The Cons of No Dig with Clay Soil 

Great video, Jenna. I have the same issues with no-dig. It also assumes that the underlaying soil is already filled with soil life. For those of us with compacted soil, sandy soil, and soil low in organic matter, much of the soil life that no-dig depends on aren't in place. Your end message is spot on.

We moved to our current property 4 years ago. The very first thing I wanted to do was to start a vegetable garden. When I dug deep to see what I was working with, I found I had 4 inches of soil on top of hard, wet clay. I ended up borrowing a back hoe from a friend and dug trenches and laid down drainage pipe. I used to have standing water after an inch of rain. No more. I then had to build the soil up because it wasn't deep and fertile enough. After 3 years of building up the soil, I finally planted last year. Worked out fine. This year I'm behind by about 2 weeks because we have had over 5 inches of rain since March 1st. I've had 2 hip replacements, back surgery and pins put in several fingers and I'm gardening like I am still a kid. My plot is only 31 feet by 15 feet, but I do alot of vertical growing due to lack of yard space. My garden is surrounded by lavender and strategically planted with other annuals and perennials. I also have a bee hive and the lavender honey is outstanding. Thank you for sharing all of your knowledge with us and good luck this growing season.

I totally agree, for many of us “organic” and “no till” are goals to work toward over YEARS, $ and time permitting. For 20+ years my garden & property has been what I proudly and affectionately call “more-ganic” and “low-till”. My suburban lot had ground that could not be penetrated with a shovel or fork, dominated by 100’ pines and some weedy grass. Quoting a wise garden center owner “It’s Time vs Money. If you don’t have Time think Money. If you don’t have Money, think Time.” When there is time, it is spent collecting and processing “free” materials like leaves from neighbors, wood ash, “bio-char”, paper grocery bags & cardboard boxes. Recently, I found a reliable source of sawdust to mix with my grass clippings to make more compost much faster. New garden areas tilled with mowed leaves & compost for a year or two, then layered with no tilling. All shrub & perennial beds are covered with cardboard or grocery bags and topped with pine needle or leaf mulch annually. There is finally about 8+ inches of beautiful dirt & happy worms in all beds. We all have to start with what we have and our climate and do the best we can with our time, money and available resources 🌿🌾🌻🌸🌦⏰

Very Encouraging to see a woman so enthusiastic, diligent and intelligent about gardening.

You have just given the best advice, use the method that is most suitable for the soil that you have and the veges that you are growing!

Jenna, please continue taking your sensible stand on the matter. You’re just being a very sensible person. I have watched Charles’s programs for a long time, good on him that it worked where he gardens for years. We’re all in different countries and have very different soils, climate, etc. I have rocks underneath my clay soils! I had to break the rocks to get a decent depth of soil to grow anything. The winds I have would blow away any compost if I drop them like Charles did to his plots, he’s in the UK for goodness sake. I have to dig in my compost or I lose them soon enough. Jenna, as they say, I dig what you’re doing, period! Love your sensible presentation!

This is so encouraging. Many times the no-dig approach is spoken of as if it’s easy to haul materials from so many other places which isn’t always possible. Sometimes you just need to work with what you have, period.

A few more solutions would be helpful. Some helpful ones I think should be included. 1. A french drain is simple to install and ensures excess water is directed away 2. Cover crop plants with deep tap roots penetrate clay soil. Those roots eventually break down and create humus. Comfrey is a self seeding perennial that dives into clay soil up to 3 meters!

