06/18/2026
preparing new beds, no-till style in the southern heat. it’s a little late to start a three sisters plot but it’s not an instant process starting from a patch of hardened clay under grass to soil soft enough to sow seeds into. wish i had more pictures of the process, but here’s what we did:
using 15x30’ silage tarps (visible in the background of the 3rd photo), i mowed down the area i wanted and laid out the tarps. they stayed there for five weeks, keeping sunlight and moisture off of the “weeds” beneath, and concentrating heat into the surface of the soil to (hopefully) invalidate the upper seed bed.
moving the tarp to a new spot and the real work begins! using a broadfork, we wiggled and wobbled down five new rows. using a hard rake, we pulled any loose soil out of the paths and hilled up each row into about 6-8” high beds. at just under 90 and sunny today, we sweated out most of our sins doing this, and traded off frequently, as if either job was milder than the other 😅
then, using organic compost, spread a humble amount down each row. using 1 of a 3-tine cultivator, we created a little furrow on top, blending some of the compost with the soil.
lunch break!
now that the beds were formed, i seeded two types of super-sweet corn and a row of sunflowers into the furrows, then covered with more compost, and watered everything in. once the corn is a few inches tall, i’ll seed pole beans and winter squash in the beds too, and after all of that is done with, this area will get a nice winter cover crop broadcasted by hand to really step up the process for a productive no-till cycle.
