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The No-Till Organic Vegetable Farm: How to Start and Run a Profitable Market Garden That Builds Health in Soil, Crops, and Communities
No-till — a method of growing crops and providing pasture without disturbing the soil — has become an important alternative to standard farming practices. In this comprehensive guide to successful no-till vegetable farming for aspiring and beginning farmers, author Daniel Mays, owner and manager of an organic no-till farm in Maine, outlines the environmental, social, and economic benefits of this system. The methods described are designed for implementation at the human scale, relying primarily on human power, with minimal use of machinery. The book presents streamlined planning and record-keeping tools as well as marketing strategies, and outlines community engagement programs like CSA, food justice initiatives, and on-farm education.
238 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 13, 2020
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340 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
June 23, 2020
This is an excellent, detailed guide to starting an organic, no-till vegetable farm. It is not geared towards home gardeners, though we can get some basic information and advice from it. The author started a very successful organic CSA and farm market for a fairly low start-up cost in Maine, and he goes into great detail for how his farm makes it work. It is filled with pictures, charts, planting details and much more, right down to how he prices and how they handle labor. He does go into multiple ways of doing things like irrigation but he provides the most detail on the ways that his farm does it, since that's what he has the most experience (and photos) to teach.
No-till farming is extremely helpful for the environment and also easier for the farmers. It involves the use of mulches and cover crops to plant on top of the soil (which is constantly growing healthier instead of just being stripped of nutrients). Weeds are greatly reduced because you aren't turning up the soil and they are smothered by the organic matter on top of the soil, and it brings pollinators and supports wildlife. It's what I do in my own gardens, though I do it in a very lazy way.
This is a great book for those who'd like to set up a no-till organic farm, with a host of tools to help you determine the best path.
I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.
No-till farming is extremely helpful for the environment and also easier for the farmers. It involves the use of mulches and cover crops to plant on top of the soil (which is constantly growing healthier instead of just being stripped of nutrients). Weeds are greatly reduced because you aren't turning up the soil and they are smothered by the organic matter on top of the soil, and it brings pollinators and supports wildlife. It's what I do in my own gardens, though I do it in a very lazy way.
This is a great book for those who'd like to set up a no-till organic farm, with a host of tools to help you determine the best path.
I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.
July 7, 2020
This book is a little off-topic from what I usually read (or a lot…). However, this is a subject that I am genuinely passionate about. I do believe that there are big problems with our environment and I think that one of the solutions is linked to agriculture and the practices outlined in this book. Besides this, I love gardening and I thought this book would offer me some helpful tips.
This book is perfect for those wishing to start a larger scale garden, but it can also be helpful for those who garden as a hobby. Mays gets right down to the science of things and also offers practical advice and methods. He goes into the specifics of soil health and ups of no-till vs. the downs of tillage. Further, he emphasizes biodiversity. Each plant offers something special to the ecosystem and when it is paired with other species that complement it, together they will flourish. Another thing that Mays mentioned was finances. Although I did not find this personally helpful, I think it could be invaluable to those who are interested in farming. Mays didn’t gloss over this part but rather was completely honest about his startup costs and about the challenges that come with beginning a new farm.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I definitely recommend it, even if you’re just a hobby gardener. It is full of pearls of wisdom that may open your eyes to some astonishing truths.
This book is perfect for those wishing to start a larger scale garden, but it can also be helpful for those who garden as a hobby. Mays gets right down to the science of things and also offers practical advice and methods. He goes into the specifics of soil health and ups of no-till vs. the downs of tillage. Further, he emphasizes biodiversity. Each plant offers something special to the ecosystem and when it is paired with other species that complement it, together they will flourish. Another thing that Mays mentioned was finances. Although I did not find this personally helpful, I think it could be invaluable to those who are interested in farming. Mays didn’t gloss over this part but rather was completely honest about his startup costs and about the challenges that come with beginning a new farm.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I definitely recommend it, even if you’re just a hobby gardener. It is full of pearls of wisdom that may open your eyes to some astonishing truths.
February 7, 2021
This book was recommended by Josh Sattin, a well-known proponent of no-till farming. Even though the book is aimed at professional farmers, there is lots of incredibly valuable information for the home gardener or hobby farmer. Mays shares all the secrets of his farm’s success and is not shy about sharing his philosophies regarding soil, agriculture, human relationships, and societal responsibilities. I admire his approach very much. I enjoyed this read immensely and will undoubtedly use it as a reference in years to come.
December 3, 2023
This is by far the most thorough and clear information I have found thus far on no-till gardening methods. Excellent book.
May 30, 2020
The No-Till Organic Vegetable Farm summarizes the start of the Frith Farm in Maine from the beginning of starting a farm to the current success the farm experiences.
This books does a great job at going over every step that is needed to start a farm, starting with buying land to preparing the land to marketing to the public. There is a wealth of knowledge for people who are interested in starting their own farm and Mays does a good job with giving a multitude of options on how to build and grow the business to get the best profit, and sometimes the growth that is needed is a good group of employees and not a good business strategy.
I was excited to start reading this book because it was about a different farming method on a farm in a northern climate. I was a little disappointed once I started reading since this isn't a book on how to start a farm using no-till methods. This is a book on how Daniel Mays started his farm using the no-till method. This book takes the approach of reciting what worked for one farmer rather than going over a multitude of different methods to no-till. This book actually came off as a big advertisement for the farm itself rather than for the farming methods they use. For example, in a section on watering methods, sprinklers and drip irrigation are mentioned. Since Frith Farm uses drip irrigation, there was a step-by-step guide on the tools needed to build drip irrigation and the basic method of how to build it. There was no description for sprinklers. While this isn't necessarily a drawback, it would have been nice to have known that going into the book.
I do think that people who read this book should take some claims with a grain of salt since this book is very biased. The first 40 or 50 pages is setting up the importance of no-till in today's agricultural climate. These beginning pages talk about how bad tilling is for farmland and how amazing no-till is. Mays goes so far as to say compare tilling with landslides, which is very disingenuous to claim since landslides can displace a large amount of rock and soil, rip out full grown trees, and change the distribution of water through river systems within a blink of an eye. I left that introductory section feeling dissatisfied with how the book was set up and would have much preferred a section where the two methods were fairly compared to show why people till their garden in the first place. I think I left the book with more questions about no-till gardening than I came in with because there was no proper introduction to tell the reader what no-till actually is or what the goals of the method are. I wish there was a section where the author answered frequent no-till questions or show a cost/benefit analysis of till vs no-till.