Hi Jenna, a very sensible & balanced look at ‘No Till.’ I’ve come to realize that No Till is to be seen more as a goal than a hard & fast methodology. Especially in a new garden. Once you reach it you’ll know it. Interestingly, there is a fantastic tool known as a Broadfork. They are simple, but expensive due to a lot of good steel & blacksmithing skills required. I thought it was way too expensive for me. Then my brother gifted me one. Boy did my opinion change! Broad forking is actually considered ‘no till.’ A broadfork is basically a wide, heavy fork with two strong handles, one on each side. You start the tines into the soil, then stand on the fork bar, using your body’s weight & wiggle/rocking to sink it completely down to the bar. Then you step back & pivot the handles down, which cracks open the soil. Fill the cracks with compost/alfalfa pellets/leaves/manure/organics. Step back 8-12” and repeat until your plot is all loosened. This works best on moist, NOT soggy clay/earth. So wet your hard pan days before using this fork. Any time of year is good to use a broadfork, fall is the best time if the organic material still needs to break down a bit (hot manure/grain pellets). In spring, compost can go right in. You’re also getting air into the soil, always a good thing. Broadforking does not cause an explosion of weed growth like roto-tilling does. It’s kinda fun & a little workout. There are very good videos on You Tube about this. If you’d like to “try-before-you-buy,” find your county/parish extension agent and ask them if they have a “demonstration farm.” Every one of the farms I’ve been to use the broadfork. If you agents are friendly, they might let you put a refundable deposit down to borrow for an afternoon. If they’re not that friendly, you could ask them if they have an area that needs forking that you could try it on. Or maybe just let you fork a few times somewhere. It’s good to make friends with extension agents & demonstration farmers. The whole reason for them to exist is helping us grow things better. The wider the fork, the more weight is required to operate. It’s important that the tines are not round rods, but made from steel bars for strength. Sort of like a large version of the guard that slips over hair clippers. Try Craigslist or Amazon, make sure to read the reviews and pay attention to durability issues. You’ve mentioned that you admire your hardworking worms for doing a lot of the work for you; might I suggest that you employ other hard workers from the Plant Kingdom? It’s new to me, but I’ve read many favorable things about green manures in general, and Fava, buckwheat & comfrey specifically. This year I’m planting Fava & buckwheat cover crops. Interestingly, the fresh new leaves of Fava are also nutritious and edible in salads & soups. If your winters don’t freeze your soil rock hard, you can plant them (6” spacing) in the fall & they’ll come up & grow over winter. They send roots down through the hard pan. When you harvest, use a hoe to cut off the plants so the roots stay in place to rot & breakdown. You’ve just increased your soils organic matter & left tunnels just like the worms. There are nitrogen nodules among the roots that will breakdown & fertilize your beds. According to Dr. H. Lector, Fava’s are exquisite when paired with a nice Chianti. If you don’t like ‘em, compost ‘em before they set fruit. If you like what they do to your hard pan, you could have a Fava patch that moves to a different location every year. Oddly, they’re expensive to buy as garden seeds, unless you find a bag of Fava cover crop seeds. I found them at nuts-dot-com by the pound, reasonably priced. Buckwheat’s another nitrogen fixer to look into. Comfrey is the ultimate sod-buster but a little hard to find. The best comfrey is Russian #14. Wild comfrey spreads like crazy if you let it go to seed, but #14 generates sterile seeds that don’t grow; like rhubarb it is propagated via root cuttings. I’m still waiting to find comfrey starts. Might be enough for a follow-on video.

I have been a gardener in Ohio for years, I do mostly in ground. I have always done a deep till every spring, mainly because that’s how I was taught by my dad, until 2 years now I,m only do a light till when needed. It’s working out nicely adding organic matter and cover crop in the fall, fresh organic matter in the spring before planting. The worm population is growing rapidly! I’m pleased with the results so far, it makes a huge difference when your gardening in ground verses raised beds, using the no till method. it doesn’t have to be complicated, just what works best for you!!

Nice to finally hear someone acknowledge the cost of what a lot of YT home gardening presenters recommend. I see some channels applying soil from 20 litre plastic bags and wonder how they afford it. A 20 litre bag of soil goes for between $5-$15 depending on quality and just one of our raised garden beds would need at least 6. The ground beds are 90 feet long and about 4 feet wide so you are talking thousands of dollars. Same with buying compost or mulch. We garden with a make do attitude and buy almost nothing. Lawn clippings are used for mulch, and yes you have more seed and therefore more weed come up using lawn clippings instead of clean straw, but guess what, it is a free by product. Soil improvement (base is red clay) has to be a slow process. Whatever we can compost from kitchen and around the yard gets used but once it is all used we have to wait till nature sends more. The idea of gardening was to know what went into our food and save money. I find it hard to imagine most people are saving money if they are spending so much at the nursery. Mostly we don't even buy seeds because we collect our own for resowing. We also have drainage issues with our clay. When we dig a hole to plant a tree the hole usually fills 1/3 with water. Unless it is summer. Then you need a jackhammer to dig a hole.

Great video! Love how you troubleshoot and adapt to your specific environment and it’s challenges. Thanks!

