Chickadee Gardens

 The first season of our experiment with not tilling our vegetable garden is up and running. Our veggie garden consists of two large tillable areas and one area of raised beds in the center, all told about 3,000 square feet. When we first moved here this whole area was blackberries, maple trees, clumps of filberts and bramble. FM cleared it by hand over the course of a year or two and our first attempts at veggie gardening yielded good crops. Beginner's luck, maybe. Good soil, too. We rented a large cultivator for the first few years to bust up the field grass and then we added organic amendments and compost.  Every spring thereafter we used a small rototiller to break up the two open areas and we would direct sow all manner of seeds and plant transplants from the greenhouse for broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, onions, shallots and leeks. This has been working well but the weeds are overwhelming and I also sensed the soil was getting compacted, especially just under the surface past