[RKDinOKC]

When I was a kid we had a huge garden. Instead of pesticides we sprayed soapy water, spiders, and ladybugs.
And we plowed and tilled the garden before planting. Usually preceded by spread dead veggie plants, and horse or sheep manure. During the growing season we left 1/7 of the garden unplanted to "rest" and tilled in clippings and kitchen scraps.

We didn't till the soil around the growing plants, but did hoe the weeds.

It was a lot of work.

I used to put on a tyvek suit and breather face mask then spray our fruit tress with soapy water. Before I started doing that we had neighbors stealing our fruit. I thought it was brilliant!