Ultimately, I think this book is good for people who want an introduction to starting a no-till farm as a business, but this book lacks a lot of information that would have to be found elsewhere and some of this information is a little biased.
3/5
This books does a great job at going over every step that is needed to start a farm, starting with buying land to preparing the land to marketing to the public. There is a wealth of knowledge for people who are interested in starting their own farm and Mays does a good job with giving a multitude of options on how to build and grow the business to get the best profit, and sometimes the growth that is needed is a good group of employees and not a good business strategy.
I was excited to start reading this book because it was about a different farming method on a farm in a northern climate. I was a little disappointed once I started reading since this isn't a book on how to start a farm using no-till methods. This is a book on how Daniel Mays started his farm using the no-till method. This book takes the approach of reciting what worked for one farmer rather than going over a multitude of different methods to no-till. This book actually came off as a big advertisement for the farm itself rather than for the farming methods they use. For example, in a section on watering methods, sprinklers and drip irrigation are mentioned. Since Frith Farm uses drip irrigation, there was a step-by-step guide on the tools needed to build drip irrigation and the basic method of how to build it. There was no description for sprinklers. While this isn't necessarily a drawback, it would have been nice to have known that going into the book.
I do think that people who read this book should take some claims with a grain of salt since this book is very biased. The first 40 or 50 pages is setting up the importance of no-till in today's agricultural climate. These beginning pages talk about how bad tilling is for farmland and how amazing no-till is. Mays goes so far as to say compare tilling with landslides, which is very disingenuous to claim since landslides can displace a large amount of rock and soil, rip out full grown trees, and change the distribution of water through river systems within a blink of an eye. I left that introductory section feeling dissatisfied with how the book was set up and would have much preferred a section where the two methods were fairly compared to show why people till their garden in the first place. I think I left the book with more questions about no-till gardening than I came in with because there was no proper introduction to tell the reader what no-till actually is or what the goals of the method are. I wish there was a section where the author answered frequent no-till questions or show a cost/benefit analysis of till vs no-till.
Ultimately, I think this book is good for people who want an introduction to starting a no-till farm as a business, but this book lacks a lot of information that would have to be found elsewhere and some of this information is a little biased.
3/5
July 2, 2021
Really easy read and lots of good tips for starting a farming business with no big equipment to invest in! I really liked the pages on washing infrastructure since this is a big issue for me at just home scale production.
February 20, 2022
Super nicely laid out. . . beautiful pictures. . . great information! An easy and enjoyable book that is both a perfect introduction to no-till vegetable farming and a book you could use as a nearly complete blueprint for starting your own no-till CSA.
July 3, 2022
Great read.
So much information packed into this book. It really went in depth on so many topics. I really appreciated the time the author took to go into great detail.
So much information packed into this book. It really went in depth on so many topics. I really appreciated the time the author took to go into great detail.
December 29, 2025
The No-Till Organic Vegetable Farm is a great help to those moving towards more No-Till. This book is full of practical details, and efficient and effective no-till practices, such as how to manage large tarps. This is also a beautiful book. The photos are crisp and inspiring, the drawings clear and informative, the charts well organized and easy to use. The aerial photo shows a poster-farm! Frith Farm is a small-acreage vegetable farm using raised beds, in the style of Jean-Martin Fortier, Ben Hartman, Curtis Stone and others. “No-till human-scale farming is about so much more than avoiding tillage.” Here we can learn about healthy soil, high productivity, fewer weeds, lower costs and a more natural way of growing food.
We have had several new books on no-till in the past year or so. I have reviewed Bryan O’Hara’s No-Till Intensive Vegetable Culture, and Andrew Mefferd’s Organic No-Till Farming Revolution: High-Production Methods for Small-Scale Farmers. Any reduction in tillage is a good step: you don't have to commit to permanent no-till everywhere. I’m glad we’ve moved on from the early no-till days when it was considered that all tilling was always bad, but practical advice was lacking.
The book includes some hard-to-find topics, such as acquiring capital, designing and setting out drainage and irrigation systems for both drip and sprinklers, and integrating livestock in a vegetable farm. Minor grumble: the index seems a little light. Fortunately, the book, like Frith Farm, is well-organized, and topics are easy to find.
Daniel started Frith Farm in Scarborough, Maine, in 2010, in his mid-twenties, borrowing $180,000 at 3.8% interest and buying a property with five open acres and a crumbling house and barn. He had “eighteen years of expensive education and an embarrassing lack of hard skills.” His first year, he provided for a 40-member CSA from less than one acre. The farm now supplies a 150-member CSA, four natural food stores, a farmers’ market and a farm stand. They sell about $300,000 worth of food, using 2.5 acres in cultivation and 2.5 acres of pasture. Almost all of the work is done by hand, by a crew working a 45-hour-week for 8 months, then having four months off.
Daniel recommends consistent bed dimensions, even if compromising the land geometry. He has 16 plots of 12 beds, each 100ft long, on 5ft centers. This bed-width increases the amount of growing space compared to 30ins beds. He’s over 6ft tall, so jumping over a bed is no problem. I don’t know about the rest of the crew. There are drivable surfaces between the plots and wood chip paths between beds. Without tilling, you minimize erosion, and the conventional wisdom of keeping rows across the slope, not up and down it, isn’t so vital.
Daniel recommends soil testing and an initial supply of inputs to jump-start your soil health and your income. You’ll probably be buying compost your first year: 54 cubic yards ($25-$50/cubic yard) will provide 3ins cover on 6,000 sq ft (one Frith Farm plot). Once biological soil health is established, few imported soil amendments will be needed. You will need lots of mulch every year, like leaves, straw, woodchips. Frith Farm uses 130 cubic yards of leaves per acre each year.