I have very clay soil and no dig has been amazing for us. HOWEVER, we DID have to initially buy/bring in a bunch of compost to start with. Now though, it’s easier and only a little is needed. I never tilled the land beforehand either.

Thank you for this video. After almost 20 years I have my soil much better than the clay I started with. I have adapted to a mix of raised beds and raised rows. (pretty much like yours) except it took several years of tilling in organic mater and double digging to create them. Now that it is established I just dig a trench down the middle and add composted manure and amendments than cover it back up. I use cardboard and woven weed fabric to control weeds. No mulch because of my Virginia creeper problem. Mulch just makes it easier for the stuff to sneak in and get established before I know it's there. So many people read a book and become militant about one method or another and think it is the best and only way. Every garden has it's own challenges and one size does not fit all.

Agreed. I’ve found that Dowding’s no-dig with broadforking and mulching works for me.

This is literally so comforting, we bought our house last year, and about half of the yard has been gardened and has decent soil, but the rest is basically just hardpan, there's barely even any topsoil. I do want to dig as little as possible, but it just seemed like it didn't make sense to not dig at all when there's no apparent life in the soil since it's just red clay. So yes, this makes me feel like my instincts are maybe on the right track, so thank you for this!

I have the same issues here. I have to rip the compacted soil first and then start my no dig garden after that. The soil needs aeration for it to actually build microbial life in it. Just a rip to start, then there is no digging after that. Those nutrients need to get to the soil below to get it all going. I enjoyed the video. 👍

Thanks Jenna! This was super helpful. As new gardeners, this was a subject we have been confused on. Thanks for sharing your experience.

Same problems here. Thank you for the support. Good job. Keep up!

Great video, so refreshing to hear a balanced point of view in a world filled with no dig repetition enthusiasts. We have to use a variety of methods here also. You make a great point about the sheer volume of compost required for a no dig bed which very few no dig promoters ever mention.

I'm glad you did this video. I've been trying somewhat unsuccessfully to do no dig beds on my property for several years. Now I think I may have issues with drainage underneath my beds. I'm going to look into this further. Thank you.

finally someone talked about No Till disadvantages 😁😉

So right, for heavy clay soil dig in some manure or compost for the first year or so then start the no dig when the soil is looking better !👍

I absolutely love your presentation. Turning clay soil with adding and mixing with compost and topping soil to reduce the clay cementing is a brilliant Idea.

I think my situation is similar to yours, but with more rain. I have pretty heavy clay soil with a lot of rock in it, and a very high water table. Actually, I'm in a flood zone. My first two years I did till and had awful results. The soil would harden on top in between rains. Plants drowned in water that sat there, not soaking in, when rain came. So I dug pathways lower than ground level and piled that soil on top of the beds, then have slowly added cardboard, compost, fallen leaves etc to build the beds even more. That solved a lot of the issues. Now every year, things get better. Then last year I added some new beds on top of untilled grass. I did a cardboard layer, then compost, then grass clippings as mulch. Those beds did very well, but not necessarily better or worse than any of my other beds.

I got carried away digging a “little” tomato trench this spring while laid off. I had a bad clay problem on the top side of my garden so I dug a trench 3ft wide 35ft long and about 3ft deep.😅 I forked in activated biochar, perlite, peat moss, and expanded clay pellets deep into the clay below and then layered good topsoil, biochar, good quality potting soil, peat moss, and composted cow manure all the way to the top. Basically made a 3ft deep ‘raised bed’ into my garden!

i feel you. hard pan and clay soil land owner here. fabric pots and fabric raised beds on top of pallets is my solution

I'm in zone 5 in Northwest Indiana and also have this kind of clay soil. As a beginner gardener, this was super helpful! I have started out with a few small no-dig gardens, but will be experimenting more with tilling. Subscribed!

I am 0% no dig. I've been some of everything through the years, and the one consistent outcome with all the alternative forms of farming was lack of quantity and quality of harvest. Three years ago, I decided to use my compost as fertilizer only and went back to old-time farming, and my harvests more than quadrupled! I call it farming because it is now much to large to be a garden. It's pushing 1/2-acre of crops, and the soil is a near ideal loam.

So glad you made this video, I have tons of hard pan with rocks I'm trying to do a mix just like you . I'm trying cover crops and some ground busting plants like turnips this will be my first year at this house so we will see how it evolves. Thank you I love your videos, it was a pleasant surprise to see someone else with these issues. I find so many garden video with people with almost no issues with their soil . It's nice to know I'm not alone.

