I totally agree, mother nature does not till, the OM is deposited on top. No OM leaves our yard except some thorny prunings. I've seen these principles in action so many times, starting new beds with lasagna methods. And I've had compost piles for years but issues with my back make it impractical to continue all of the heavy work (and multiple moves of OM) inherent with such. So I have removed the compost step and (almost always) only move OM once. I don't think I ever had the kind of perfect pile that kills weed seeds and pathogens anyway. Not that I wouldn't advocate such as the ideal, one has to do what they can with what they have. A tiny suburban yard only has so much to give. The key is keeping it all!
The irony is, it's so much easier to do this than get all of these leaves to the curb. To let the grass clippings fall instead of taking them to the curb. To leave the shrub trimmings under the shrubs (instead of cutting off big pieces, I start whittling little ones off until I get it like-I-like-it.) Bury kitchen stuff a bit so it's not unsightly or an invitation to vermin.
I used a piece of sheet metal that was handy to smother a strip along our back porch this summer. This weekend it was moved to do this same job elsewhere, and after just a few months, without yet adding any new OM to the surface the soil under there feels like walking on a sponge. A drastic, noticeable difference from one step away where it's "lawn."
I got into all of this when I got out on my own and wondered, "why do I have to spend every weekend mowing a ton of grass just because I have a place to live?" Combined, of course, with the desire to have beautiful flowering plants, not just flat expanse of green stuff that eats my time and money for gas to run the mower - and to buy a mower at first of course.
Turns out, we've been brainwashed. I've read and even bought some fascinating books about it. If anyone else wonders why this grass is everywhere, what the impacts of that are, and/or what it used to be like before that, I would recommend including these in your reading list:
The Lawn; A History of an American Obsession by Virginia Scott Jenkins
Redesigning the American Lawn; A Search For Environmental Harmony by Bormann, Balmori, Geballe.
1491; New Revelations Of the Americas Before Columbus by Thomas Mann (I believe Nat Geo channel has used this as the basis for an episode of 'Night of Exploration' called 'America Before Columbus.' I thought they did a poor job of conveying any modern implications of the info presented, and expected this since it's impossible to cover this type of info in an hour.)
What other books might folks recommend?
Is there a 2nd part to the original link of this discussion? It seems unfinished. One important point, at least it seems to be from what I've seen, that she didn't really talk much about is drainage. Tilling ruins the soil structure and drainage but it is so easily repaired (if one considers a year a short amount of time, which I do in regard to gardening.) The tiny tunnels that worms and other soil critters dig are so important. As well as the work they do, distributing the composted bits of OM to the levels in the soil where they will be available/most beneficial to roots. I don't begrudge anyone the desire to till once, to get started, and don't see much harm in it that way. I've never had trouble digging in any bed that wasn't tilled to start, as long as there has been a cover layer of OM in the spot for a significant period of time (depending a lot on weather.) Just adding the fall leaves is huge.
She seemed to be speaking almost entirely about agriculture, although we are taking these principles to landscaping as well. She never did say how modern large-scale agriculture can use the info. How can the need to till be reconciled with good soil structure? Was she saying it's possible to grow 'field crops' without tilling? IDK...
I'd like to hear the rest of what she has to say.
