 I am Donna Adrienne from White River, South Dakota. I am a South Dakota master gardener. I have been since I took the class in 1997. I have started this year a community garden uptown. We're in the trucking business, so there's paperwork and things to do there. We're also in the ranching business, and I haul the food out for the cowboys when they're rounding up. I also work with our son doing his invoices on his trucking business from Texas to North Dakota. I volunteer in several organizations. I work with the museum and belong to the cattle women. Although I'm very busy, I still find time to garden because I do it in a method that keeps it simple and less work. I use the soaker hoses, the mulch, and the no-till system, and it just takes all the work out of the garden. So, you know, you can do it too. Knowing the area of South Central South Dakota, well, it is pretty arid. When I first started here, my soil was silty clay and hard as a rock, and I needed to do something different. So instead of digging down in the soil, I would put well-rotted manure on the top of it and plant directly in that. After I plant, then I'll lay down soaker hoses and mulch, which keeps the soil cool and no weeds can go through that. There's a few that you have to pull, but I'm not hoeing. I broke my hoe handle 20 years ago, and I have never fixed it. So that means less weeds, less work, and less water. You know, there's a reason that the modern farmers and ranchers have gone to no-till farming. It just makes sense because it's leaving the cover on the soil where it's protecting the soil and also making a cover so that the weeds aren't growing and stops the erosion, and the same thing happens here in the garden. People ask, how can I garden because they have this vision of a 50 by 100 plot that needs to be tilled and haul in truckloads of well-rotted manure. Go to no-till garden, and all you have to do starts small. You can either use a 4 by 8 box or a pallet or no box at all, just a little strip. And lay down some cardboard and wet it down really well. That kills out the grass and weeds underneath of it. Then start layering the well-rotted manure, shredded paper, grass clippings, hay, straw, whatever you can find to start making layers and let that all mellow together because the worms and nematodes and pill bugs will come up from the bottom and decompose that and turn it into nice rich soil. Some people like to call that their lasagna garden. The reason they say lasagna garden is because you're layering it like lasagna. Try and get that done in the fall and by spring it'll be nice and mellow and you can go out and just pull back the top mulch and plant your seeds or your shovel and plant your tomato plants or just makes a nice little garden bed.