Your hit the nail on the head Jenna, no one shoe fits all and everyone should take your advice and try different ways of gardening. That's what makes it fun to me is trying new things. Love your insight on things.

Here is the deep south, we have a year round growing season, particularly for weeds. Also, the clay layer starts at just a few inches below the surface of the soil. I think a no-till or no-dig method would be difficult here, particularly with the viney weeds we have that sink new roots from the vines as they grow across the ground, centipede grass for example. Soil compaction can be another issue too. What I do is to grow a winter cover crop, usually Crimson clover (which is also a legume), then mulch it with the lawnmower and till it into the topsoil. Much of the new organic material remains on top of the soil, which helps with weed control for the first month or so after tilling. Then it's back to mowing between rows...

Thanks for this video and talking about cost. In the gardening world, I think that we let perfection be the enemy of progress, and we forget about accessibility. Definitely, minimal soil disturbance is great, but instead of no till, we should call it low till. In Los Angeles, the soil is rather dense. Its like clay loamy soil. No till can work here, but it requires some level of up front investment of time and money and that just isn't super accessible

I've had two farms in SE Ohio: one in rocky hill country & flat, clay, & leftover rock/cement and had to be creative in garden approaches with both trees and gardens. The present farm we live on has hidden cement patches where there used to stand barns that they took down and didn't remove it but simply pushed some debris in piles. I even had difficulty putting in poultry netting supports as they would meet very hard ground/cement, rock, clay. So I had to do container gardening on a small scale & straw bale gardening. We live in corn country so we get brutal west winds because of the miles of open fields, so growing corn is out of the question except for our rented fields which grow it just fine. The very best success I had with low growing crops was on a large, old rotting tree stump where I hilled mushroom compost/wood chip mulch on top to hold it in place. I grew sugar baby pumpkins and it did fantastic with no fertilizer. I also have success in growing in 19 gallon totes with hugelkultur principles: branches, greens, straw, leaves, old soil bottom to middle, compost on top. Hoops and frostcloth or tulle to cover and protect from insects. I grew my greens, sweet potatoes, very well. We just have to grow what will work with the land we have & find through experience how deep the soil goes before putting in more trees and fragile tall standing crops.

Northeast Indiana here. You laid out our problems with this method and Back to Eden. Nightmares and flooded plants for the last two years, we can't afford another bad year so we are going back to a hybrid of soil building and traditional methods.

Trees in my front yard i planted several years ago died from hardpan clay. I had no idea until this year. Thanks! I planted muskadines, a peach tree and two plum trees in large half barrel pots above the clay. Their roots grew out the bottom and into the topsoil over two years aerating the soil below and are thriving. It didn’t dawn on me about the front yard 🙄 I left the pots so the chickens don’t scratch up the bases.

I learned about "double dig" garden bed prep and am trying that as I'm gardening for the first time this year. Very glad I did it, as I discovered similar soil to yours. Fingers crossed that aerating the soil this way + compost will give me a successful first year!

Here in central west Texas, Abilene, TX. My property without any top soil…a lot of shale rocks, compacted clay, hard pan,, no worms, NO rain. I killed off grass and weeds with 6 layers of heavy cardboard boxes from mattresses store. I tried adding potting soil and peat, on top and covered for a year, no good. Then tilled in aged chicken manure and rabbit manure, wow what a difference with my irrigation going, finally loads of worms! My soil finally able to grow something!.😊

Great points in your video. I’m preparing to work in a heavy clay environment and this really helped add extra perspective to the options. Thanks!

Interesting to hear an alternative view. I’m no dig in the UK and a huge fan of it after also being more traditional in the past. We are on heavy clay soil at an allotment. I’ve seen huge benefits in reducing watering needs, less but still weeds and better produce. We are lucky that we can get cow manure very cheap so I don’t have the expense problems you have. In my experience you don’t need 6 inches to start. 3 inches is fine on our soil. That may be because the allotment has been worked for a long time. Our allotments have seen a huge increase in the number of people using no dig so I would say it works here very well.

Love your practical informative style! It is so refreshing to hear the good and bad of a particular method. We just cleared land to build a barn greenhouses orchard and garden but now we have an exposed hard clay field. We planted rye grass as a stop gap. Suggestions for next steps?

