No-Till Design, Theory & Implementation

I'd like this thread to maybe become the 'central posting hub' for indoor no-till gardens & gardening.

I'd love to see everyone share what is working for them, their own DIY designs, what's worked / not worked, insights, theory, long-term soil mixes, mulches, & of course further possible experiments & explorations into this fascinating, simple & easy to maintain method.

MM - you've been a greater part of my inspiration and I love your article (or maybe it's in bits and pieces here and there) on living soil and no-till, specifically in relation to soil life @ different depths, the interactions & networks created overtime when undisturbed - that would be a great addition here!

This style of organic gardening sparked my interest about a year ago, (of course these discussions had been going on for at least 4 years in 2012 & all this tech was already hashed out by the key players) mainly from many late night discussions in the ROLS thread (thanks to everyone, we all know who you are!), since that time I've 'experimented' and implemented many different sizes (3gal to 45gal and everywhere in between) and variations of containers (buckets, totes, smart pots), mulches, etc etc...Since that time I believe I've found what works best in my situation, or at least good enough that I'm happy to start converting the entire garden to a fairly hassle free, 'plug and play' multi-year No-Till garden!

First off, what is really awesome is that No-Till gardening is ideal for small cabinet grows (single 'large' beds, vs. many small pots) to large warehouse gardens, and everywhere in between.

Here's what I've got goin' on:

Back in August, 10 months ago, I started my first 45gal smart pot intended for continual reuse.


4 little Sour Bubble ladies



Apparently I didn't take any more pictures of that crop! But it finished nicely, very nicely. At harvest I happily transplanted 4 or 5 more new plants:


(Sour Grape) the younger flowering plants in the back, the others are 18gal no-till totes that are still being used as well

These also flowered well, and with ease:





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This was the undercanopy/mulch at the time of the above picture:



Now we continue into the 3rd cycle:


multi strains, 11 plants, experiment status


you can see the newer mulch mix of comfrey/nettle/yarrow decomposed nicely...and pockets of red clover established from the beginning.

They all smell so good and uniquely themselves!


White Grapes, Blue Orca x Cherry Bomb, Chemdawg, M2, Stargazer



....continued....

..movin on...

..movin on...

So with the knowledge gained from the life of that no-till smart pot we can move on to the making of more and more smart pot No-Tills!

I really wanted to make these mobile, or at least on a raised floor. With the help of shmalphy, rrog & others we fine tuned my design and I think I'm pretty happy with being able to very easily move around each individual unit on a platform that looks something like this:



Sweeeeet! I love the ball bearing caster wheels, what a great invention! Design is obviously pretty straight forward, a mini-pallet on wheels built to the size of whatever your smart pot width is - chicken wire or heavy duty mesh screen would be a good idea layed on top of the platform.

I like about a 1" or 2" layer of lava rock, gravel (native local rock even better!) on the bottom:



Layer several inches of soil on top of that:



My mix is 2yrs old consisting mainly of:

1:1:1

Sphagnum Peat Moss : rice hulls/pumice/red lava rock : Vermicompost

amended with 1/2 cup/cuF:

kelp, crab, ahimsa neem, gypsum, fish bone meal (in lower qty's)

4 cups/cuF:

Glacial Rock dust

thanks to CC for helping simplify my soil mixes and reamending processes, and introducing the importance of well made high quality vermicompost...if ya didn't notice the soil mix is basically his, and it's fabulous if ya didn't already know!

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....So it's at this time I like to put an additional thin layer of lava rock (aeration amendment, whatever) to negate compaction in the long-term, just in case type deal....sprinkle a few more cups of straight vermicompost and toss about 5 full grown European Nightcrawlers in there. I also like to water the lower half now so i'm not flooding the whole thing from the top, with plenty of room for roots to grow I don't want a soggy botttom while the top dries out..nice and evenly moist to start:



With the appropriate level of soil it's time to space out the plants, leaving ample room at the top for mulching/vermicompost applications over time:



Get all your plants in there, however many that may be, fill it in with soil and voila!



Throw some vermicompost mulch on the top (mixed with comfrey, cannabis leaves & neem) and plant clover seed for good measure. Watered with SST, aloe, coconut, fulvic......



And now here we are a week or so later, the 4 plants in the back are in the new No-Till, you can see the tan of the smart pot in there somewhere I think LOL.



Java and KushWreck in the back, two in front are Blue Orca x Cherry Bomb, as well as the front middle plant that is in a separate container.

amazing garden.

with the clover and other cover crops do you replant them after each time you re-pot with new clones?

oh, and did you find any size no-till pot that was too small? and has 45gal been your best experience so far?

The BO x CB is delicious and she bites if ya turn your back on her!



Well thanks for coming along - My entire garden will be slowly converted to the exact container shown above and hopefully remain undisturbed for years to come!

There are a handfull of specific ingredients that will aid in long-term soil mixes, I forgot to mention I do have a small amount of bentonite clay and that will be included @ a greater rate of maybe 1cup per cuF in future soil mixes....as well as BIOCHAR baby!

There's a few of you that have a greater knowledge base in biochar and clays, if you'd like to share why one would want to include those items, and how, that would be a fantastic benefit to the thread!

Thanks everyone!

blueJ

yourcorpse said:

amazing garden.

with the clover and other cover crops do you replant them after each time you re-pot with new clones?

did you find any size no-till pot that was too small? and has 45gal been your best experience so far?

