No-dig gardening
Encyclopedia
No-dig gardening is a non-cultivation method used by some organic gardeners. The origins of no-dig gardening are unclear, and may be based on pre-industrial or nineteenth-century farming techniques. Two pioneers of the method in the twentieth century included F. C. King, Head Gardener at Levens Hall, South Westmorland, in the Lake District of England, who posed the Question "Is Digging Necessary?" in 1946 and a mysterious gardener from Middlecliffe in the UK, A. Guest, who in 1948 published the book Gardening Without Digging.www.gardeningwithoutdigging.com The work of these gardeners was supported by the Good Gardeners Association in the UK. Masanobu Fukuoka
started his pioneering research work in this domain in 1938, and began publishing in the 1970s his Fukuokan philosophy of "Do Nothing Farming", which is now acknowledged by some as the tap root of the Permaculture
movement. No-dig gardening was also promoted by Australian Esther Deans in the 1970s, and American gardener Ruth Stout
advocated a "permanent" garden mulching technique in Gardening Without Work and no-dig methods in the 1950s and 1960s.
This technique recognizes that micro- and macro-biotic organisms constitute a "food web
" community in the soil, necessary for the healthy cycling of nutrients and prevention of problematic organisms and diseases. The plants transfer a portion of the carbon energy they produce to the soil, and microbes that benefit from this energy in turn convert available organic substances in the soil to the mineral elements the plants need to thrive.
are to remove weed
s, loosen and aerate the soil, and incorporate organic matter such as compost
or manure
into lower soil layers. In areas with thin soil and high erosion there is a strong case against digging, which argues that in the long term it can be detrimental to the food web in the fragile topsoil. While digging is an effective way of removing perennial
weed roots, it also often causes seeds that can remain dormant for many decades to come to the surface and germinate
. Digging can also damage soil structure
, causing compaction
, and unbalance symbiotic and mutualist interactions among soil life. Digging tends to displace nutrients, shifting surface organic material deeper, where there is less oxygen to support the decomposition to plant-available nutrients, which then need to be otherwise replenished. Digging is practiced traditionally in countries with old, deep, rich soils such as Western Europe, however traditionally there, this is followed by periodic resting of the soil
, usually with an undisturbed cover crop
.
, compost
, leaf mold
, spent mushroom compost
, old straw, etc., is added directly to the soil surface as a mulch
at least 5-15 centimeters (2–6 in) deep, which is then incorporated by the actions of worm
s, insects and microbes. Worms and other soil life also assist in building up the soil's structure, their tunnels providing aeration and drainage, and their excretions bind together soil crumbs. This natural biosphere maintains healthy conditions in the upper soil horizons where annual plant roots thrive. No-dig systems are said to be freer of pest
s and disease, possibly due to a more balanced soil population being allowed to build up in this undisturbed environment, and by encouraging the buildup of beneficial rather than harmful soil fungi. Moisture is also retained more efficiently under mulch than on the surface of bare earth, allowing slower percolation and less leaching of nutrients.
Another no-dig method is sheet mulching
wherein a garden area is covered with wetted paper or cardboard, compost and topped off with landscape mulch.
A no-dig system is easier than digging. It is a long term process, and is reliant upon having plentiful organic matter to provide mulch material. It is also helpful to remove any perennial weed roots from the area beforehand, although their hold can be weakened by applying a light-excluding surface layer such as large sheets of cardboard or several thicknesses of spread out newspaper before adding the compost mulch. The newspaper or cardboard should be thoroughly wet as well. A popular book, Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza (Rodale Press, Inc.) provides excellent instructions for the novice user.
Esther Dean, an Australian gardener and author, pioneered no dig gardening. Dean wrote the books No-Dig Gardening and Leaves of Life. She was still actively gardening at age 86 and promoted gardens for those with special needs. She inspired many famous gardeners including Bill Mollison
of the Permaculture Movement
although she said "it is not quite how I would do it", implying she did not allow nature to take over, but retained formality with strict garden edges and more annuals.
Gardens fashioned on Esther Dean's no dig gardening principles include Randwick Community Organic Garden (RCOG), Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Masanobu Fukuoka
was a Japanese farmer and philosopher celebrated for his natural farming and re-vegetation of desertified lands. He was a proponent of no-till, no-herbicide grain cultivation farming methods traditional to many indigenous cultures, from which he created a particular method of farming, commonly...
started his pioneering research work in this domain in 1938, and began publishing in the 1970s his Fukuokan philosophy of "Do Nothing Farming", which is now acknowledged by some as the tap root of the Permaculture
Permaculture
Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that is modeled on the relationships found in nature. It is based on the ecology of how things interrelate rather than on the strictly biological concerns that form the foundation of modern agriculture...
movement. No-dig gardening was also promoted by Australian Esther Deans in the 1970s, and American gardener Ruth Stout
Ruth Stout
Ruth Stout was an American author best known for her "No-Work" gardening books and techniques.- Early and Mid-Life :...
advocated a "permanent" garden mulching technique in Gardening Without Work and no-dig methods in the 1950s and 1960s.
