often you till. If you are constantly tilling to a depth of more than 3", you are going to end up with a really thick "dust mulch" instead of soil to plant in, because everything in it will be dead. This is what my neighbor does, tilling regularly to a depth of 8". His soil is nice and loose but it has no worms or life in it. He has to use synthetic ferts. However, if you don't go below 3" and keep the tilling to a few times a year, you will not have a negative effect on your soil. And this is the way to incorporate green manures you grow yourself, right on your garden instead of having to bring in from somwhere. True, you have to use gasoline for the tiller, but I go through about two gallons a year for this. Farmers used this method (with a chisel plow instead of a rototiller) in the 19th century. I use it, and I have tons of worms in my soil. Nothing dead about it at all.

negarden, that isn't condescending but helpful. I usually purchase a bale of hay once or twice a year at the local feed store for about $7. Haven't done it the last two years. However, in years past the worst I have had was volunteer wheat and oats sprouting up all over. My garden is only about 300 sq ft making weeding pretty easy. I plan to till one last time this year to incorporate compost. This should be sufficient for the plants until the hay breaks down. Also, will be adding my homemade compost throughout the year. The soil here is sandy loam without any hard pan. There really seems no need to till unless you like extra work.

Paracelsus, the reason I am switching to no-till is from my own observations. It seems like a waste of nutrients and excessive work to till even twice a year. Most crops only send roots about 8" down and leave their feeder roots at the top 2-3". I figure that it is best just to feed them were they want to be fed. This method seems to give great results from little input for those that practice it. Have you tried to look into other no-till methods? Lasagna gardening is only one type. The biointensive method is similiar to no-till except it tries to minimize outside inputs.

This message was edited Mar 8, 2010 6:51 AM

We do no till on a large scale (market grower). We bag all our grass clippings and leaves to add to it. We also add yards of compost once per year. We grow 12 months out of the year in eighty nine 4 ft by 34 ft raised beds. We are getting ready to add 5000 sq more planting area.

We prepare an area by tilling to a depth of one foot, then making the modified raised beds, add compost and plants or seeds. Once the beds are prepared, they are never tilled again. We have wonderful soil with earthworms. I can dig sweet potatoes by hand.

Before adding fertilizer, get a soil test, you can over do phosphates quickly. Be sure they use water soluble test, some can be misleading. Texas A&M does dry test, doesn't give a true picture of what is available to the plant. Edinburg soil lab does water soluble test, only shows what is available to the plant. Huge difference in the results.

Calalily, thank you for the first hand farmer perspecitve. In keeping with the topic of the thread, has it been cost effective? I would imagine that it saves quite bit in labor, equipment and fertilizer. Labor and equipment is not a issue for me. But, I really want to get the most out of my organic matter and my limited space.

dbailey, there are two types of hay out there, Horse hay is a carefully cultivated crop with few weeds because horses have kinda finicky digestive systems. I've used it successfully for years and the few germinations were easy to pull. We've successfully mulched with alfalfa hay, timothy hay, and bermuda hay without problems. On course, weed control (mulch or not) takes regular attention - nip it in the bud. But mulching sure reduced the effort for us.

Cow hay is way more likely to have weeds and seeds. Now, the straw bale method of preparing straw bales gets the straw pretty hot and probably would kill the majority of the seeds. Could be the way to go for cow hay, which costs less.

For us, the biggest benefit of this kind of mulching is the ability to maintain soil moisture. A big deal here in the hot desert. I don't know how well it works in wetter climates.

Good luck.

Frank

dlbailey, yes, I did regular mulched gardening for years, planting through cardboard overlaid with mulch, but it just got more and more expensive as my garden got bigger and bigger. I still had to use outside fertilizers, from composted manure to spray-on organics. Now I can grow my own fertilizer by using a green manure, like dwarf white clover or peas (which I can even get some extra eats out of). I have even been able to use them as a living mulch for some stuff, like tomatoes. I have found that I have an easier time with weeds by using no mulch and doing hand hoeing. I have not used more water; in fact, I have used less water than when I used mulch. But for working green manures into the soil, a tiller is really necessary. I cut the green manure crop with my electric mower (probably will get an electric weed-eater this year to let it grow longer), let it wilt a day, and then till it in. Last year I needed no other fertilizer at all! My fert cost was confined to a few lbs of rhizo-coated white clover from Peaceful Valley and a bunch of cheap peas from Harris. No driving around looking for leaves and all that. I like it.:)

Frank, you could use a dust mulch instead of an imported mulch in the desert. This is what the Indians did and do. It will hold the water in just like a regular mulch will, and you don't have to renew it. Reading about dust mulch gardening years ago is what got me interested in going without mulch. I did dust mulching for about five years before I started growing the green manures. It works good but it does require hoeing.

