Conservation gardening that will save you time and money

Excerpt

This is the time of year that I start to get excited about getting back out in the dirt. Whether you have a garden every year or you think you may want to begin a vegetable garden to help you save some money during the next growing season, it's the perfect time to start planning.

SAVING SOIL SAVES TIME Do you till your garden before planting? If so, what is your goal for tilling? If you are breaking ground for a new garden, you will probably need to till to remove the current vegetation. Yet, when I ask gardeners why they till, they usually say that tilling makes room for the plants and gets the weeds out of the way. Ironically, the soil disturbance actually encourages weed seed germination. So while the weeds are gone during planting, they tend to spring up about the same time that the first vegetable seedlings break ground. The other disadvantage of tilling is that it moves the newest, most fertile soil to the bottom. Even if you only till your garden one foot deep, remember that the roots of most garden plants go down only inches. One foot doesn't seem that…