This technique recognizes that micro- and macro-biotic organisms constitute a "food web
Soil life
Soil life or soil biota is a collective term for all the organisms living within the soil.-Overview:In balanced soil, plants grow in an active and steady environment. The mineral content of the soil and its heartiful structure are important for their well-being, but it is the life in the earth that...
" community in the soil, necessary for the healthy cycling of nutrients and prevention of problematic organisms and diseases. The plants transfer a portion of the carbon energy they produce to the soil, and microbes that benefit from this energy in turn convert available organic substances in the soil to the mineral elements the plants need to thrive.
History
Historically the reasons for tilling the soilSoil
Soil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics...
are to remove weed
Weed
A weed in a general sense is a plant that is considered by the user of the term to be a nuisance, and normally applied to unwanted plants in human-controlled settings, especially farm fields and gardens, but also lawns, parks, woods, and other areas. More specifically, the term is often used to...
s, loosen and aerate the soil, and incorporate organic matter such as compost
Compost
Compost is organic matter that has been decomposed and recycled as a fertilizer and soil amendment. Compost is a key ingredient in organic farming. At its most essential, the process of composting requires simply piling up waste outdoors and waiting for the materials to break down from anywhere...
or manure
Manure
Manure is organic matter used as organic fertilizer in agriculture. Manures contribute to the fertility of the soil by adding organic matter and nutrients, such as nitrogen, that are trapped by bacteria in the soil...
into lower soil layers. In areas with thin soil and high erosion there is a strong case against digging, which argues that in the long term it can be detrimental to the food web in the fragile topsoil. While digging is an effective way of removing perennial
Perennial plant
A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...
weed roots, it also often causes seeds that can remain dormant for many decades to come to the surface and germinate
Germination
Germination is the process in which a plant or fungus emerges from a seed or spore, respectively, and begins growth. The most common example of germination is the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an angiosperm or gymnosperm. However the growth of a sporeling from a spore, for example the...
. Digging can also damage soil structure
Soil structure
Soil structure is determined by how individual soil granules clump or bind together and aggregate, and therefore, the arrangement of soil pores between them...
, causing compaction
Soil compaction
In Geotechnical engineering, soil compaction is the process in which a stress applied to a soil causes densification as air is displaced from the pores between the soil grains. When stress is applied that causes densification due to water being displaced from between the soil grains then...
, and unbalance symbiotic and mutualist interactions among soil life. Digging tends to displace nutrients, shifting surface organic material deeper, where there is less oxygen to support the decomposition to plant-available nutrients, which then need to be otherwise replenished. Digging is practiced traditionally in countries with old, deep, rich soils such as Western Europe, however traditionally there, this is followed by periodic resting of the soil
Crop rotation
Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of dissimilar types of crops in the same area in sequential seasons.Crop rotation confers various benefits to the soil. A traditional element of crop rotation is the replenishment of nitrogen through the use of green manure in sequence with cereals...
, usually with an undisturbed cover crop
Cover crop
Cover crops are crops planted primarily to manage soil fertility, soil quality, water, weeds, pests, diseases, biodiversity and wildlife in agroecosystems , ecological systems managed and largely shaped by humans across a range of intensities to produce food, feed, or fiber.Cover crops are of...
.
Methods
No-dig methods allow nature to carry out cultivation operations. Organic matter such as well rotted manureManure
Manure is organic matter used as organic fertilizer in agriculture. Manures contribute to the fertility of the soil by adding organic matter and nutrients, such as nitrogen, that are trapped by bacteria in the soil...
, compost
Compost
Compost is organic matter that has been decomposed and recycled as a fertilizer and soil amendment. Compost is a key ingredient in organic farming. At its most essential, the process of composting requires simply piling up waste outdoors and waiting for the materials to break down from anywhere...
, leaf mold
Leaf mold
Leaf mold is a form of compost produced by the fungal breakdown of shrub and tree leaves, which are generally too dry, acidic, or low in nitrogen for bacterial decomposition.-Description:...
