At bottom, gardening is all about dirt — its care and feeding, its microbes and fungi, bacteria and earthworms. Science has gradually recognized that the soil’s vibrant but delicate food web must be ...

While the practice of no-till gardening is not new, information has traditionally centered on agricultural field crops. Now, home gardeners are catching on. “The concept of no-till has been around for ...

“Be ye not afraid of doing something your venerable ancestors did, for the benefits to your aching back may be many” (Author anonymous) We all know that gardening involves a lot of hard work: hoeing, ...

LAFAYETTE | Two-thirds of soybean fields in Tippecanoe County went untilled this year as a growing number of farmers forgo traditional soil preparation for no-till methods. Some decided decades ago to ...

With much of the West either “abnormally dry” or in drought conditions, no-till farming advocates say that method could be a way to better utilize the water that’s available. No-till farming — also ...

No-till gardening: Gardeners are divided over the need to till. Tilling — mixing in soil amendments and loosening the ground with a garden fork or a rototiller — is an established method for starting ...

To till or not to till? That is the question. Looking over fields prior to planting, a Shakespeare-in-overalls might also wonder: “Whether ‘tis nobler to till and suffer the slings and arrows of soil ...

Lisa Blazure, soil health coordinator with Stroud Water Research Center, points out night crawler tunnels in the clay soil beneath Penn England Farm’s cornfield topsoil. Night crawlers are essential ...

Not only does it kill everything in the soil it ruins the soil structure causing a shift in the aggregate that does not allow for proper water absorption and risks runoff, and limits the space for ...

HAMPTON, Iowa — Long-time Practical Farmers of Iowa members Doug Alert and Margaret Smith have looked at organic no-till planting into cover crops, a system pioneered by Jeff Moyer at the Rodale ...

Some of the best home gardening results come from techniques humans have embraced for centuries, sometimes millennia. TikToker Adrienne S (@essenceofadrienne) embraces the "no-till" gardening method ...