To go from a grass field to a set of ready-to-plant beds, some no-till growers do one initial tilling and maybe subsoiling (rent or borrow the equipment). Daniel says “Don’t let purism keep you from actually breaking ground – it is better to start farming imperfectly than never to start at all!” Frith Farm tills with a Berta rotary plow on their BCS walking tractor, one 10ins strip at a time.
A second method of killing grasses and weeds is to mow closely and smother the plants with tarps. This takes 3-52 weeks, depending on the weather and plant species. Use a 5-6 mil thick black and white silage trap, black side up. Weight and wait! Daniel’s ingenious “tarp kit” consists of a pallet with enough cinder blocks to hold down a 24x100 ft tarp, which is folded and set on top of the blocks, out of the way of tractor forks. The kit is moved to the next site, and returned to the pallet when its work is done. When you and the dead plants are ready, remove the tarp, spread compost thickly and plant. If the soil is compacted, use a broadfork before spreading compost. Tarping is also a valuable method for flipping beds between one crop and the next.
A third method of establishing new beds is to mow, amend the soil, cover the whole area with thick mulch, topped with compost and plant into that. To succeed, use an initial layer that lets no light through. This method (called “lasagna gardening”) involves lots of work and mulch.
Seedling production is major at Frith Farm, as transplanting fits well with no-till. They recommend 500 sq ft of greenhouse space per acre of field production. They have some very practical “benches” which are sawhorses topped by custom pallets holding 12 standard 1020 flats. Two people can carry a full pallet, saving lots of time transferring one flat at a time.
Frith Farm uses soil blocks, mixing in a cement mixer. They use four sizes of standup blockers, but not the ¾” miniblocks, which dry out too fast. They have tried the paperpot planter and found it unsuccessful when planting into stubble, worth considering before spending $3000.
One key to successful transplanting is appreciating the sublime experience of setting a plant in the ground with your own hands. Another is to have enough hands to get the job done! A third is watering soon after planting. They use a rolling Infinite Dibbler, a homemade oil-drum dibbler and a special 6-plant garlic dibbler. For direct seeding, Daniel likes the humble Earthway seeder, even using it for cover crop seeds (the beet plate for the grasses). The Earthway is rugged, affordable, and works well in no-till beds.
Irrigation is another aspect of vegetable production that Daniel has well figured out. Here is a good clear explanation about well depth, flow, recharge rates, costs, water quality and all the facts you never needed to know if you use city water. The book includes a very clear pipe layout superimposed on the bed plan.
Daniel will help you decide between drip irrigation and sprinklers (or some of each). He likes Senninger Xcel Wobblers with a 1gpm flow each, covering 6 beds with a line of 4 sprinklers. Here’s another instance where the book pays for itself with just one step-by-step calculation! Daniel uses driptape only for long-season crops that are prone to foliar diseases, otherwise, he likes the simplicity of sprinklers.
Daniel avoids rowcover unless a crop has two reasons simultaneously. Pests and diseases indicate underlying issues with soil health, crop rotation, biodiversity. Work to rebalance and make improvements. Work towards being a No-Spray farm as well as No-Till.
The chapter on weeds opens with the saying “We till because we have weeds because we till . . .!” Weeds are an ecological mechanism for keeping the soil covered and full of roots. The “simple” solution of never letting weeds seed is less work in the long run, more work at first. It relies on working only the amount of land you have enough skilled hands to deal with. Two skilled fulltime workers per acre.
“Flipping the bed” after a crop may be simple if it was a root crop with few weeds. If the crop leaves a lot of bulky residues, mowing and tarping can restore the soil to a usable state in 5-10 days in warm weather. You may need to dig out perennial weeds, or add soil amendments, and another 7 barrows of compost per 100ft bed (2.5 cu yards/1000 sq ft), but soon you are good to go.
Solarization with clear plastic during warm sunny weather is another way to kill weeds. If the edges of the plastic are buried, weed seeds and pathogenic fungi are also killed. If you want to kill weeds or crop residues without all the other life forms in the top layers of soil, using black plastic tarps is a safer way to go. The book has a graph of days of tarping versus temperature. More than 25 days at an ambient temperature of 50F, about 9 at 65F, and only one day above 85F.
No-till cover crop planning takes care. Plants die in three ways: they finish their lifecycle, they winterkill or they are starved of light or water. In no-till farming, the tools are the mower, winter, and tarping, or some combination of these. Photos show beds from seeding the cover crop in September to healthy summer brassicas with no weeds in sight. A spring cover crop sequence shows peas and oats sown in April, tarped in June, direct seeded in storage radish in summer. Shorter sections on summer and fall cover crops follow.
Daniel has a chapter on integrating livestock with vegetable farming to increase diversity and net productivity of the farm. The symbiosis between soil, plants, animals can lead to creation of more soil, and increased fertility. Chickens are easy to keep, although if you want poultry that don’t scratch up the soil, get turkeys. Sheep are easier to fence than goats, and are smaller than cattle. Be wary of pigs. They can act like obsessed tillers and do lots of damage.
The chapter on harvest sets out efficient user-friendly methods. For a pleasant wash-pack space, you need a roof, a floor with good drainage (wood chips), mesh or slatted tables; hoses, sprayers, water tanks; a salad spinner, a barrel root washer; scales; flip-lid storage totes; and walk-in coolers using CoolBot technology. Think before buying a delivery truck – $1,500 worth of produce will fit in the back of a Prius! Almost no fuel costs!
The section on their hiring process really grabbed me. “We are not just hiring a pair of hands to meet our labor needs; we are inviting someone into our community, our family, and our home.” Spell out and keep to high standards, provide a social experience, show care and camaraderie, train adequately, and compensate fairly. Interview carefully, check references, have a working interview (paid) if you can; write out your job offer. Provide guidelines for pace and efficiency. Each person should be able to harvest, wash and pack about $80 worth of produce per hour.
Daniel describes his recordkeeping, where the plan becomes the record. Define your farm’s purpose, plan the season, plan the week. Look for opportunities to record aggregate data, such as recording what you take to market and what you bring back, rather than each individual sale. At the end of the season, add up sales for each crop and divide by the number of beds to calculate the revenue per bed, and the yield of that crop. Make one spreadsheet of notes for next year. You can sort it by crop or by month, or by plot number.
