It’s finally that time! We are breaking ground on our future. Starting the Transformation our 1/4-acre field that has been occupied for decades with pasture grass and weeds into our dream all-natural herb and flower farm. This really is the first step towards our dream becoming a reality and it’s a big messy step with lots of surprises.

To Till or Not to Till?

If you’re starting with raw ground or a small space, you may be able to prepare your planting area by simply using cardboard or some other weed blocking medium under your planting surface. Our farm is going to be a no till farm, but unfortunately in order to get rid of the very thick, very aggressive mix of weeds and pasture grasses, we have to first start by actually breaking ground with tilling.

Large scale tillers are pretty expansive and really not worth the investment for a small farm, especially if you don’t plan on brining it out every year to till. A decent tiller for use with a tractor will easily run you $7,000. A walk behind is great, if you have a lot of time and a very young body, but most of us don’t have either. So, what’s the solution? The best option is if you have a farmer friend who already owns one, who will let you borrow it. There are also farmer equipment sharing collectives that you can join. Finally, you can rent just about anything from an equipment rental company.

I didn’t have any friends with large tillers and I’m not yet a member of any equipment sharing groups, so, I chose to rent a tiller from a local equipment rental. It’s by no means cheap, but for a single day use and only one year, it’s the most economical option. For those in the Bellingham, WA area I used (Cam’s rentals), they’re very helpful and friendly and I also ended up renting a tractor. We are not affiliated with or paid by Cam’s Rentals, we just liked the company and wanted to mention them.

Our Ground

The planned planting area ran into several issues that required early intervention. We have our highs and lows, unfortunately our property is not perfectly flat. It’s going to be nearly impossible to level the field and I think that would be a little more environmentally invasive than I want to be. So, we will work it as level as possible, without totally changing the lands topography. Our pasture grass is very aggressive, my first attempt at starting no till just by using compost and grass cutting to smother the grass was an absolute failure (You can see that area next to the tractor in the picture above, or in the pictures below). The grass blew through that. So, this time, I am tilling up the pasture to break up the compacted soil and remove the hold of most of the grass.

We will then use thick clear plastic to help burn and smother the grass and surface level seeds. I know plastic isn’t the best option for the environment, but we will do our best to reuse it on other fields and find alternatives to putting it in a landfill. It’s unfortunately a necessary evil at the moment to get rid of the grass without using nasty herbicides. So, you might be asking yourself “why the strike through on that whole section, why not just rewrite it?” And the answer is, I said this site was about telling the truth and sharing success and failure. Well, my plans changed almost as soon as I started breaking ground.

The plan to use plastic went out the window, partly because of cost and partly because of aesthetic. There was no way my wife was going to look out her window and stare at 1/4 acre of black plastic! Additionally, I was never enthusiastic about the use of plastic; it’s not the path we envisioned pursuing. So, what are we doing instead, what we do best experiment and fly by the seat of our pants!

Time

No-till isn’t a quick process if you choose to go that route. the bed preparation can take at least a year. Now, there are quicker methods and if you are working on a smaller scale, they might be an option for you. But they could involve brining in outside components to build your beds. this includes compost, soil, and mulch, you can start the base with cardboard, newspaper, weed fabric or other biodegradable material to suppress weeds. You would then add your soil and compost and a thick 3–6-inch layer of mulch.

We originally planned to build one bed in this way both as an example and as a way to get our farm growing this year. However, with our change of plan and direction, we chose to skip this process this year. Instead, we are trying to strategically plan and plant our four beds with an eye towards continual growth over the next year. Using a much more deliberate and time-consuming process. We’ll explain the “quick” method, and the processes we ended up using below and then in follow-up articles will update the progress of each of the methods we chose.

“Quick” Method

The “quick” method. Quick is in quotes, because, well this is farming and nothing is actually quick or easy. This is just simply faster than the other methods. This method was our original plan, and we’ll go over it quickly because it is a great way to build a smaller no-till garden. You need four things: an area for your garden, cardboard, soil/compost, and mulch.

Cardboard

We started saving carboard at Christmas time in order to have enough to cover or (20′ x 40′) planting area. I don’t recommend using glossy wax coated cardboard, it may not breakdown properly and may be treated with unwanted chemicals. You can also get cardboard from local businesses and grocery stores, they’re usually happy to give them away. I wouldn’t recommend it, but you can also buy boxes from the big box stores. lay out your cardboard, overlapping each piece covering your entire planting area. Then wet it all down until it is fully soaked, Updated Plan: (The cardboard we saved for this project, is now being shredded and added to our compost pile).

