The Complete Guide to No-Dig Gardening

Grow beautiful vegetables, herbs, and flowers - the easy way! Layer Your Way to Healthy Soil-Eliminate tilling and digging-Build a productive garden naturally-Reduce weeding and watering

Charlie Nardozzi

• Publisher: Cool Springs Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780760367919
• eBook ISBN: 9780760367926
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Horticulture
• Index: Biological Sciences

A lush, productive vegetable, herb, and flower garden doesn’t have to require endless hours of time and unlimited energy. No-dig gardening methods let you keep the rototiller in the shed and focus on what you like best—planting and harvesting! 
 
With the step-by-step instructions in The Complete Guide to No-Dig Gardening, you’ll discover how to build healthy, easy-to-plant garden soil by adding layers of organic matter using one of several different no-dig techniques. Whether you garden in a small, urban backyard or on several acres in the country, this simple approach lets you grow more food and blooms than ever before, and leave the gas-guzzling tiller behind forever. Plus, when you don't disturb the soil, weed seeds stay buried deep where they can't germinate and carbon is kept sequestered in the ground. No-dig gardening techniques also lead to reduced watering needs and a healthy population of beneficial soil microbes that help feed your plants by breaking down organic matter and releasing nutrients.  
 
In addition to extolling the endless benefits of no-dig growing, author and veggie-growing expert Charlie Nardozzi hands you the tools you need to: 

• Create a new no-dig garden from scratch
• Transition an existing garden to the no-dig method
• Build the most productive, nutrient-rich soil possible
• Recycle yard waste by building a Hugelkultur planting mound 
• Discover more about some great variations of no-dig gardening, including raised beds and containers
• Bring your no-dig garden indoors for a continuous harvest

Welcome oodles of fresh, homegrown veggies, herbs, and flowers into your life—with no back-breaking work required! 

Chapter 1

THE BENEFITS OF NO-DIG GARDENING

Among the many benefits of no-dig gardening is a more productive garden with less work.

Interest in gardening continues to grow around the world. More and more people crave contact with the natural world and want to feel more in control of their lives.

Growing a garden is a simple way to produce some of your own food and flowers, reduce stress and anxiety, and feel more connected to the natural world. But as interest in gardening grows, there’s also a desire to make gardening less time-consuming, more productive, and more Earth-friendly. That’s why many gardeners are turning to the no-dig gardening method. No-dig gardening requires less work than traditional gardening practices, can be more productive, and helps sequester carbon, reducing global warming. No-dig gardening increases soil health and fertility, reduces weeding, watering, and fertilizing, and requires fewer outside inputs. Let’s look at each of these benefits in more detail.

The Soil Wins

One of the basic tenets of no-dig gardening is similar to a medical doctor’s Hippocratic oath—“first, do no harm.” The soil is teeming with seen and unseen life. It’s estimated there are more bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and other creatures in one teaspoon (4.8 g) of soil than there are people on the planet! While it seems innocuous to dig or till your soil to create a garden, it actually is doing more harm than good. Digging and tilling destroys many of these microbes and the sensitive and intricate network of soil creatures, upsetting the balance of soil life underground. This destruction can lead to a temporary increase in release of nutrients for plants, but that effect soon diminishes. Not only is soil life destroyed, but organic matter (decaying plant and animal materials—more on this later in the book) is decomposed at a faster rate, leading to the release of more carbon into the atmosphere. Tilling and digging also upsets the soil structure. Soil in tilled gardens can eventually become more compacted, with fewer air and water spaces.

No-dig gardening helps preserve soil moisture and fertility and makes for better air and water flow. In a world where global warming is causing more intense storms with heavy rainfalls and high winds, no-dig beds are better prepared to withstand this onslaught. Organic matter in the soil is maintained and increased through no-dig practices. Organic matter is well known for improving the soil’s water-holding capacity, opening up air and water drainage channels, and buffering the impact of heavy rains and drought. Conventional tilling only opens up the soil about 1 foot (30 cm) deep, and it sometimes creates a layer of impermeable soil called hardpan. These tilled gardens aren’t able to withstand heavy downpours as easily, since the water can’t penetrate deeply into the soil. No-dig beds foster the natural drainage patterns of the soil, allowing for deep penetration of water and less erosion. This also allows roots to grow deeper so plants can withstand drought better.