Their Plan for the Week is an online spreadsheet accessible to all via a laptop. Each week has a tab, each day has a column, each plot has a row with tasks, times and sometimes a name. Once a week, the crew walks the farm and makes the list for each day, including tasks carried over. Nothing is erased (it becomes a record!) When someone completes a task, they use a strike-through font and add notes. At the end of each day, remaining tasks are reassigned later in the week. This spreadsheet becomes the farm journal, and is easily searchable.
Frith Farm has a four-year rotation starting with tarping followed by transplanted cucurbits or nightshades and a winter-killed cover crop. The second year involves brassicas followed by root crops, with mulch over-winter. The third year is devoted to repetitions of salad crops, and a winterkilled cover crop. The fourth year is for alliums and an over-wintering cover crop. Consider the crop spacing you need for the new crop, and the spacing of the stubble from the previous crop. You often don’t need a clear bed, just clear rows where you intend to plant.
During the winter they create their attractive color-coded crop rotation plan where each plot has 12 rows (for the beds), with “under-rows” (for under-sowing) and 12 columns (for the months). From that rotation plan, they create a Greenhouse Plan and a Seed Order.
Next are Harvest Plans, starting with walking the fields, taking notes, balancing what is mature with what is needed. They make a list of crops, quantities, and picking order. Each harvest day has a tab on the online spreadsheet, with a row for each crop. The sheet for that day is posted and pickers use a pen to indicate who is picking what, when it’s done. People work down the list in order, taking the crops to the wash-pack station. That crew cleans the produce and stores it in a cooler, labeled with its destination.
There is a table of revenue data for 16 top-earning vegetables. (The other 45 crops are not shown.) For revenue per bed, ginger wins at $2442, but it is in place all year (and I think it is in high tunnels). Taking bed-months into account, ginger still wins, but arugula is chasing it. Radishes don’t so well in revenue per bed-season, nor do onions and beets. Frith Farm does not record labor per crop. CSA growers need to provide variety, not just the “most profitable” crops.
Success includes sustainability, considering the people and the planet as well as the profit. Profit can be understood as ability to reinvest. Exactly where the profits end up is important, and Daniel includes his 2018 farm revenue and where it went. Of the total $314,000, $120,000 went to the crew (an investment in the local community that makes the farm productive); $11,000 to family loan payments. $92,000 went back to the land (infrastructure, seeds and local biomass). $91,000 left the area, for taxes, insurance, fees, tools and equipment, and non-local inputs including the energy bill.
Frith Farm works to increase food access to people who cannot afford the usual prices of healthy food. They accept SNAP and WIC, donations, and offer gleaning groups the chance to help food pantries. They have sliding scale pricing, barter, work trades, and ride shares, all of which they advertise widely.
On the ecological front, their no-till practices are working daily to increase carbon sequestration by increasing organic matter (less than 4% in 2011, over 10% in 2019). A one per cent increase in OM in the top 10” of an acre of soil removes about 8.5 tons of carbon from the atmosphere.
We have had several new books on no-till in the past year or so. I have reviewed Bryan O’Hara’s No-Till Intensive Vegetable Culture, and Andrew Mefferd’s Organic No-Till Farming Revolution: High-Production Methods for Small-Scale Farmers. Any reduction in tillage is a good step: you don't have to commit to permanent no-till everywhere. I’m glad we’ve moved on from the early no-till days when it was considered that all tilling was always bad, but practical advice was lacking.
The book includes some hard-to-find topics, such as acquiring capital, designing and setting out drainage and irrigation systems for both drip and sprinklers, and integrating livestock in a vegetable farm. Minor grumble: the index seems a little light. Fortunately, the book, like Frith Farm, is well-organized, and topics are easy to find.
Daniel started Frith Farm in Scarborough, Maine, in 2010, in his mid-twenties, borrowing $180,000 at 3.8% interest and buying a property with five open acres and a crumbling house and barn. He had “eighteen years of expensive education and an embarrassing lack of hard skills.” His first year, he provided for a 40-member CSA from less than one acre. The farm now supplies a 150-member CSA, four natural food stores, a farmers’ market and a farm stand. They sell about $300,000 worth of food, using 2.5 acres in cultivation and 2.5 acres of pasture. Almost all of the work is done by hand, by a crew working a 45-hour-week for 8 months, then having four months off.
Daniel recommends consistent bed dimensions, even if compromising the land geometry. He has 16 plots of 12 beds, each 100ft long, on 5ft centers. This bed-width increases the amount of growing space compared to 30ins beds. He’s over 6ft tall, so jumping over a bed is no problem. I don’t know about the rest of the crew. There are drivable surfaces between the plots and wood chip paths between beds. Without tilling, you minimize erosion, and the conventional wisdom of keeping rows across the slope, not up and down it, isn’t so vital.
Daniel recommends soil testing and an initial supply of inputs to jump-start your soil health and your income. You’ll probably be buying compost your first year: 54 cubic yards ($25-$50/cubic yard) will provide 3ins cover on 6,000 sq ft (one Frith Farm plot). Once biological soil health is established, few imported soil amendments will be needed. You will need lots of mulch every year, like leaves, straw, woodchips. Frith Farm uses 130 cubic yards of leaves per acre each year.
To go from a grass field to a set of ready-to-plant beds, some no-till growers do one initial tilling and maybe subsoiling (rent or borrow the equipment). Daniel says “Don’t let purism keep you from actually breaking ground – it is better to start farming imperfectly than never to start at all!” Frith Farm tills with a Berta rotary plow on their BCS walking tractor, one 10ins strip at a time.
A second method of killing grasses and weeds is to mow closely and smother the plants with tarps. This takes 3-52 weeks, depending on the weather and plant species. Use a 5-6 mil thick black and white silage trap, black side up. Weight and wait! Daniel’s ingenious “tarp kit” consists of a pallet with enough cinder blocks to hold down a 24x100 ft tarp, which is folded and set on top of the blocks, out of the way of tractor forks. The kit is moved to the next site, and returned to the pallet when its work is done. When you and the dead plants are ready, remove the tarp, spread compost thickly and plant. If the soil is compacted, use a broadfork before spreading compost. Tarping is also a valuable method for flipping beds between one crop and the next.