Click to expand...

yourcorpse -

Ideally they become established and the same clover plants remain in place continually growing, crop after crop. I will even transplant the small clusters to other pots or better locations, if needed. Die offs can and will occur, I'm always dropping new clover seed where needed.

I do really like 20gal smart pots also for no-tills, I usually put two plants in each 20, size dependent of course. For long term I wanted as big of a soil base as possible while still remaining mobile, the 45's seem to fit that bill. And breaking the garden up into 'x' amount of separate smart pots in lieu of one huge bed will aid in 'epic fails' of the soil. LOL

im seriously blown away, i have been thinking about it every time you guys post pictures and stories of how long you have been growing in one pot/bed. this might of just pushed me over the edge.

i just need to make it work for me, i usually grow in 5gal buckets around 2 vertical 600's, so i have two racks that have a couple of levels so i can stack them vertically.
maybe i can get some smart pot fabric and make a rectangle bed that will fit my racks. i usually have 3x 5gal buckets on each level, so a 15gal bed might work.

Just do it my man! Start with one and tweak it out as you go, i think you'll find 'taking the jump' is the hardest part. The 15gal bed idea sounds great.

I've done 3 cycles in 5gal paint buckets even with no drainage holes - that part I had picked up from the 3LB...and of course I have since stopped that practice LOL. It works if your drainage amendment is very 'dialed in', layer of rocks at the bottom, and anally accurate when watering. SMART POTS all the way, FABRIC pots i should say, I'm not trying to be a brand hugger here.

Not to be forgotten, another inspiration that helped push me to start implementiong No-tills

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=217957&page=8

MissGreenDreamz - Gas - ya'll don't need anymore thanks from me but here ya go anyways

yourcorpse

GeoPot

They offer rectangle fabric pots with PVC frames in 7 sizes.

CC

The middle plants are 5gal buckets, everything else in no-tills...I like the small containers in the middle to easily move around until everything is on wheel, larger harder to move pots remain in place in the perimeter....maybe a dozen strains pictured here...

ClackamasCootz said:

yourcorpse

GeoPot

They offer rectangle fabric pots with PVC frames in 7 sizes.

CC

Click to expand...

Cooz is correct on those. I have spoken to them about doing custom sizes. They will build any size but there is a minimum order (4-5 pieces) if memory serves me correct.

I was looking for some custom made for my tents.


Nice Thread btw Bluejay! I was thinking of ditches my 7 gal fabric no tills for 18 gal plastic totes but maybe I need to stick with the fabric.

BlueJayWay said:

Just do it my man! Start with one and tweak it out as you go, i think you'll find 'taking the jump' is the hardest part. The 15gal bed idea sounds great.

Click to expand...

I think i am going to, ill start turning the wheels and sketching everything out. thanks man.

ClackamasCootz said:

yourcorpse

GeoPot

They offer rectangle fabric pots with PVC frames in 7 sizes.

CC

Click to expand...

thanks for the link, the smallest one there is just 6 inches too wide.

invocation said:

Cooz is correct on those. I have spoken to them about doing custom sizes. They will build any size but there is a minimum order (4-5 pieces) if memory serves me correct.

Click to expand...

ahha! i would need 4 so that could be perfect. i'll call em' up this week, im in the bay area too so im sure shipping would be cool.

if they don't do custom orders for whatever reason i have no problem building it with pvc and fabric myself.

Kewl~

ditches my 7 gal fabric no tills for 18 gal plastic totes but maybe I need to stick with the fabric.

Click to expand...

Time and time again i'm blown away by the benefit of breathability on all sides of a container for easy access to oxygen for the roots (and soil life).

been having no-till success in 3 gal pots {recycled buckets} for a few cycles i just cut out a spot and transplant 1 qt yogurt/sour cream/cottage cheese containers recycled and using ROLS from my ongoing batch {in the little containers}

like i say as long as a 3 gal performs just plant right back! if it dont; i mix it back in the ongoing batch

if theres any bugs i topdress neem seed meal @ 1 tsp/gal
a little {tsp/gal} top dress around flip dont hurt ~been doing kelp meal

i find a 5 gal a little better but dont have space

#micro no-till FTW

champs!!!

definitely leading the way

You may not vote on any more threads today.

Click to expand...

Nice thread. Good job!!
I'll try to glue that article together and post it here.

Diversity of Soil Fauna and
Ecosystem Function
heres a good start

Excellent MM, that would be great! Thanks Guys!

XMO - I've mentioned this before, but I've picked up the neem topdressing from you, my garden usually exists withhin a nice balance with the good bugs and the bad bugs, neem topdressing is intricate in that balance.

I've incorporate that into my mulching -which has evolved to become all vermicompost based. 1" to 2" mulch of vermicompost mixed with nutrient accumulating plant material (comfrey, yarrow, nettles, kelp, alfalfa, cannabis) along with neem and often crab meal - the CaCO3 content to balance out population bursts of red soil mites (something I've read, not confirmed yet)...not bad to have, but they seem to monopolize the topsoil if ya let 'em and I'd rather have diversity....and the chitin content in there is always beneficial.

..The vermicompost mulchings is a good time to incorporate 'new' amendments you'd like to introduce to your soil - i.e. I didn't have 'x' when I mixed the soil or made the compost, so I'll add it to the mulch mix!