dig or no dig

[greengirl]

hi....I grow on heavy clay and am seriously thinking of using the no dig method.....It does go against the grain a bit !!! Autumn wouldnt be Autumn without all that back breaking digging over of the soil ! but having listened tp some pros and cons I have decided to give it a go. Any suggestions please

[Nature's Babe]

Hi Greengirl, I also garden on clay soil, and have made the decision not to dig, no regrets, I have been pleased with results, it works well for me in both rainy spells when the water lays on the paths and in drought the mulch helps to retain moisture, also the worms if undisturbed come right up to the mulch and aerate the area for you.
What allayed my hesitation was this video,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugFd1JdFaE0
Another helpful link here
http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/schools ... dening.pdf
Also, I am using rootgrow to boost mycelium (fungi) which works by symbiosis to give extra root capacity to plants and other benefits.
My soil fertility and structure is benefitting and the erosion which you get with bare soil is reversed too, adding depth. Like Emilia I use my homemade compost for seedlings which saves money.
PS I have been surprised by how quickly the mulch is worked into the soil by the worms, be prepared to keep topping it up.

[madasafish]

Our garden is very heavy clay about 0.5metres below the surface. I've adopted a no dig policy for the past 20 years...but only used home compost to "lighten" the soil.

I use the commas round "lighten" advisedly. Our topsail is quite heavy, cracks in dry summers and if you sieve it, these are a number of small balls of clay - which appear to be constantly there.

Growing potatoes is a waste of time: our soil is also very damp and the adjacent fields mean we get countless slugs and snails..


I've given up growing anything that lies on the ground - so climbing French beans are OK: ordinary ones are not. Strawberries? Great growth - pity about the squirrels and foxes.

Horses for courses: no dig here is the only way but unless I want to go into full scale land drainage, the land is always going to be a struggle.

(Wonderful rasps tho)

[Monika]

Madasafish, I am surprised that you could not improve your lower soil over the years. We gardened on very heavy clay soil for a few years some time ago (in fact, they dug for pottery clay not far from us), but we bunged on lots of horse manure, bracken and home made compost and dug it well in and by the time me moved away, the vegetable areas had some beautifully friable soil and potatoes grew a dream.

We did have the advantage of it being on a slope so it drained well as long as you got through the sticky clay.

[Geoff]

I have said this before when this subject has arisen.
The plough has been the symbol of the start of civilisation for a very long time. Cultivation, including ploughing and digging, evolved in communities that were focused on survival and any time spent on it was a diversion from hunting and gathering. If it was not time efficient and effective it would not have happened. Double digging did not arise as a penance or Victorian work ethic, it became a common practice because it works. Stick with deep digging and incorporation of as much organic matter as you can get hold of and you will create productive top soil from almost anything.

[Nature's Babe]

Maybe digging out topsoil from paths to raise veg beds would give you drainage channels Masdafish? I know clay can be difficult it bakes hard in summer, and water pools in winter, when we first took on our garden the clay was so hard the worms had excavated holes and tied themselves into a living knot to conserve energy and moisture, but now like Monika we have dark friable soil, I feed the soil not the plants. Mulching helps in dry periods, the soil no longer cracks, and I no longer find a knot of worm, they are happy now. In desert they do the opposite and excavate growing areas deeper, so adding organic matter can improve both wet and dry soils, by raising or lowering the bed.

http://permaculture.org.au/category/soi ... mposition/

[Nature's Babe]

Greengirl if your clay is hard, this method will give you a workable surface by spring.
http://www.no-dig-vegetablegarden.com/l ... ening.html

[Mike Vogel]

My own instinct would be to double-dig this autumn and incorporate lots of manure/compost/leafmould as you see fit. You can then subsequently adopt a no-dig policy, having seen to your lower levels.

On no-dig beds be sure to rotate with a green manure such as alfalfa, which grows its roots deep and brings up minerals which are rarely accessed by shallower-rooted plants.

[Nature's Babe]

Good advice about the alfalfa Mike, the taproot goes down a considerable depth doesn't it, I read somewhere up to twelve feet, a useful plant as apparently there is a great deal of nitrates on agricultural land at those levels which leach into our water causing problems for our water quality and afalfa goes deep enough to bring some of it back up to the surface.
http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/qua ... in-nvz.pdf
leaving the afalfa roots in as they rot opens up drainage channels in the soil to considerable depth, and the cut tops are a valuable mulch. If you have grown it when is the most advantageous time / conditions ? Afalfa is something I hadn't used yet though I did buy a mix with it in for use next year. Hope you don't mind me picking your brains ! Gardening is like my old job nursing, always something new to learn no matter how much past experience !

[Mike Vogel]

Brain-picking is what this forum is all about and the harvest goes on all the year round. I have sown alfalfa in spring, but I am sure an early autumn sowing would do just as well. The roots go deep, as you say, and when I dig it in I often leave some roots , which regrow. It doesn't ,matter if the plant is growing where I want something else, because it is seldom in competition with the other plant.

[Nature's Babe]

Yes, that is one benefit of mixed planting in raised beds Mike, roots at different levels are in less competition with each other. On my raised beds I
might try dotting some alfalfa spaced at intervals all over the bed, as most of the plant is deep below ground it would keep bringing up nutrients washed down to deep levels and I could cut tops off to add to the mulch, if they regrow easily that would be a bonus to recycle nutrients.

[Mike Vogel]

Yes, NB, and the tops you cut off contain the nutrients which the roots have brought up. That's why I try to keep the bindweed I dig up, which I soak to death and then use the liquid as a feed. With luck I get some of the nutrients from deep down. But I don't grow bindweed as a green manure, in case you are wondering!

[Nature's Babe]

Giggling, yes I tried your tip with bindweed - soak to death is right - it takes simply ages ! I don't grow it either but no neighbours next door and bindweed creeps under the fence on that side !