A third method of establishing new beds is to mow, amend the soil, cover the whole area with thick mulch, topped with compost and plant into that. To succeed, use an initial layer that lets no light through. This method (called “lasagna gardening”) involves lots of work and mulch.
Seedling production is major at Frith Farm, as transplanting fits well with no-till. They recommend 500 sq ft of greenhouse space per acre of field production. They have some very practical “benches” which are sawhorses topped by custom pallets holding 12 standard 1020 flats. Two people can carry a full pallet, saving lots of time transferring one flat at a time.
Frith Farm uses soil blocks, mixing in a cement mixer. They use four sizes of standup blockers, but not the ¾” miniblocks, which dry out too fast. They have tried the paperpot planter and found it unsuccessful when planting into stubble, worth considering before spending $3000.
One key to successful transplanting is appreciating the sublime experience of setting a plant in the ground with your own hands. Another is to have enough hands to get the job done! A third is watering soon after planting. They use a rolling Infinite Dibbler, a homemade oil-drum dibbler and a special 6-plant garlic dibbler. For direct seeding, Daniel likes the humble Earthway seeder, even using it for cover crop seeds (the beet plate for the grasses). The Earthway is rugged, affordable, and works well in no-till beds.
Irrigation is another aspect of vegetable production that Daniel has well figured out. Here is a good clear explanation about well depth, flow, recharge rates, costs, water quality and all the facts you never needed to know if you use city water. The book includes a very clear pipe layout superimposed on the bed plan.
Daniel will help you decide between drip irrigation and sprinklers (or some of each). He likes Senninger Xcel Wobblers with a 1gpm flow each, covering 6 beds with a line of 4 sprinklers. Here’s another instance where the book pays for itself with just one step-by-step calculation! Daniel uses driptape only for long-season crops that are prone to foliar diseases, otherwise, he likes the simplicity of sprinklers.
Daniel avoids rowcover unless a crop has two reasons simultaneously. Pests and diseases indicate underlying issues with soil health, crop rotation, biodiversity. Work to rebalance and make improvements. Work towards being a No-Spray farm as well as No-Till.
The chapter on weeds opens with the saying “We till because we have weeds because we till . . .!” Weeds are an ecological mechanism for keeping the soil covered and full of roots. The “simple” solution of never letting weeds seed is less work in the long run, more work at first. It relies on working only the amount of land you have enough skilled hands to deal with. Two skilled fulltime workers per acre.
“Flipping the bed” after a crop may be simple if it was a root crop with few weeds. If the crop leaves a lot of bulky residues, mowing and tarping can restore the soil to a usable state in 5-10 days in warm weather. You may need to dig out perennial weeds, or add soil amendments, and another 7 barrows of compost per 100ft bed (2.5 cu yards/1000 sq ft), but soon you are good to go.
Solarization with clear plastic during warm sunny weather is another way to kill weeds. If the edges of the plastic are buried, weed seeds and pathogenic fungi are also killed. If you want to kill weeds or crop residues without all the other life forms in the top layers of soil, using black plastic tarps is a safer way to go. The book has a graph of days of tarping versus temperature. More than 25 days at an ambient temperature of 50F, about 9 at 65F, and only one day above 85F.
No-till cover crop planning takes care. Plants die in three ways: they finish their lifecycle, they winterkill or they are starved of light or water. In no-till farming, the tools are the mower, winter, and tarping, or some combination of these. Photos show beds from seeding the cover crop in September to healthy summer brassicas with no weeds in sight. A spring cover crop sequence shows peas and oats sown in April, tarped in June, direct seeded in storage radish in summer. Shorter sections on summer and fall cover crops follow.
Daniel has a chapter on integrating livestock with vegetable farming to increase diversity and net productivity of the farm. The symbiosis between soil, plants, animals can lead to creation of more soil, and increased fertility. Chickens are easy to keep, although if you want poultry that don’t scratch up the soil, get turkeys. Sheep are easier to fence than goats, and are smaller than cattle. Be wary of pigs. They can act like obsessed tillers and do lots of damage.
The chapter on harvest sets out efficient user-friendly methods. For a pleasant wash-pack space, you need a roof, a floor with good drainage (wood chips), mesh or slatted tables; hoses, sprayers, water tanks; a salad spinner, a barrel root washer; scales; flip-lid storage totes; and walk-in coolers using CoolBot technology. Think before buying a delivery truck – $1,500 worth of produce will fit in the back of a Prius! Almost no fuel costs!
The section on their hiring process really grabbed me. “We are not just hiring a pair of hands to meet our labor needs; we are inviting someone into our community, our family, and our home.” Spell out and keep to high standards, provide a social experience, show care and camaraderie, train adequately, and compensate fairly. Interview carefully, check references, have a working interview (paid) if you can; write out your job offer. Provide guidelines for pace and efficiency. Each person should be able to harvest, wash and pack about $80 worth of produce per hour.
Daniel describes his recordkeeping, where the plan becomes the record. Define your farm’s purpose, plan the season, plan the week. Look for opportunities to record aggregate data, such as recording what you take to market and what you bring back, rather than each individual sale. At the end of the season, add up sales for each crop and divide by the number of beds to calculate the revenue per bed, and the yield of that crop. Make one spreadsheet of notes for next year. You can sort it by crop or by month, or by plot number.
Their Plan for the Week is an online spreadsheet accessible to all via a laptop. Each week has a tab, each day has a column, each plot has a row with tasks, times and sometimes a name. Once a week, the crew walks the farm and makes the list for each day, including tasks carried over. Nothing is erased (it becomes a record!) When someone completes a task, they use a strike-through font and add notes. At the end of each day, remaining tasks are reassigned later in the week. This spreadsheet becomes the farm journal, and is easily searchable.
Frith Farm has a four-year rotation starting with tarping followed by transplanted cucurbits or nightshades and a winter-killed cover crop. The second year involves brassicas followed by root crops, with mulch over-winter. The third year is devoted to repetitions of salad crops, and a winterkilled cover crop. The fourth year is for alliums and an over-wintering cover crop. Consider the crop spacing you need for the new crop, and the spacing of the stubble from the previous crop. You often don’t need a clear bed, just clear rows where you intend to plant.
