No-Till Learning Curve Woes

We've got three patches of sunflowers growing in the yard. The longer term plan is to convert most of what was previously lawn to gardens and orchard. Over the past couple of years I've learned that the soil on the farm varies drastically from place to place. Some is fantastic: either it wasn't farmed previously, or has been enriched by the nearby black locust trees. Some is really bad: the topsoil is almost gone. The rest is somewhere between.

Last year I trucked in 15 cubic yards of woodchips for the garden, and 10 cubic yards of mulch for flower beds. The left over mulch decomposed nicely into something resembling deep black soil. Over the winter, the woodchips in the garden broke down unevenly. Some is like soil. Some looks like it did the day I moved them.

Some sunflowers from the same batch of seeds have been planted in each soil type. The seeds in the decomposed mulch are rocking. They're 2-3x larger than the garden sunflowers, which are doing reasonably well, too, and they're enormous compared to the seeds I planted in the yard without tilling. Those are really struggling in the poor soil areas.

The soil in the no-till yard patches seems pretty lifeless. The worms are only right at the surface. A few inches below the surface it's a uniform brown material with no roots and very little organic matter that's visible to the eye. It seems like it will be a multi-year project to improve the soil in those areas.