why i till as little as possible...

[flowerbug]

A spading fork should be my next purchase. I turned all this ground with a shovel and then DS did till a small area. I am going to have to go about as fast as I can and get the planting done so I can go back and rake and clean all the little clumps of grass or weeds that have been missed. I am going to put black plastic in a small strip around the edge of the whole garden and cover it with straw, hay, whatever I can find. It might help a little.

it will help, but also put an outer edge down into the ground as deep as your grass roots grow so they won't travel under the plastic. keeping the plastic covered will greatly extend how long it lasts before crumbling. the thicker the better even if it costs a few $ more per roll, any sun/UV protection built in will also be good. i dislike plastics of any kind for that reason alone (that sunlight degrades them), but we have some here that has lasted about 20yrs as it is well mulched. the problem is that when it does finally give up and you want to remove or replace it it can be in little pieces...

instead if you can find old carpeting along the road (the thinner commercial grade is much nicer than the shag or kinds that might rot easily) side to repurpose it makes for a very nice underpathway layer. weeds can grow through the cheaper kinds or the really worn out ones, so don't rely upon it for edging, but if you keep after a garden path or mulch it well you can get the weeds out often before they'll be able to get established or grown through the carpeting.

 

[flowerbug]

I have a dependence on spading forks. I use ones with a long handle.

This may be seen as "tilling" by some. I do NOT turn the soil with this tool, as one might do with a shovel. I do NOT lift the soil. The soil is loosened and since the tines are 11", I can loosen the soil much deeper than either my rototiller or the tractor tiller.

Used in combination with a 4-prong cultivator on a long handle, I usually find that even big weeds cannot put up any real fight. The weed in the loosened soil pops out. (Small weeds might be no more than disturbed by the process, covered by soil, and re-emerge after a day or two.)

Spading forks don't seem to be very commonly available. I was just in to Lowe's. These outfits usually have some forks with short D-handles. Lowe's didn't even have one of those!

Steve

i've broken one of those here way back years ago when i first was trying to help dig up potatoes. within five minutes... i know that they are useful and i've wanted one to use to poke those big holes down into the clay to help with water infiltration. instead i've been using plants to do that, alfalfa and daikon radishes.

 

[digitS']

I don't know how useful a spading fork would be in clay, @flowerbug . My experience is decades on various ratios of soil and gravel.

Gardening just south on Palouse wind-blown loess was pretty much a loss. Gardens as a young guy on the California coast and in nearby southern Oregon valleys had clay-like soil. I remember the term "adobe" being used but I didn't have a spading fork.

I think that the bad back was what prompted me to buy one initially. Once, I couldn't find a fork with a long handle and had to purchase a handle separately, replacing the short D handle. Didn't appreciate having to do that.

Steve