During the winter they create their attractive color-coded crop rotation plan where each plot has 12 rows (for the beds), with “under-rows” (for under-sowing) and 12 columns (for the months). From that rotation plan, they create a Greenhouse Plan and a Seed Order.
Next are Harvest Plans, starting with walking the fields, taking notes, balancing what is mature with what is needed. They make a list of crops, quantities, and picking order. Each harvest day has a tab on the online spreadsheet, with a row for each crop. The sheet for that day is posted and pickers use a pen to indicate who is picking what, when it’s done. People work down the list in order, taking the crops to the wash-pack station. That crew cleans the produce and stores it in a cooler, labeled with its destination.
There is a table of revenue data for 16 top-earning vegetables. (The other 45 crops are not shown.) For revenue per bed, ginger wins at $2442, but it is in place all year (and I think it is in high tunnels). Taking bed-months into account, ginger still wins, but arugula is chasing it. Radishes don’t so well in revenue per bed-season, nor do onions and beets. Frith Farm does not record labor per crop. CSA growers need to provide variety, not just the “most profitable” crops.
Success includes sustainability, considering the people and the planet as well as the profit. Profit can be understood as ability to reinvest. Exactly where the profits end up is important, and Daniel includes his 2018 farm revenue and where it went. Of the total $314,000, $120,000 went to the crew (an investment in the local community that makes the farm productive); $11,000 to family loan payments. $92,000 went back to the land (infrastructure, seeds and local biomass). $91,000 left the area, for taxes, insurance, fees, tools and equipment, and non-local inputs including the energy bill.
Frith Farm works to increase food access to people who cannot afford the usual prices of healthy food. They accept SNAP and WIC, donations, and offer gleaning groups the chance to help food pantries. They have sliding scale pricing, barter, work trades, and ride shares, all of which they advertise widely.
On the ecological front, their no-till practices are working daily to increase carbon sequestration by increasing organic matter (less than 4% in 2011, over 10% in 2019). A one per cent increase in OM in the top 10” of an acre of soil removes about 8.5 tons of carbon from the atmosphere.
December 7, 2020
"The No-Till Organic Vegetable Farm" details how to start and run a successful market garden using organic and no-till methods. The focus of the book was more on teaching a beginner the details needed to successfully buy a farm and start a market garden. However, the author also included details about how to do this using an organic, no-till method. He covered topics like:
What to look for when buying land, things to think about when designing the farm layout, how to break ground (with and without tilling) and start your vegetable beds,
things to consider when deciding what to plant and where to plant it, making a greenhouse and equipping it, transplanting and direct seeding, ways to irrigate and how to maintain a system, how to deal with weeds including mulching and manual weeding, using compost as mulch, using cover crops and what to do when it's time to plant, how to break up compaction and avoid it to begin with, multi-cropping, planting beneficial plants elsewhere on the farm, using livestock with the beds, fertilization, dealing with pests and disease, how to harvest efficiently and keep crops clean and fresh, the different ways you can sell your produce, how to hire laborers, record keeping, and more.
He gave specific examples of how they do these various things on his farm and included many full-color photographs of what this looks like. This is a very informative book and is probably most helpful to those who live in a more northern climate like he does (in Maine). I felt like he was not aware of some issues that come up in the South where the winters are mild. Since I'm already an organic farmer and was mostly interested in the no-till method, I was a little disappointed that he did not cover these issues pertinent to my region. However, I did learn quite a lot of new information about no-till and how it works, and I plan to use some of this information next year in my hobby garden.
I received an ebook review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.
What to look for when buying land, things to think about when designing the farm layout, how to break ground (with and without tilling) and start your vegetable beds,
things to consider when deciding what to plant and where to plant it, making a greenhouse and equipping it, transplanting and direct seeding, ways to irrigate and how to maintain a system, how to deal with weeds including mulching and manual weeding, using compost as mulch, using cover crops and what to do when it's time to plant, how to break up compaction and avoid it to begin with, multi-cropping, planting beneficial plants elsewhere on the farm, using livestock with the beds, fertilization, dealing with pests and disease, how to harvest efficiently and keep crops clean and fresh, the different ways you can sell your produce, how to hire laborers, record keeping, and more.
He gave specific examples of how they do these various things on his farm and included many full-color photographs of what this looks like. This is a very informative book and is probably most helpful to those who live in a more northern climate like he does (in Maine). I felt like he was not aware of some issues that come up in the South where the winters are mild. Since I'm already an organic farmer and was mostly interested in the no-till method, I was a little disappointed that he did not cover these issues pertinent to my region. However, I did learn quite a lot of new information about no-till and how it works, and I plan to use some of this information next year in my hobby garden.
I received an ebook review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.
September 15, 2020
Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.
The No-Till Organic Vegetable Farm is a comprehensive and well written guide to creating, troubleshooting, and running a market garden farm without tilling/digging (which we are beginning to find out is actually harmful in most situations). Due out 10th Nov 2020 from Storey Publishing, it's 256 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats.
Although ostensibly aimed at the professional mid-scale farmer, there are a wealth of takeaways for the home hobbyist gardener with logical accessible implementable advice for starting up, making plans, doing the work, planting, irrigation systems, weeding, soil building and soil care, harvesting, marketing produce, labor, recordkeeping, and measuring success. The author provides the benefit of his near-decade of experience performing and succeeding at the necessary tasks to steward the earth he farms, produce quality food, and strengthen local economies and provide a valuable sustainable service to the local community. The book also includes a glossary, links and resource lists for further reading, and a cross referenced index.
Five stars. Lots and lots (and lots) of inspiration. Aesthetically an enjoyable read with a truly astounding amount of meticulous research and annotation. This would make a superlative selection for garden groups, community gardening, allotment/collective libraries, smallholders, and garden lovers.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
The No-Till Organic Vegetable Farm is a comprehensive and well written guide to creating, troubleshooting, and running a market garden farm without tilling/digging (which we are beginning to find out is actually harmful in most situations). Due out 10th Nov 2020 from Storey Publishing, it's 256 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats.
