What make you decide the no till would not work?
I am going to go back and add the photo of my tomato plant I took today, meant to do that and did not think of it till I read your post.
Looking forward to the pics!!
Got photos of that black magic elephant ear? I have some plants I call black elephant ears, but don't know that is their real name. I'll post a pic I took of it today also.

Oh, I thought about taking some pictures today which one would have been the Elephant Ear but got busy with the grandkids and forgot. I'll do it tomorrow.

Heh, heh, I forgot, I picked these tomatoes today from my greenhouse. Last fall I stuck a sucker from a Burpee Steakhouse in the ground and sort of took care of it all winter in there. The longest vine is over 6' and it's loaded with blossoms. It's supposed to be a huge tomato but I'm guessing it needs more care than I have given it so as I empty the greenhouse, hopefully I can pay more attention to it. In the meantime, I'll gladly take the smaller tomatoes! The cup is in the picture for size comparison.

Oh, to answer your question about the no till, there was rye grass, lots of rye grass, tall. that even mowed just kept growing and growing. it would have been almost impossible for me to get it all out by hand and I wasn't sure how I would be able to mulch it and keep it down. I kept envisioning putting weed barrier on top and walking on the cut off stems under the cloth.