Soil and Compost

Next, you add your organic garden soil, we purchased ours from a local supplier. We also have a few good friends who are horse lovers, and we were able to acquire a couple of tons of manure at the great price of free (my labor was the only expense, and I work cheap). Pile your soil and compost around 3 to 4 inches thick. Updated Plan: (We used the soil and compost to amend a few problem areas and low spots in our planting area).

Mulch

Once the soil and compost are down, cover the whole area with a 6-inch layer of mulch. Our plans for the future are to use leaf mold, and wood chips from our farm. But in order to get this bed going quickly we purchased all natural wood chips from the same supplier we got our soil from. You have to be very careful with purchasing wood chip mulch, you have to make sure it is all natural. Some of the cheaper mulches, especially those that are “colored” use construction debris, treated wood, and chemical color enhancements. You don’t want to bring that stuff into your garden, because it will leach into your soil and be taken up into your plants and eventually ending up in you or your customers.

Updated Plan: (Turns out or 20 yards of mulch at $20 a yard wasn’t going to properly cover our beds at a reasonable cost. So, we instead used it for our walkways)

What we’re doing instead

We decided to lay out our farm in four planting areas, divided into four beds each. One planting area will be planted with a succession of cover crops. We will amend the soil and mulch for next year’s crop using green manure, and chop and drop mulching crops. One planting area will be tilled and direct planted with this year’s crop. We will mulch and weed as needed. Our final two planting areas will be planted in a version of the Ruth Stout or continuous mulch method with a pinch of chaos farming. We will go over our tilled and direct planted area in this post. Then to avoid writing War and Peace, we will cover the other three beds in separate posts.

Planning, Measuring, Marking, Tilling

First, we developed a plan for how we wanted our farm to be laid out. This ended up being four 45′ x 85′ planting areas. Each of those were divided into four 20′ x 40′ beds. Each bed has a 5′ walking path separating them. Finally, each of the four planting areas are separated by a 10′ path for tractors or vehicles. We then measured that out and flagged all the corners in preparation for tilling. We then went through and using the rented equipment, we tilled up our four planting areas. You might notice the four distinct piles of mulch in the pictures. The original plan was to use mulch on one bed. But after doing some calculations it would cost more than $2,000 in mulch alone to do all of our beds. Soooo…we changed our plan a bit.

Creating Paths

After completing the tilling of our four planting areas, we divided and measured those each into four planting beds. We measured and marked off the area with string. We then laid down and staked landscape fabric. Next, we used our natural wood mulch we purchased to cover the landscape fabric.

Our Direct planted Area

Because I’m a giant nerd, I named each planting area after an ancient agricultural deity.

Our direct sewed area received the name Airmid. She’s the Celtic goddess of herbal healing, which seemed appropriate. This area was tilled a second time using our “very” Small hand tiller to further break up the soil. It was also the site of our failed grass clipping no-till area. The plus side was our failed areas soil was much looser and nicer than the rest of our field. We racked out all the loose weeds, and as much of the pasture grass and their roots as we could. Then we sowed this area with seeds. In three of the four quadrants we planted Camomile, Echinacea, Calendula, Borage, and Nasturtiums. We bordered each of these with straw to create a safe walking area. The fourth quadrant was covered in straw and will later be planted with transplants of lavender.

Maintenance

Finally, you have maintenance of your beds. No matter how hard you try, weeds are tenacious and at least some will make their way into your beds. Grab them quickly to make sure they don’t go to seed and leave behind any children. But you should notice a massive reduction in weeds and if you mulch properly, you should be near weed free. Your mulch will break down over time and should never be removed or stirred. Removing or shifting the mulch will allow weed seeds to get to the soil and germinate. Just add your compost and mulch over your old mulch. The old mulch will breakdown and compost into the soil providing nutrients to your plants.

Closing

Getting everything started is a lot of work and it can seem like it isn’t worth it. But in the long run the upfront work will pay off with less work overtime. Check out our other posts to see what we did with our other three beds (Sucullus, Dagda, and Rosemerta).