This message was edited Mar 8, 2010 11:22 AM

I should calrify. I meant straw not hay. Paracelsus, the reasons you mentioned are what usually drive people away from no-till. I have tried in the past to do lasagna gardening with moderate success. My garden seems to be at the maturity level that no-till and mulch will really benefit it.

To mulch or not mulch probably has something to do where you live. I am not familiar with NY. I am just assuming that it has shorter summers, higher humity and much more rain than were I live. So, mulching may not be an issue, even a hinderance. Here, summers can be brutal to sensitive plants. Five months of no rain and temps hovering around 100 degrees. The previous years, a 2-3" thick layer of straw really cut down on water and cooled the soil.

BTW, I am no complaining about living in the Central Valley. Gardens can be extremely productive here if given the right care. Whenever I complain about the summers during the winter or early spring, I am so afraid Mother Nature will strike us with a freak snowstorm or frost to teach me a lesson ;).

Edited to remove double post.

This message was edited Mar 8, 2010 11:26 AM

"Frank, you could use a dust mulch instead of an imported mulch in the desert."

I dunno, my "skeptical" nerve just went off. I'm probably missing something here. How would one water without turning the dust back into wet dirt? Anyone out here in the west who's used this approach successfully?

Farmers in the Southwest and in Western China use borders instead of organic matter as mulch. This has more to do with what is available than what works best. Some farmers in the Central Valley disk their soil and rotate fields between years to conserve water. I would think that an organic mulch layer and plenty of added humus would work much better. However, logistics probably makes it difficult to not just source but spread that much OM. Also, some extensions may not have enough information or qualified staff to offer support in alternative farming systems. (Not a critism, just an observation. Most alternative systems were developed for small not large scale operations. More research and information is probably needed to change this.) It seems too risky to many farmers to change their way of doing things if they are not sure of the exact results.

Paracelsus ~ you have hit on a topic of interest when you said... "I cut the green manure crop with my electric mower (probably will get an electric weed-eater this year to let it grow longer), let it wilt a day, and then till it in." I can't help but wonder why you bother to till it in. Why can you not just plant in the stubble of the mowed manure crop? After all it is the roots not the tops that provide the majority of the nutrients so I am curious. I intend to try this one in the fall and let it grow thru winter, only mowing in the spring and planting via no till was my intention.

The roots do have the nitrogen nodules on them, but once the plant flowers and fruits, not so much, Leaving the rest of the plant on top would mean that a significant amount of the nutrients in the plant would be volatilized to the air. I have read that the way to get the most nitrogen and other nutrients from a green leguminous manure is to mow, let it sit one day, then till under. I don't add any mulch after tilling, just lay out my soaker hoses, plant, and keep hoed. I run the soaker hoses when I get up so that I don't lose water to evaporation since the hoses aren't covered. But once the plants get going, they shade the ground pretty good. I don't use intensive spacings, but I do plant close in wide beds.

Appreciate that information, thank you. I actually wondered if the dead foliage would be a good mulch to conserve moisture here in the south or would it consume more nutrients while it rotted.

Well, tilling also consumes nitrogen and carbon. When you till in OM, you force mircorganisms to greatly increase their activity. Quite a bit of nutrients can be lost in this process, too. From what I understand, laying down green manure as mulch doesn't lose that much nutrients to the atmosphere. Composting, on the other hand, can lose a significant amount of nitrogen and carbon through the air.

The whole point of no-till is to maintain a soil community that continually pulls back in and holds nutrients in the root zone.

My take on it is that all those micro organisms also die and either fuel plant growth or other micro-organisms. It's important to keep the generations going. There's all sorts of symbiotic relationships between the various microbes and the plants they prefer. Science is really delving into that in a big way right now. It's more than just micro-nutrients. Just as in the rest of nature, some microbes only work well with certain plants. Some can even trigger a plant's resistance to certain diseases and insects via enzymes. It's fascinating and we've only begun to understand how much we don't know.

Hmmm... I have to say I understand how much I don't know! LOL It is fascinating and rewarding to benefit nature without harming it.

At last there is a lot of focus on natural processes instead of new chemicals. A nice change for sure. The catch is that I think they're looking for the magic genes so they can be used to engineer new stuff as in the GE or GMOs that many consider to be an abomination. The goal is and always has been $. Mercifully there are still plenty of natural selection breeders and I hope they can continue.

I do have a question regarding the green manure that is used to enrich the soil. I used a mixture of beans that I planted prior of using the raise beds for planting other veggies. According to one source, you cut the green manure or beans when they flower and just before they start producing you till the whole plant with the dirt covering as much as you can so they can decompose quickly, the other source that uses the no tilling method mentions that you cut the plant at the base but you do not dig it under since the nitrogen producing nodules are on the roots of the plants and not the stem or leaves therefore it is not necesary to mix the green part wit the existing soil, plus when you disturb the soil it harms all living organisms. I am wondering which one of this methods is right or better for the soil?