Thanks for this video! gardening can be so much fun there’s more than one way of doing something. I encourage people to just dig in , plant some Veg & seeds, try different things. 😊

I'm in Ohio and also have clay soil. Your channel is helping me so much. Thank you!

Hi Jenna, here in Sydney i generally have a clay sub base soil in my area. While I generally follow the principles of no dig, I agree that you sometime have to adjust your style to suit your area. Cheers

I’m on year three of gardening in heavy clay soil. After the first year we covered w/ a layer of straw & manure, let it over-winter, and tilled under in the spring - it made a huge difference!! This year, tilled under the dead plants from last year’s garden. Have to use a cultivator to break up the soil when it’s time to plant also. This year using cardboard & weed fabric on walkways, plus straw (once I can source it) and starting a compost pile. Will weed and then compost around plants this year & hopefully next year, planning to not till at all, as the planting spaces will not have been walked on at all.

You are spot on Jena. I have a heavy clay soil and no dig method doesn't work on it.

Tangible Tips on soils and growing. Thank you SO much ☺️ Jenna ✌️

Great video Jenna. I use semi no dig as well. Clay soils here too so I do agitate my in ground beds then compost & raised beds just add compost.

I have clay soil so I put in raised beds. My tomato plants keep acting root bound, and now I know why! Thank you for this video! I will have to experiment with "dig" and "no dig" combinations.

Love the 'hybrid' method...we have lots of clay at 6-8" below surface and plants have done the 'j root' on me. So, we've tried both no-till and till to amend soils...praying for a good payoff in production this season.

Great advice Jenna ,what works for one may not work for another do what works for you take good general care of soil and plants and you will have success.

I've had similar issues on very rocky sandy soil. The only way to really make it work is to dig the beds over, remove the rocks, mix in a lot of amendments, firm it back down and then doing no-dig on top of that works great from then on.

Here in central Louisiana, I have alot of clay. I add 12" or more of wood chips/leaves on top and I will till this into the clay to help it. I also do alot of cover crops on unused plots It has helped out alot to make my soil. I do have to compensate by adding some nitrogen, but I have tested all of my plots and everthing is high or very high . My organic matter is above 5.5. Every year my soil gets better and better. This is what works for me. It s a marathon and not a 100 yard dash to improve the soil. Patience is needed.

You made it clear. It is good to listen to advices and see for yourself what is good for you. I also not the fan of no dig. I trust to give my soil a little bit of air and I believe it does need to breath a little rather than suffocate it with cardboards and other staff. Thanks girl for clarity.

Great video. Often you have to dig, before no dig / no till. Ruth Stout had a plow man for years until she 'asked' the asparagus why she didn't have to dig for him....and then turned to straw. Paul Gautschi (Back to Eden) tilled for years before he turned to compost and wood chips. I inherited 'parking lot soil'. Only after repeated tilling and tilling in green manure cover crops could I begin to think about no dig /no till. I still have the Troybilt tiller but only till 1-2" to prepare seed beds (of 3' raised mounds).Covering the beds from fall to spring with landscape fabric and lots of shredded leaf mulch during the growing season to suppress weeds and enrich soil, ALONG with as much compost as I can make! 🙂

We came to the very same conclusions (failures) with no-dig and Back to Eden gardening. Even with raised beds, we had fire ants taking over the corners of every single bed, even those planted with mint. We have actually gone back to tilling and forming raised rows without walls/borders. The bottom line is that however popular and beneficial a method might be if I can't produce food for my family and it becomes so frustrating that we hate gardening, then we have missed the main reasons that we do this. I would love nothing more than for BTE, Lasagna, No-dig, or other methods to have worked, but they created way more work, with less food and my family was no longer willing to garden.

Very well laid out commentary which makes sense. I have somewhat sidestepped the whole issue as some of its proponents seem a bit - well, bordering on evangelical. My soil is sandy loam so I am not faced with much other than pockets of clay, and I am not about to raise a garden big enough to feed the neighborhood - flowers are more my objective. Thanks for taking the time to lay out the issues as you have faced them (including very practical ones!)

Tiny suburban gardener here. We built four 4' x 4' x 4" raised beds but we dug out about 6" of clay & rock before filling with a mix of topsoil & potting soil. We've been amending that soil every year with a meager amount of compost I've been able to produce + purchased topsoil + fertilizer.