Although ostensibly aimed at the professional mid-scale farmer, there are a wealth of takeaways for the home hobbyist gardener with logical accessible implementable advice for starting up, making plans, doing the work, planting, irrigation systems, weeding, soil building and soil care, harvesting, marketing produce, labor, recordkeeping, and measuring success. The author provides the benefit of his near-decade of experience performing and succeeding at the necessary tasks to steward the earth he farms, produce quality food, and strengthen local economies and provide a valuable sustainable service to the local community. The book also includes a glossary, links and resource lists for further reading, and a cross referenced index.
Five stars. Lots and lots (and lots) of inspiration. Aesthetically an enjoyable read with a truly astounding amount of meticulous research and annotation. This would make a superlative selection for garden groups, community gardening, allotment/collective libraries, smallholders, and garden lovers.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
May 21, 2020
The tagline here is misleading. Personally, I do not want to run profitable market garden. However, I do want to garden better, more efficiently, in a way that is actually healthy for my land. And this book helps me in all of those areas!
Mays started a farm with little farming education or experience. What he has learned over nine years is tremendous, and he is passing that on to his readers. Be prepared; it is a wealth of knowledge! Highly worth the read. I am so impressed with his details, and his ability to clearly communicate. Plus, if you are into building a profitable garden - he’s very open about how much money he’s spent, on what, and how much money he makes. This book is full of helpful details on a wide range of subjects. I think it would be an invaluable resource for any gardener. Bonus materials include a detailed section on recommended tools and supplies - along with associated websites. There is also an extensive bibliography if you want to do some more reading.
I’ve already learned so much and know that I will return to this book many more times. My experiences with Mays’ ideas will easily find their way into my gardening blog at Patch405.com.
I was offered an advance digital copy of this book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are my own.
Mays started a farm with little farming education or experience. What he has learned over nine years is tremendous, and he is passing that on to his readers. Be prepared; it is a wealth of knowledge! Highly worth the read. I am so impressed with his details, and his ability to clearly communicate. Plus, if you are into building a profitable garden - he’s very open about how much money he’s spent, on what, and how much money he makes. This book is full of helpful details on a wide range of subjects. I think it would be an invaluable resource for any gardener. Bonus materials include a detailed section on recommended tools and supplies - along with associated websites. There is also an extensive bibliography if you want to do some more reading.
I’ve already learned so much and know that I will return to this book many more times. My experiences with Mays’ ideas will easily find their way into my gardening blog at Patch405.com.
I was offered an advance digital copy of this book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are my own.
August 11, 2020
What a fabulous book! No till organic gardening has really become huge for people looking to lessen their harm on land and the environment. This book had a huge impact on me and had wonderful insight on a gardening method I had never heard prior to opening this book. Not only does the author give you everything you need but his practice has become a successful story for him.
What did I like? So while I devoured this book, I could probably learn more by YouTubing some of these practices. Some of the methods were way over my head and I had to google some stuff just to learn more. Like if it’s a no till, and your not disturbing the soil, how does it get the raised bed look? Still this is a great starter book, and it really gave me food for thought. From soil testing, to tools to buy, watering, and etc. The list is huge!
Would I buy or recommend? I’m all for lessening my environmental impact, and becoming more self sustaining. Even people with backyard gardens can benefit from this book. I would love a copy. Not only does he run a successful farm but he wrote a successful gardening book. I like the idea of farming but without all the big equipment. Five stars! A great guide to no till farming.
I received a complimentary copy to read. A very purposeful guide to no till farming. A great informative guide, and very environmentally friendly.
What did I like? So while I devoured this book, I could probably learn more by YouTubing some of these practices. Some of the methods were way over my head and I had to google some stuff just to learn more. Like if it’s a no till, and your not disturbing the soil, how does it get the raised bed look? Still this is a great starter book, and it really gave me food for thought. From soil testing, to tools to buy, watering, and etc. The list is huge!
Would I buy or recommend? I’m all for lessening my environmental impact, and becoming more self sustaining. Even people with backyard gardens can benefit from this book. I would love a copy. Not only does he run a successful farm but he wrote a successful gardening book. I like the idea of farming but without all the big equipment. Five stars! A great guide to no till farming.
I received a complimentary copy to read. A very purposeful guide to no till farming. A great informative guide, and very environmentally friendly.
June 5, 2020
I've read many gardening/farming books this past year while I prepare to purchase a farm. Most are quite dry, boring, and difficult to get through. This book was unlike any I've recently read. I found it entertaining while incredibly detailed and educational. It covered a wide variety of farming topics that all new farmers need to know. Every question that I've had from germination and planting methods/schedules to preparing the soil, irrigating my crops, dealing with weeds and pests, and even the science of soil health was covered in this book. This is definitely an invaluable book that you will want to have in your library. It's also full of beautiful full color pictures of the author's farm that I really enjoyed looking at as well as valuable reference charts.
Although I received a free digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review, I plan on purchasing a physical copy so I can more easily refer back to topics as I progress in my farming journey.
Although I received a free digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review, I plan on purchasing a physical copy so I can more easily refer back to topics as I progress in my farming journey.
November 10, 2020
This comprehensive guide to no till organic farming was an eye opener. It's a gem in the current crisis. A lot of the information can be adapted for use in planting a plot of your own to become self sufficient, a definite plus.
Divided by subject with great pictures and loads of great information, it's a wonderful primer for someone wanting to start a small organic farm, really, do you want to ingest those poisons and mulching solutions available for free.
Even someone with a good sized lawn could take this information to convert it to a food plot for the family, chemical free and fresh. I plan to employ some of the techniques in my own small plot and expect to find an improved and pesticide/ fertilizer free yield.
I requested and received a NetGalley ARC to peruse and offer my opinion freely.
Divided by subject with great pictures and loads of great information, it's a wonderful primer for someone wanting to start a small organic farm, really, do you want to ingest those poisons and mulching solutions available for free.
Even someone with a good sized lawn could take this information to convert it to a food plot for the family, chemical free and fresh. I plan to employ some of the techniques in my own small plot and expect to find an improved and pesticide/ fertilizer free yield.
I requested and received a NetGalley ARC to peruse and offer my opinion freely.
November 16, 2020
The No-Till Organic Vegetable Farm by Daniel Mays is a guide for how to develop your own no-till farm.
