To Dig or Not to Dig...?

I would be interested to hear people's opinions about whether it is beneficial to do annual digging before planting.

We have a bed which is largely free of perennial weeds which we have been using for vegetables for about 12 years. The soil is very light although we dig garden compost in annually and also add horse manure when we can get it. It does get trodden on a bit when planting or harvesting veggies but not to any great extent.

We have another plot elsewhere (see our blog on Landshare) where the soil is much more loamy but we are still digging out perennial weeds from years of neglect so this tends to get dug over just to get the buttercups, nettles and bindweed out before planting. We tend to use a plank for walking on the beds there as the soil is much more sticky.

It's not that I'm against digging. It's a lot cheaper than joining a gym for one thing. Yet if we can save our energy for other things ....

 

Do they dig to 8ft or more depth?

You can't dig bindweed out. As far as evolution goes, bindweed is a major success story. It is practically indestructible. Digging it simply breaks the roots up and makes more plants.

Personally I like freshly dug soil for planting. Its easier to work with, although not always practical (eg if you have perennials or bulbs in there already). If bindweed was present I'd get rid of that chemically before planting anything at all though.

 

Since this plot has been used for veg I would not dig before planting. When plantIng something enrich the planting hole. However, I am a great believer in mulching and feeding the soil rather than the plant so I do this every year. Over the years this has included seaweed, mushroom compost, manure,leaf mould and garden compost. My soil is light too. Better for the top level of soil to have this goodness rather than burying it. My plants grow very well with this regime

 

If you aren't going to dig then IMHO you must not walk on it ... I have raised beds (well ... they are "marginally" raised, I originally dug the paths out a spit-deep and put the soil on the beds, so they are only raised a few inches). The beds are 4' wide (max width reachable from either side) and we NEVER walk on them. Never Ever!

They were dug properly at the outset, and they do get dug to an extent - when we lift Parsnips or Spuds, for example, but I don't dig them other than that. I run a Mantis cultivator (mini rotavator) over the plot that will have Parsnips in it, so that the roots can find an easy route downwards and don't fork like a Glove Puppet!. I don't cultivate the plot for Brassicas at all, as they like it firm, I just spread some manure on that bit in the Autumn and plant directly into it (and I spread manure on all other plots, except roots, but that just gets left on the surface). Some years I dig a trench for the beans and chuck partly rotted compost in it ... so in that sense it gets dug too.

But there is no formal digging here at all, not any more

However, advocated of large area veg patches hate it. They don't like that I don't have long straight rows. The don't like that their method of 2'6" between rows of Brassicas doesn't translate into my Beds system So for anyone OCD in that way its probably not a good idea. My beds look like patchwork. I grow 4 Cauliflower plants each fortnight. They go in the Brassica bed when they are ready ... and then the next thing follows ... and a fortnight later there are a few more Cauliflower to plant. (I do plant the beds from both ends, so in practice the various batches of Cauliflowers may well end up next to each other ... but its not a "given")

The other benefit of digging is on heavy clay soils to rough dig it in Autumn so that the frost gets into it. I am on heavy land here, but I put a lot of manure on the plot in the early years and after just a year or two didn't feel the need to have the benefit of the frost over winter any more.

 

This sounds like a good idea. What time of year is best for mulching?

 

Probably a variety of opinions on this one ... I prefer to do it in late Spring once the soil has warmed up to trap the warmth in (rather than retaining the cold ...) and to retain moisture over the Summer, and keep the Summer weeds down.

 

I mulch in autumn and then again in spring for plants like hellebores....I use dried manure for this to build up plant for next year's flowers....and other precious plants. If I had to choose between adding fertiliser and mulching it would be the latter every time. I mulch my veg plants in mid spring....they look good and moisture is retained better