The no-dig method turns conventional wisdom on its head: instead of turning the soil over every year, you leave it alone and feed it from the top. It means less work, fewer weeds and, over time, healthier and more productive soil.
The thinking behind it
Digging breaks up the network of fungi and the structure that soil life builds, and brings buried weed seeds up to germinate. No-dig leaves that living web intact, letting the worms do the cultivating while you simply add organic matter on top.
Starting a bed
You can make a no-dig bed straight onto grass or weeds, with no digging at all, which is its great appeal.
- Cut down tall growth, then lay cardboard over the whole area.
- Overlap it well so no light reaches the weeds beneath.
- Spread compost ten to fifteen centimetres deep on top.
Planting straight away
You can plant into that layer of compost immediately. The cardboard smothers the grass and weeds below, which die and rot down, while their roots feed the worms and the structure they leave behind aerates the soil naturally.
Keeping it going
Each year you simply spread another few centimetres of compost over the surface in autumn or winter, and the worms pull it down. The bed needs no digging ever again, weeds are easily plucked from the loose surface, and crops grow strongly in the rich top layer.