Gardening can be work, but the easy way of gardening is the best way to go.

You read that right: Don't till your garden.

One Boise resident asked whether that meant living with weeds. No, it does not.

True, tilling does turn under weeds, but no-till gardeners either mulch heavily so weed seeds don't germinate, or they grow a dense cover crop such as winter rye or hairy vetch. When it's time to plant crops, gardeners knock over the vetch or rye blades, then plant seeds or transplants among the now-decaying plants.

Mulching is not feasible for no-till farmers, so they only use cover crops. In spring, farmers use special equipment to roll and kill weeds at the same time they inject seeds into the soil.

Benefits of no-till growing include preventing exposure of more carbon to the atmosphere, adding to greenhouse gases. Moreover, this easier way of gardening preserves established mycorrhizae (beneficial fungus mycelia that feed roots), prevents light from reaching weed seeds (sparking germination) and avoids soil compaction. Tilling also kills many soil-dwelling creatures.

Working in organic matter by tilling is less effective than laying organic matter (wood chips, grass, shredded leaves, etc.) on top of the soil, and letting earth pores, rain, and soil-dwelling macro- and micro-organisms pull it down to root level. Organic matter incorporated this slower way remains in the soil longer than it does when tilled in.

GROW VEGGIES IN WINTER WITH A COLD FRAME

Some garden experts expect the next big movement in home vegetable gardening to be cold frames, for growing food through the winter. You can make your own, out of a discarded window and some surround material, whether it's hay or straw bales or boards, or you can buy one that automatically vents and closes. In our climate, we can grow with the aid of winter-grade floating row cover.

A cold frame window ought to be angled to the south, with a shallower south end to the frame so it doesn't block the low rays of winter sun.

Don't make your cold frame so large that you can't reach in and plant or harvest crops in all parts of the bed. Such an area can be intensively planted, as a bed, not rows. Plant only crops that can withstand some frost such as lettuce, spinach, broccoli, cabbage, etc.

Plan for a way to prop the lid open so plants don't cook on a bright sunny day. This is not a concern if you use floating row cover.

Incidentally, the cold frame is similar to a hot bed. Many who use a hot bed for growing in winter use an electric soil heating cable under sand for a heat source. If you have access to fresh manure, you could dig a pit three to four feet deep, fill it with fresh manure and straw topped off with about four to six inches of soil. When the heat subsides to a reasonable level, plant in the soil. The decaying manure below keeps the interior of the frame warm.

You will have to prop open the hot bed cover, too, on bright sunny days. The main hazard with this kind of gardening is remembering to close the frame before it cools off at night.

POPCORN CROP TURNS OUT BETTER THAN EXPECTED

I had the puniest-looking corn crop I've ever seen this year, but it yielded better than expected. I had planted hull-less popcorn among the winter squash, and the dozen or so stalks were small and spindly. Even so, several bore two ears per stalk. I hulled and winnowed the harvest the other day and was surprised to find I had one pound, 11 ounces of popcorn.

Margaret Lauterbach: melauter@earthlink.net or write to Gardening, The Idaho Statesman, P.O. Box 40, Boise, ID 83707