It has information on how they deal with weeds, pests, and watering. It tells you all about how to lay out beds, how to layer plants, and gives you lots of tips.
I was reading it as I am interested in gardening, and grown my own vegetables this year for the first time. Sadly, no hints about slugs in here for me, but there was so much other information in here that if you're interested in ideas for how to grow organically, then you should give it a read!
The No-Till Organic Vegetable Farm was published on 10th November 2020. It's available to buy on Amazon and through your local independent bookshop .
You can follow Daniel Mays on Instagram and on Firth Farm's website .
I was given this book in return for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to Storey (the publishers).
It has information on how they deal with weeds, pests, and watering. It tells you all about how to lay out beds, how to layer plants, and gives you lots of tips.
I was reading it as I am interested in gardening, and grown my own vegetables this year for the first time. Sadly, no hints about slugs in here for me, but there was so much other information in here that if you're interested in ideas for how to grow organically, then you should give it a read!
The No-Till Organic Vegetable Farm was published on 10th November 2020. It's available to buy on Amazon and through your local independent bookshop .
You can follow Daniel Mays on Instagram and on Firth Farm's website .
I was given this book in return for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to Storey (the publishers).
August 18, 2020
Although I am not running a market garden, I live in UK and am very interested in growing vegetables in my own garden using the ‘no dig’ method. This book explains the principle of this, titled ‘no-till’ here. It is a book which needs to be referred to over a period of times, but explains the hows and whys of growing in a more sustainably and organic fashion.
I t is an in testing read and would highly recommend it.
I t is an in testing read and would highly recommend it.
April 30, 2023
Excellent book that covers a lot of different topics. I'm not a market farmer, but as a gardener I appreciated and enjoyed the book and got some good ideas from it - especially concerning cover crops (how they work and photos showing what to do with them). I also liked how the book explained smothering weeds with tarps. It was a good read with good photos and is fantastic if you want to grow things for sale - even on a small scale.
November 12, 2024
The No-Till Organic Vegetable Farm offers a refreshingly practical approach to building a sustainable farm that benefits not only the soil but also the broader community. The author does a fantastic job laying out clear, actionable steps to create a profitable market garden without relying on heavy machinery or harsh chemicals. I’d recommend this book to anyone serious about farming in a way that works with nature—it’s thorough, accessible, and rooted in real-world experience.
July 5, 2020
I am blown away by the sheer breadth and detail that Daniel goes into in this book. Rarely do books of this type break down everything so deeply, including the startup costs you may have. One for the collection and regular referencing!
September 19, 2020
This is a highly comprehensive manual on how to organically farm. Not a lot here for the home gardener but useful to those contemplating a medium size farm. Everything is covered from business plan through to harvest.
*eArc provided by the publisher and NetGalley
*eArc provided by the publisher and NetGalley
January 3, 2022
Great farming/gardening book so much information charts of how long crops will sit in a basement without spoiling. Also this book contains charts of expenses and much more. It talks about farming with animals!!!👍🏻
December 3, 2023
Well done
This made for an interesting read. I have areas on our small farm that I can see converting to no till. I liked how the live in workers and community aspects of the farm dynamic work. This was well worth looking into .
This made for an interesting read. I have areas on our small farm that I can see converting to no till. I liked how the live in workers and community aspects of the farm dynamic work. This was well worth looking into .
August 25, 2021
An awesome book on no-till gardening and gardening in general.
November 12, 2021
Great book with a wealth of knowledge. Will be referring to this for years to come!
October 9, 2023
The most helpful nuts and bolts guide for anybody interested in truly sustainable agriculture.
February 1, 2024
Not ENTIRELY applicable to my backyard garden, but still fascinating and practical.
June 29, 2020
The No-Till Organic Vegetable Farm by Daniel Mays is a comprehensive guidebook for folks interested in starting a no-till organic vegetable garden, whether for personal use or as a business. And it really is comprehensive, covering everything from A to Z including farming at a human scale, ecological agriculture, getting started, establishing beds, planting, irrigation, weeds, methods of no-till disturbance, natural soil care in action, harvesting and handling, markets and scale, labor, planning and record keeping, and measures of success: profit, people and place.
As a non-gardener, there was a lot of information in this book that went over my head, despite the obvious effort by the author to make things as simple as possible. That said, I'm not the target market for this book, and those readers in that market will likely have at least a basic understanding of things like the differences between mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal plants, or the benefits of sheet mulch.
The author's use of graphs and charts, sidebars and color graphics is also very effective, and provides a lot of important information and support for the primary text. Another feature I really saw value in was the use of information directly from the author's farm - On Frith Farm. These sections helped make the instructions much more real and approachable.
If you're a serious gardener or small farmer looking to move into the no-til movement, The No-Till Organic Vegetable Farm by Daniel Mays is a great recourse you will find very helpful. Even with my limited knowledge of and enthusiasm for gardening, I learned a lot, much of which will be used in our own backyard vegetable garden.
This review is based on an advance copy read
As a non-gardener, there was a lot of information in this book that went over my head, despite the obvious effort by the author to make things as simple as possible. That said, I'm not the target market for this book, and those readers in that market will likely have at least a basic understanding of things like the differences between mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal plants, or the benefits of sheet mulch.
The author's use of graphs and charts, sidebars and color graphics is also very effective, and provides a lot of important information and support for the primary text. Another feature I really saw value in was the use of information directly from the author's farm - On Frith Farm. These sections helped make the instructions much more real and approachable.
If you're a serious gardener or small farmer looking to move into the no-til movement, The No-Till Organic Vegetable Farm by Daniel Mays is a great recourse you will find very helpful. Even with my limited knowledge of and enthusiasm for gardening, I learned a lot, much of which will be used in our own backyard vegetable garden.
This review is based on an advance copy read
July 22, 2022
Excellent clear practical guide to running a profitable no-till farm. Not exactly my goal, but intriguing to see how it's done and glean some potential practices for my own garden, especially as this farmer's farm happens to be located in Scarborough, Maine. Wonderful photos, very readable, understable information.
July 17, 2022
Absolutely amazing book! Step by step guide for how to create a no till organic garden and farm and business! Invaluable tips!
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