"George.com" wrote in message
...
Has anyone experimented with, made use of, no dig gardening? I'm
interested
in your experiences and opinions, how you got started, successes or
failures
etc.

My definition of no dig involves:
minimal tillage of the soil, short of scratching the surface to sow seed
or
harvest root vegetables
leaving spent plants in place to degrade in the garden, add nutrients to
the
soil or self seed
using surface mulches to suppress weeds and add nutrients that slowly
leach
in to the soil
using green mulches like legumes or clover to add nitrogen to the soil
crop rotation to protect the integrity of the soil, for instance following
leafy plants with root crops etc

Thanks in advance for your contribution

rob

perhaps a point of clarification needed here, my original explaination may
not have been specific enough. It is not the proces of constructing a no dig
garden I am wondering about, through thanks to those who have made usueful
suggestions in that area. It is actually in the process of gardening,
propogating, rearing plants using a no dig approach, no tillage of the soil,
low input, low labour, 'do nothing' process. What got be interested
initially was this guys thoughts

Masanobu Fukuoka http://larryhaftl.com/ffo/fover.html

It sounded like a really good lazy way (and sustainable) of growing veges n
herbs. I have only started experimenting.

The way my dad and grandad used to do vege gardens of digging in compost and
manure every year, digging over weeds, spending hours preparing beds seemed
labour intensive. They seemed to need to constantly put back nutrients into
the soil as the process of rearing veges stripped the nutrients out.
Moreover the more I read the more is suggested that constantly tilling the
soil to nay significant depth actually damages the soil structure and its
potency.

Fukuoka says that leaving the nutrients where they are greatly reduces this
robbing of the soils vitality and nature and worms will dig organic matter
in to the soil for you. That sounds good in theory, I hope someone has
matched it in reality and can report on that.

rob