No-dig and building good soil

I dig our soil as little as possible. (Within reason, as root crops always involve some soil disturbance.) This allows the microbes to multiply and for organic matter to remain fairly stable in the soil.

When our food tastes good it’s because the soil that we grow in is good. Good soil has lots of organic matter and nutrients, and this helps retain moisture and support microbial life.

Getting great soil is a fairly slow process. But it’s also simple:

• I add a thin (2-3cm) layer of compost to all my beds, every time I’m about to plant a new crop. Except for carrots, where I plant into beds that haven’t recently received compost.

• I generally don’t worry about micronutrients. I occasionally add kelp water or worm tea, and occasionally wood ash, biochar, or lime. I do this haphazardly, as compost is the more important focal point.

• If you’re gardening in planter boxes or beds that DON’T open out into the soil, at some point the soil will lose their structure. Plan to empty out the soil and refill at least once a year.

• Keep moisture levels in the soil as stable as you can. It’s easy for roots to get to nutrients if there’s moisture in the soil, but it’s difficult if there’s no moisture.

• If you’re short on water, shading the soil is a good way to retain moisture and still get a yield. This is part of the reason I grow a lot of vines (sweet potato, watermelon, spanspek, gem squash, butternut, pumpkin) in peak summer.

• The main reason to stop planting new crops in mid-summer is that the root balls of new plants are tiny, and it’s very hard to keep them sufficiently moist. You can get around this by planting larger plants (e.g., we’re planting out large hot peppers now) or by focusing a lot of energy on keeping a bed with new seedlings moist.

Some people call this approach of not digging “gardening with nature.” This is because it emulates the process of soil building that occurs naturally in forests- leaves drop, they decompose, and the process happens repeats.

This year, try to keep your gardening as simple as you can, so that you can enjoy yourself. It’s very normal for crops not to look good sometimes, and only experience will tell you when to intervene, when to cut your losses, and when to wait and see.

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