Jeff Thies wrote:
Billy wrote:
In article ,
"Thos" wrote:

Why don't you just pull them out? Aren't you amending the beds
each new year with compost, new organic matter and amendments? I
would think you would need to dig the new amendments in and the old
roots would be in the way.
Yeah, well, that may be what you think, but some of us think that you
destroy soil structure and reduce humus in the soil when you dig or
rototill.

That is a completely new concept for me.

But I have soil that is less than nutritious and I work in
amendments just to loosen it up. My best soil last year gave me 2"
carrots.

Carrots are not a good starting point for hard or compacted soil.

Leaving that aside, is there some layering in biological activity
that gets disturbed by digging? I'm just trying to wrap my mind
around that.
Jeff


There are a number of things going on and that includes changes to
biological activity and physical changes to the soil.. Broadly, too
frequent working of the soil tends to destroy the structure of it.
Frequently tilled soils lose water and organic matter more quickly, in large
part due to exposure to the atmosphere. See "no dig", "no till", "zero
till" etc for details. Using power equipment is more likely to do damage
than hand tilling.

Here is one ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-till_farming

The purists never till but this can take a long time to develop deep soil
with good tilth particularly on compacted or degraded soils. Some
compromises that work quicker are to only till when establishing the bed or
to only till at major renovations, eg annually or less often.

It follows from trying to get and maintain good tilth that you do not
compact the soil, so you make your beds such that you never need to walk on
them or wheel the loaded barrow over them.

David