Start with the soil

Architects and engineers designing buildings start with the foundation. So should you in your garden. With gardening or farming, almost everything starts with the soil. There is a whole web of life going on in your soil that can be fostered and assisted using natural products and techniques.

Watch this video and prepare to be amazed:

With remineralizing the soil, and composting it, he was able to grow food with amazing yield and quality naturally. He used volcanic rock dust.  Some sell and use glacial rock dust. I am conducting an experiment in my garden with different types of rock dust - results to be published here later.

A couple of other ways are growing green cover crops in the winter, especially nitrogen fixing plants like legumes.  Or grow a crop with the intention of tilling it under in the spring - it's called green manure.

You could try the no-till method.  This is a method of gardening or farming where tilling is kept to a minimum or not at all. The thinking behind this is to keep the soil from becoming a dust bowl again - tilled over and over until it is no longer arable.

You can read about soil biology here. You'll be a wiser gardener/farmer for it.