Stop Tilling Your Vegetable Garden!

Don't Till Garden

I get why you till. There’s something in all of us gardeners that leaps with joy when we see a freshly tilled bed. That rich, dark, blank canvas beckons us to come on over and work our vegetable magic. We imagine ourselves gently planting a seedling in the fluffy soil with no straining or digging necessary.

But, garden fantasies aside, tilling the garden every year is a terrible idea in practice. Not only are you destroying the soil structure, creating a hard pan, and bringing weed seeds up to the surface – you’re also creating more work for yourself.

Inevitably, within a few days of tilling there will be a torrential downpour that completely erodes and compacts your freshly tilled garden. It’ll look like a war zone of flattened, soil splattered plants with a depressing system of rivulets running everywhere.

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