I have not put an ounce of commercial fertilizer or manure on these test gardens in 10 years.
For the past 10 years I’ve been conducting a home garden experiment on eight 24 by 24-foot gardens. I started after a discussion with a soil scientist and agricultural researcher at our state university. Part of his job was to analyze trends in the food and dairy industries and to predict what was coming next. What he forecast scared me. Read the rest of this entry »
Digging is usually necessary to incorporate bulky organic materials, relieve compaction, improve drainage, improve soil texture and control growth of weeds.
- Single digging Type of digging in which the soil is cultivated to the depth of the spade blade. The most widely practised form of digging, adequate for most ordinary soils of reasonable depth which do not overlay an intractable subsoil. First, take out a trench one blade deep, then fill this in using adjacent soil, turning each spadeful upsidedown as you do. As you move in this way across the areas of ground, the trench moves with you. Soil from the first trench is used to fill the final one at the other end of the plot.
- Double digging Digging soil to two depths of the spade. Especially useful on land which has not been cultivated before or where a hard subsoil layer is impeding drainage and the penetration of plant roots. Read the rest of this entry »
