253. No-Till Farming ~ Nutrient Rich Soil Health Expert| Steve Szudera | BEACH, N.D.

I’m excited to introduce Steve Szudera from North Dakota who’s going to talk to us about No-Till Farming and soil health, we talked a little bit before when he did an interview with me. Tell us a little about yourself. I am a no-till famer Check out Steve’s website at https://tabletopfarmer.com/ (tabletopfarmer.com) grain farm western North Dakota, eastern Montana on the border going through some drought tired of watching the soil blow away 1981 made our first no till pass In ’82 I bought my own drill we were doing it for wind and water erosion In the 90’s we had created a mono culture wheat on wheat on wheat Our first rotation was field peas that helped tremendously! towards the mid 90s a little bit further I was introduced to http://www.notill.org/dwayne-beck (Dr. Dwayne Beck) he’s still on that research  He started diversifying our rotations similar to whats in the prairie so we started adding a more diverse rotation, teaching us we had to add similar to what’s in the prairie. We started adding a more diverse rotation to that warm season grasses warm season broadleaf cool season grass and broadleaf get intensity up how to use whole water profile not just the top  a lot of our nitrates were going  at some point in time goes into  water tables water systems healthy things there as well Then about four years ago this month I was at a conference for a different reason I mentioned something I was interested in doing for the last several years teaching gardeners what I was doing. how to take the principles I have learned and teach it to gardeners. very little information about no-till gardening 4 years ago out there by myself doing a lot of things I did some suggestions It started out as a container situation The first one failed miserably and I knew we had to change our  media mix two and a half years go, three struggle What do you mean by container thing? container gardening indoor what they watered indoor grow boxes earth boxes build living soil indoors Take that environment I have growing outdoors and bring it indoors do it indoors teach people how to garden all year round I took a bobcat out in one of my fields, we ended up there for 3-4 days trying to figure out how are we gonna capture our soil At that time it was 34 years of continuous no-till, every time we tried to capture a 12 foot profile it would just fall apart so alive and crumbly wouldn’t stay together soil that is living rich soil wants to just crumble 12 inches deep We eventually accomplished that we built a box around it in the fired brought it indoors and it failed miserably that soil indoors It’s just made to be outdoors So we had to establish a media mix that will work for raised beds as well as container gardening. We were able to do that about 3 years ago and then apply the principles we use in a no-till scenario of building nutrient rich soil and doing it in a container making it so it survives we work on a lot of testing things yet always improving things  tabletop farmer in that error where we can teach people how to thrive. 2015 we took it outdoors there was a lot of demand to take it outdoors We started looking for people who had gardens, we could take gardens that was completely worn out Sarah’s little angels that was so infested with weeds it was unbelievable with the weed growth. We applied our  no-till principles fabric barrier developed a watering system to water the roots natural fertilizer system neat part of about that whole 18 by 80 feet long amazing part about we didn’t pull one weed all summer. no weeding no backbreaking part to start who’s we and what’s table top farmer? Table Top Famer started out container on your table top I labeled myself as the table top farmer It expanded from outdoors to inside as well? The outdoor side...

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