No-Till Gardening

Last weekend, I went to a lecture on soil.  The speaker was a proponent of "no-till gardening."  You can google the specific hows and whys of no-till gardening, but the basic idea is to add layer upon layer of organic material on top of the garden soil to provide nutrients to the soil and condition the soil from the top down so that tilling becomes unnecessary.

I patiently listened to the lecture, visualizing my garden plot in my mind, wondering if the no-till method could ever work for me.  During the question/answer period, I asked him what specific things he would do to begin the no-till method on a garden like mine, a 75' x 75' plot of concrete-like soil that currently hosts debris from last year's vegetable garden (unpicked greens, frost-bitten pea vines, sundry weeds, okra stalks, all of which is blanketed with a couple of inches of leaves).  He said to scatter "a couple of bags" of alfalfa pellets over the mess to speed up the decomposition process, and begin piling more organic matter (shredded newspapers, coffee grounds, wood chips, leaves, grass clippings, etc.) on top.  When I asked how I was going to get the seeds and plants into the hard-packed soil come springtime, he said to use a "dibble" to poke holes in the ground for the seeds. 

Though I am skeptical, I think I'm going to try it.  It's probably going to be more work than running the tiller, but it may help solve the blight problem that I battle every year.