Digging

Digging can be a controversial subject. Some people don't dig, feeling that it affects the structure of the soil. For me, digging the vegetable garden is a regular yearly job. I dig to remove weed roots such as bindweed and ground elder, plus clearing the weeds that seed, and digging up the trodden ground, to prepare it for seeding. I only dig the vegetable bed, as those are all annuals, and I can get rid of everything, and start again next year with clear ground.

I dig with a fork, and also have something to put any weeds in. Sometimes I have two containers, so I can sort out the roots to go into the green bin from the rest which can go on the compost heap.

I start from the edge of the vegetable garden, which is my neighbour's fence. I dig a strip a few yards wide and about 6 inches deep at a time, keeping a straight line, and removing weeds and weed roots as I go. Luckily the bad weed roots are white, which makes them easy to spot! There are potatoes left over from their harvest as well. I dig slowly and steadily, expecting only to do a small amount each time, but making sure I clear it of weeds, and keeping everything neat. Each forkful of earth should be thrown forward onto what you've dug already, not covering what you haven't dug yet. The first photo shows the clean line of what I've dug and what I haven't. The edge of the digging is rougher, so when I do the next strip, I make sure that I have dug over between the strips.

I do the digging when the weeds have stopped growing (around Bonfire Night - November 5th) and before I need to start sowing the next year's vegetable seeds, around March or even February. I have a tradition of digging over the Christmas period, as I find it helps to get rid of any surplus pounds put on by too much food! However, I must point out this is only possible because I have a garden with sandy soil. This can be dug at any time over winter, even immediately after it's rained (or even, once, while it was raining!) You have to be more careful with clay soil, but I don't know anything about the details.

After digging, I spread compost, rotted over the year, on top. I don't dig it in. As you can see, some of the compost hasn't rotted! It seems to disappear into the soil. If it doesn't, then I can use it after sowing seeds to discourage the cats from digging up my nice rows of seeds to go to the toilet!

Digging in progress

Dug v. undug

Spread compost

Click on photos for large version.