Same situation here in my Northern California garden with our native hard pan Adobe clay. Couple that with our drought like conditions for most of the year, and it becomes a recipe for disaster if you think that no dig method will work, especially if you're trying to get a garden going in one or two seasons. I have resorted to digging deep holes and planting in them. Every year I layer compost and mulch on my beds. Eventually now after about 4 years the holes that I am digging are starting to connect, and the earthworms are moving between them, and creating some pretty amazing soil. So yes I dig, but just the holes that I want to plant in. That's what works for me. Thanks for a great video.

I am a relatively new gardener. Strictly no dig last year (first growing season on new beds on heavy clay) and had very good results. This year I have forked most of the beds to try and aerate and loosen a bit more of the clay. Making tons of home made compost. We have become a literal factory of hot composting. I think home made compost rather than purchased is much richer in biological activity..... just my suspicion..... plus it is free. I whole heartedly agree that mixing techniques to match your conditions is a good approach. Love that you fly the flag for Charles Dowding. He is a huge resource and a good inspiration.... as are you. Cheers!!! Great vid!!

Hybrid works the best for me when gardening in clay, as you described. A generous application of green sand around the planting spaces seems to help as well. It absorbs water and expands helping to crack up the soil. It also adds needed minerals. I've mostly planted things like echinacea's, irises, lilies and they've all done well.

I have the issues with my soil. My plot and the 15 areas ares around me used to be a far. We all have natural springs, mine are still active. The clay is terrible to work to in so you see a lot of raised beds. It's the only way to garden successfully. Keep up the good work Jenna. I live hearing the pros and cons of things.

No dig has its benefits under certain conditions. Clay soil doesn't seem to be one of them. And its application is useful under certain circumstances. If your garden is more or less a hobby, then you have all the time in the world to amend the soil. If you are producing food for your family; the expense, time, and effort might not be worth it in the long run--especially in clay soil. I'm glad you made a video that addresses these issues. There are pros and cons to any endeavor, and it is best to account for them before sinking a lot of time and money into a project. Thank you!

I also live in Ohio and have very similar soil - thick, heavy clay. I’m trying to do one round of tillage in the fall, followed by a winter terminated cover crop, then no till/dig from spring to fall. I’m only just starting to plant after the first winter of cover crops. I am struggling to get germination on my direct seeded plants so far this spring. I did not elevate my rows, but will likely try that this fall when I till again.

I have nothing but hard red clump clay about 1/8 inch under my grass. If I no dig, I no grow. 🤣

I love compost and never can get enough of it. And that's the Achilles heel of no till - compost. If you can't get it, trust the quality or justify the cost, you have to find other ways. A garden can't generate enough of it's own compost - you need to find offsite sources. Cover crops are great but if you only have one season to grow it, you need to rotate your crops which requires much more space. I'm on board with your hybrid approach.

I’m so happy I found you. Your cattle panel video showed up after mine as suggested. I do hydroponics and some outside garden videos. Plus some chickens 🐓 Excited to see all your videos 😃

In my experience and from the veggie farmer online formations I keep watching, there are only two ways to be no dig in heavy clay. The first one is to dig a last time, on about 20-30 cm of soil, and then put a ton of wood chips over that. Like 20 cm of wood chips, boom. And then you wait. You will have massive nitrogen depletion the first year or two, but after two years, when you worm population has been multiplied by 100 (it's times 10 every year), your soil should be fine. It's what farmers do. The other way, the nicer way, is to use winter cover crop. I do this in my garden. I put rye, vetch, phacelia, fava beans and winter pea in October, squash it down with a pallet in May when it flowers (important to wait until it flowers so it's done its job), then I put wood chips or spent barley + wood chips over it. It's ready to plant in two weeks later. On beds where I couldn't sow a cover crop, and where there's just wood chips, it usually compacts over winter, and I need to dig it before planting in Spring. This is the only time I use digging. I've compared the dig and no dig cover crop methods : they produce the same. So no dig works. But since it's a lot of work to sow cover crops, about half my beds I Have to dig. And during the season, everything is mulched, except the small seeds like carrots that I have to sow on a layer of mature compost. I'm hoping that by mulching everything and rotating the beds I do cover crops on, I will have enough worms that I don't necessarily have to do cover crops all the time and that mulch will be enough... I'd still do cover crops though coz they're so pretty and harbor a ton of insects. I've had fails with no dig in the first year because I didn't dig it one last time. For example, I did the "potato under mulch" method, when I just put potatoes on the ground, a layer of compost, and a layer of wood chips. The potatoes never rooted in the soil, so it was a poor harvest. Now I dig one last time if needed, and I always make sure to plant the potato in my clay soil, not just on top.

