Hours of effort are saved with a no-dig garden because you no longer need to dig and weed to prepare your garden for planting. Esther Dean developed the principle of using organic materials to create a garden on top of the ground. This develops the soil’s fertility, increases the earthworm population, and provides a rich organic growing medium without great effort.
When faced with the dispiriting task of breaking up poor, sick, or depleted soil, creating a garden bed on top of it makes sense. Digging may be difficult due to hard, compacted ground or soil full of thick, difficult to remove, weeds. There is no digging and those weeds are put to good use without much trouble. Having a garden bed raised above ground level, means, that for many people, it is easier to reach and work. We only need to use the simplest of tools such as a hand fork and a trowel because there is no heavy lifting or digging.
Many organic gardeners believe that there is no need to disturb the soil by digging and turning because the main action by the various soil microbes takes place on the surface. Earthworms will do the job of pulling organic material into the soil as well as aerating it with their tunnels – then there is the bonus of their casts.
Those who have difficulty bending, doing heavy work or who have arthritic hands may find that a no-dig garden restore gardening as a pleasure rather as something foregone or a difficult chore.
A no dig garden transforms an infertile area into a productive nutrient rich organic harvest.
A no-dig garden is made with a garden edging about 200 mm (8’) high put right where you want your garden – on top of whatever is there – soil, rocks, weeds – it does not matter. Inside this frame, a layer of newspaper is put to kill the weeds and then successive layers of hay, straw, fertilizer, and compost. Generally, the garden should adhere to the correct carbon – nitrogen ratio of 90 to 10.
Instead of spending hours digging the weeds and hauling them away, by covering them with newspaper, you stop them from growing into your garden. You also get to keep all the valuable nutrients that the weeds have taken from the original soil. Eventually, the paper will rot away, and as the bed settles, the goodness from these weeds will become available.
A great benefit of the no-dig garden concept is the increase in the earthworm population. You may not have seen an earthworm for years in the dried up clay pan on which the no-dig garden is built - but magically they will appear. If good homemade compost is used as the top layer, it is most likely your bed will have been seeded with a vigorous worm population.
We have so many fat worms that a kookaburra has taken up residence on a post near by and feeds all day – something has to be done about this.
A no-dig garden is much the same as a lazy-bed garden. This follows a similar sheet mulching principle as the no-dig garden. Layers of organic material – grass, hay, clippings, are alternated with a scattering of fertilizer such as horse manure with compost on the top.
Your no-dig garden creates a productive easily maintainable bed for your plants. It creates fertility and virtually does away with the need to weed. Another advantage is that it is very easy to keep tidy. With its raised wall, mowing around it and keeping weeds or lawn grass from encroaching is simple.