, spent mushroom compost
Spent mushroom compost
Spent mushroom compost is the residual compost waste generated by the mushroom production industry. It is readily available , and its formulation generally consists of a combination of wheat straw, dried blood, horse manure and ground chalk, composted together...
, old straw, etc., is added directly to the soil surface as a mulch
Mulch
In agriculture and gardening, is a protective cover placed over the soil to retain moisture, reduce erosion, provide nutrients, and suppress weed growth and seed germination. Mulching in gardens and landscaping mimics the leaf cover that is found on forest floors....
at least 5-15 centimeters (2–6 in) deep, which is then incorporated by the actions of worm
Worm
The term worm refers to an obsolete taxon used by Carolus Linnaeus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for all non-arthropod invertebrate animals, and stems from the Old English word wyrm. Currently it is used to describe many different distantly-related animals that typically have a long cylindrical...
s, insects and microbes. Worms and other soil life also assist in building up the soil's structure, their tunnels providing aeration and drainage, and their excretions bind together soil crumbs. This natural biosphere maintains healthy conditions in the upper soil horizons where annual plant roots thrive. No-dig systems are said to be freer of pest
Pest (animal)
A pest is an animal which is detrimental to humans or human concerns. It is a loosely defined term, often overlapping with the related terms vermin, weeds, parasites and pathogens...
s and disease, possibly due to a more balanced soil population being allowed to build up in this undisturbed environment, and by encouraging the buildup of beneficial rather than harmful soil fungi. Moisture is also retained more efficiently under mulch than on the surface of bare earth, allowing slower percolation and less leaching of nutrients.
Another no-dig method is sheet mulching
Sheet mulching
In permaculture, sheet mulching is an agricultural no-dig gardening technique that attempts to mimic natural forests' processes. When deployed properly and in combination with other permacultural principles, it can generate healthy, productive and low maintenance ecosystems.-Technique:A model for...
wherein a garden area is covered with wetted paper or cardboard, compost and topped off with landscape mulch.
A no-dig system is easier than digging. It is a long term process, and is reliant upon having plentiful organic matter to provide mulch material. It is also helpful to remove any perennial weed roots from the area beforehand, although their hold can be weakened by applying a light-excluding surface layer such as large sheets of cardboard or several thicknesses of spread out newspaper before adding the compost mulch. The newspaper or cardboard should be thoroughly wet as well. A popular book, Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza (Rodale Press, Inc.) provides excellent instructions for the novice user.
Esther Dean, an Australian gardener and author, pioneered no dig gardening. Dean wrote the books No-Dig Gardening and Leaves of Life. She was still actively gardening at age 86 and promoted gardens for those with special needs. She inspired many famous gardeners including Bill Mollison
Bill Mollison
Bruce Charles 'Bill' Mollison is a researcher, author, scientist, teacher and naturalist. He is considered to be the 'father of permaculture', an integrated system of design, co-developed with David Holmgren, that encompasses not only agriculture, horticulture, architecture and ecology, but also...
of the Permaculture Movement
Permaculture
Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that is modeled on the relationships found in nature. It is based on the ecology of how things interrelate rather than on the strictly biological concerns that form the foundation of modern agriculture...
although she said "it is not quite how I would do it", implying she did not allow nature to take over, but retained formality with strict garden edges and more annuals.
Gardens fashioned on Esther Dean's no dig gardening principles include Randwick Community Organic Garden (RCOG), Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
See also
- AquaponicsAquaponicsAquaponics is a sustainable food production system that combines a traditional aquaculture with hydroponics in a symbiotic environment. In the aquaculture, effluents accumulate in the water, increasing toxicity for the fish...
- Masanobu FukuokaMasanobu Fukuokawas a Japanese farmer and philosopher celebrated for his natural farming and re-vegetation of desertified lands. He was a proponent of no-till, no-herbicide grain cultivation farming methods traditional to many indigenous cultures, from which he created a particular method of farming, commonly...
- No-till farmingNo-till farmingNo-till farming is a way of growing crops from year to year without disturbing the soil through tillage. No-till is an agricultural technique which increases the amount of water and organic matter in the soil and decreases erosion...
- Veganic gardening
- Sheet mulchingSheet mulchingIn permaculture, sheet mulching is an agricultural no-dig gardening technique that attempts to mimic natural forests' processes. When deployed properly and in combination with other permacultural principles, it can generate healthy, productive and low maintenance ecosystems.-Technique:A model for...
- PermaculturePermaculturePermaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that is modeled on the relationships found in nature. It is based on the ecology of how things interrelate rather than on the strictly biological concerns that form the foundation of modern agriculture...