No-dig gardening beds are more resilient to increased vagaries of the weather due to climate change, such as heavy rain storms, drought, and strong winds.

No-dig gardens help sequester carbon in the soil in the form of long-lived humus. Humus is highly broken-down organic matter that helps feed plants.

No-dig gardening reduces wind erosion as well, using lots of organic mulch to protect the soil year-round. This organic material provides a physical barrier from drying winds during storms.

The microbial networks in healthy soils, such as mycorrhizae (fungal networks that have a symbiotic relationship with plant roots), are fostered by soil organic matter and thrive in no-dig beds. These network relationships also make nutrients more available to plants. Roots are also able to access nutrients in the soil easier due to the open structure, reducing the need for lots of additional fertilizers.

No-Dig Helps the Planet

With concern about global warming and many people looking for ways to help, sequestering carbon in the soil has been touted as one of the solutions. As the planet and its soils warm, increased bacterial activity will release more carbon into the atmosphere. No-dig gardening is a simple yet impactful way to help. By not turning the soil, we’re slowing down the rate of soil carbon decomposition. Also, no-dig gardening encourages the formation of humus (which I’ll talk about in depth on page 25) that holds carbon in the soil. If you’re looking for a way to reduce global warming, the simple act of no-dig gardening will help.

One of the biggest benefits of no-dig gardening is not having to do the hard work of digging up a new garden bed.

No-dig garden beds make gardening on an impermeable surface or poor soil possible, since you build your own soil to form the bed.

Less Work for You

While all this talk of healthier soil and saving the planet is important, many times it’s the practicality of no-dig gardening that is most attractive to gardeners. I like the fact that no-dig gardening is less work. No longer will you have to dig new garden beds, turn old beds each spring, or remove sod and weeds. But for some, this less-work ideal may seem counterintuitive, because don’t tools like rototillers and tractors make for less back-breaking work in the garden? I won’t lie to you. No-dig gardening does require some work, especially when starting out. Gathering and layering organic materials, compost, and raised bed materials (if you choose to use them) to build your no-dig beds will take time and effort. But the work is nothing like trying to dig a new garden bed. Plus, the beauty of no-dig gardening is once your beds are established, the workload decreases. This far outpaces any temporary benefits you get from digging and turning the soil.

Most gardeners till or turn the soil to prepare beds for planting and to kill weeds. Many gardeners have spent countless hours on hot summer days sweating as they hoe or pull weeds. But many of the weeds we’re battling germinate after the soil has been turned. There are literally thousands of weed seeds in your garden just waiting for the moment when there’s enough warmth, water, and light to grow. By not turning the soil, we leave those weed seeds unable to germinate. No-dig works on perennial weeds too, smothering them with organic matter so they eventually die. If any weeds do appear—and you will get some—they will be easy to remove by hand because the soil is so light and filled with organic matter.

Even gardeners with little room to grow can create no-dig garden beds. Since they are more productive than regular beds, you won’t need many to produce plenty of food and flowers for your home.

The soil in no-dig beds is easier to plant by hand. I often don’t even ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction: What is No-Dig Gardening?
• 1 The Benefits of No-Dig Gardening
• 2 Soil Considerations in the No-Dig Garden
• 3 Building a No-Dig Garden from Scratch
• 4 Converting an Existing Garden to No-Dig
• 5 Planting and Growing in Your No-Dig Garden
• 6 Variations on the No-Dig Concept
• 7 Containers—The Original No-Dig Garden
• 8 Bringing It Indoors
• Resources
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Index
• Copyright
• Dedication