Natural Gardening tools

I would like to make this post about the use of tools and which tools are excellent and work great with Natural Gardening methods in accordance with Masanobu Fukuoka techniques and other no-dig, no-till gardening.

I have been torn between using a hoe to remove the thick weeds rather than smothering them with cardboard/mulch. I am currently hoe-ing the top inch of roots/soil to remove a lot of the compacted roots that has accumulated over the past 20+ years of un-tamed growth.

I feel like to also plant a cover crop by scouring that 1 inch of dirt now and spreading the seeds in 3-4 months would be result in a better germination outcome. definitely considering using grass clippings as a mulch after spreading the seeds. If anyone has any advice on no-tilling 20+- years of un-touched soil I would LOVEE!! To hear some positive comments! thank you,
I am new to the forum!
Michelle

PS: Photo below shows the cardboard and mulching of the weeds, but the green/weeded areas (which is harder to see since this photo was used previously to focus on showing the cardboard/mulch) is what I want to hoe for making a cover-crop.

PSS: Has anyone gotten poison ivy in the winter? Its horrible!! Ivy grown around grapevine fence posts are going to kill my soul!!

This is a thread I can learn from as well, thanks!

I get poison ivy every winter! The stems and roots are much harder to notice.

If you fill out the part of your profile that says your location it will help us answer your questions. How long is your growing season, how much rainfall do you get, etc.

What are you hoping to grow? Vegetables? Perennials/annuals? Trees? Also, what materials do you have access to? Compost, manure, wood chips, large stones, punky logs, anything? Seeds, cuttings of friends' plants, young trees, money to buy plants and trees and seeds...

You might want to lay out the paths you think you want in the garden and trample them well. Then in the beds you can begin to amend the soil. You can plant cover crops now for future mulch and soil amendment or you can begin to plant your chosen plants now. Or both! It depends, as it always does in permaculture. You may end up deciding as I did that you want your paths to be different once you've laid then out and tried them for a while, but you have to start somewhere. I like paths to be wide enough to roll my double wheel wheel barrow through comfortably even when it's full of heavy wet soil.

As for tools, it depends what the goal is. For starting a new bed in dense plants I like to use a four tine garden fork to loosen the soil, shake out any perennial roots and compost them , then I dig a trench with a sharp shovel while soaking some punky logs and brush. I fill the trench with water, add the wet punky logs add the nice well aged manure I have, top with the soil I took out of the trench and plant seeds/plants in the soil.

The trench and wood part isn't necessary, but I find it really helps a bed through dry times.

Matu Collins wrote:

If you fill out the part of your profile that says your location it will help us answer your questions. How long is your growing season, how much rainfall do you get, etc.

I'm in north Georgia very near the TN and NC border!

Matu Collins wrote:

What are you hoping to grow? Vegetables? Perennials/annuals? Trees? Also, what materials do you have access to? Compost, manure, wood chips, large stones, punky logs, anything? Seeds, cuttings of friends' plants, young trees, money to buy plants and trees and seeds...

Mostly all vegetables. I have access to a lot of brush if you look in the photo we have enormous amounts of black berry canes that have taken over between the grape vine fences. And I have access to mushroom compost, wood chips, we have chickens, and large stone as well, logs too, mostly everything you can imagine that is in the woodland and field-ish land. I ordered lots of seeds from corn to greens to melon and ground cover crops like alfalfa and clover, and I'm hoping to not disturb the ground too much, but just plant a seed in well mulched , well weeded soil! I'm assuming this would be perfectly fine since nature would naturally drop seeds in un-till soil.

The narrow field In the photo was covered with TALLL grasses and about 10% blackberry canes and some sumac.

Thank you for the comment! Really provided good info on flexibility with materials and such! !

It really depends on what the weeds are, sometimes tilling destroys the weeds, often it brings new weed seeds to the surface and can even chop up the roots of weeds that can grow whole new plants from each chunk of chopped up weed. (canes like blackberry can be like this) It sounds like you have a lot of good resources! Chickens produce such lovely fertilizer, especially when mixed with deep litter.

I use a sickle to chop and drop, although I am experimenting with a japanese digging knife.

Large stones have been good for creating microclimates in my gardens, as well as making habitat for snakes and toads.

Keep us posted with your progress!

Thank you again!
So I want to post photos of my grass/weeds. It ranges in color from deep reds (not very compact, but loamy clay), to Dark browns. I was going to only scythe the grass until I saw that it was not taking out the most dense part of the grass, which is the very top part of the soil where it is mostly hard matter sprouting from roots. So now I'm using a hoe.

Its very interesting to know what was happening around these soils in the past 20+ years.

Lots of mole holes and a few old ant hills ive notice. But its mostly a lot of grass and weeds.

If anyone can identify these weeds it would be great! They seem very easy to chuck out with a hoe.

Also I was watching a video on someone who recently begun a sheet mulching permaculture garden and they had compost on their soil and cardboard and straw mulch on top. Curious if it matters if the cardboard and compost are switched, which is what I did. I layed cardboard first then compost and grass mulch on top. OPIONIONS PLEASE!