Double-Dug vs. No-Dig

[so lucky]

Really? How long have you been working with it? All of the compost/soil books I checked out said the soil can be improved and made into a "Fine Loam" (or Tilth. I presume they're the same thing) by adding enough compost.

Maybe they forgot to add "If you truck your own dirt in first."

It's very interesting how the real world seems to differ a bit from these books.

Kinda like learning how to paint a portrait by reading a book on it. Ya just gotta do it.
This garden area is old, but I let it go to grass for about 6 years, then have been gardening in it again for 4 years. I've been adding compost, straw, chicken poo every year. I guess it is some better, but certainly not "loamy."

 

[AMKuska]

That's really interesting. I'm really excited about "just doing it" this year! Hopefully everything will go really well and I'll have a huge garden to celebrate with you guys!

 

[so lucky]

I was wondering if there are fall cover crops that would improve all that clay. I have deep sandy soil that we have gardened for 37 years. It loses moisture and fertility easily, but I will take that over all that cement soil some of you deal with!

You want me to send you some clay, catjac?

 

[catjac1975]

You want me to send you some clay, catjac?

Well, I do like to do pottery.

 

[baymule]

My garden is in beds between the sidewalk and driveway. It was rock hard. I dug it with a shovel for several years.....ummm......until year before last, so that would have me running a "hand" dragline for 7 years. I have composted twice a year, dug like the two big dogs in my backyard and have finally made loose soil. From concrete to rich soil........ Now I just put the compost on top and use a spading fork. No more turning the soil over, jumping up and down on the shovel like a pogo stick!!

 

[so lucky]

Yeah, that jumping up and down on the shovel--sometimes that's my only form of exercise.

 

[catjac1975]

My garden is in beds between the sidewalk and driveway. It was rock hard. I dug it with a shovel for several years.....ummm......until year before last, so that would have me running a "hand" dragline for 7 years. I have composted twice a year, dug like the two big dogs in my backyard and have finally made loose soil. From concrete to rich soil........ Now I just put the compost on top and use a spading fork. No more turning the soil over, jumping up and down on the shovel like a pogo stick!!

I don't know if I would be the gardener that I am if I had had to deal with what you did.

 

[baymule]

Actually, before I quit my job to care for my mother, I worked 10-12 hours a day and didn't have a lot of time to tend a garden. So I worked hard for 3 weekends getting it all ready, hauling horse poop, digging and turning the concrete dirt over, and getting it ready to plant. To make maintenance easier on me, I opened up paper feed sacks (not the plastic ones) or used newspaper and covered the beds. I weighted down the paper with bricks. I cut holes in the paper, dug a hole, inserted a plant and drew the dirt up to it. Water and pick, pretty much after that. For fall planting; repeat.

 

[catjac1975]

So curious about your cement soil. After doing all of that work to get it plantable. Is the upkeep the same every year or is a maintenance of compost enough to keep it workable?

 

[baymule]

It is lovely soil now, loose, full of earthworms. I just use a spading fork to loosen it up and top dress with compost. Now if I pulled up the brick walkways and tried to plant there, it would be start all over again. I pull up the bricks periodically to pull all the weeds and nutgrass that come up in the cracks and the dirt under them is just as hard as it ever was. I don't mortar the bricks, because someday I plan on moving and I am taking my bricks with me.

Here's a shot that shows my brick walkways, the driveway and the sidewalk. The PVC frame is my greenhouse (that failed this winter, wah )