Very well said!! We got a bit attached to the idea of deep mulching a few years back, and tried really hard to make it work like everyone said it would. But for us, it just became a home for voles that decimated the rest of the garden, so I had to give up on that idea. Same with the cardboard mulch. It made such a good vole home, I stopped using the cardboard sheet mulch around the annual vegetable beds. I now have a hybrid style like you, which I’m happy with. 🙂

What I see is that we have to assess our own soil and not to blindly copy what somebody else is doing although it works for them in their conditions. When I established new beds in my garden with a clay soil I dug the beds, added ground charcoal and horse manure on top. Then after harvest I plant green manure plants so their roots help to improve the soil quality. I've stopped buying compost as it usually contains pieces of plastics, broken glass, wires and other garbage (plus I have no control over the quality of input organic matter, meaning whether herbicides were used on it etc.). And I'm learning to make my own compost.

Well said I totally agree, I'm in your situation and I'll be learning your techniques as they make more sense to my set up as well 😉

I'm in Ohio. You need a lot of compost to begin a no dig system. It gets easier over time tho. In my 3 rd year. It works great. Oh and wood chips in paths and around.

Heavy Clay soil that I have been amending with home made compost and mushroom compost for at least twenty years. Still haven't transitioned 100% to no dig. Always seed with rye grass in the fall and top dress in the spring. One of my beds that is mainly for root crops is over 12" deep and I still have to lightly work it in the spring.

Very informative, thank you for sharing.

Im on heavy clay soil. Spent 12 years in my garden tilling, amending soil, added woodchips several years ago which have all composted. Ive got alot of worm and microbial activity going on finally. Last fall I put a thin layer of well composted home grown manure down, then a layer of leaves and grass, another layer of manure then put a layer of green woodchips on top and added another thin layer of manure and some old hay and straw over top. This spring instead of tilling i used my potato fork like a broad fork and just loosened up the soil. If this season isnt a great grow season for me next season will be as all the layers break down. Ive worked hard on my garden soil as most of my small farm is like yours with hard pan, poor draniage, compacted soil. I got a couple of goats to naturally fertilize my front field with my pony and a trio of geese. Ive also seeded, fertilized, cover cropped with clover and even tilled a small section of the front field but it is really hard to amend clay from just top dressing and not adding mulch and tilling.

Thanks Jenna. Good topic. I used to rotor till my garden every spring but a couple years ago started practicing more no dig and being more diligent with keeping my garden mulched all year around. Now I compost all my beds in the fall as Charles does and put leaves mixed with some grass clippings down as a mulch. I noticed last year less flee beetles which may or may not have been from no dig. I definitely noticed more worms also. I have mostly raised beds and as I replace old dilapidated boxes with new boxes I practice Hügelkultur techniques before I put the new box in place. I have noticed the soil in the old bed is sometimes compacted so I do rototill before digging it out. I dig down several inches below grade, put a layer of half rotted logs, followed by horse manure and straw, and rough organic matter such as bush clippings, old asparagus canes or viney material such as pole beans. Then compost and the old tilled top soil covered with more compost and mulch. A lot of work but I know that bed is good for many years and can be completely no dig now.

I have clay with hardpan underneath, and I start out with a double dig 1st. This makes for tremendous results but extremely hard work. Once you do a double dig then you can do a lot less work to maintain the bed.

I live in Columbus Ohio and my soil is heavy clay on top of heavy clay. We rented a 2 man auger and set our fence posts at 38-42 inches. Pure clay on top of existing clay. We never saw any roots below 12". This has been a vacant lot for 20 years. I tried the layer method on 5 30 foot gardens 4 feet wide. I had the same problems you had, so the next plot I planted cereal rye in the fall, then buckwheat I wanted to plant oats and oil radish till the freeze but we have not had enough rain for anything other then crabgrass to grow this fall. I'll start again next year. This winter I plan on tilling all of my beds just to break up that clay underneath. so my plants can have more then 6 inches of soil. Some of the oil seed radish I had planted in the layer beds refused to penetrate the clay, the roots went sideways. Love your videos and appreciate all the time you take to show us your garden.

Compost is expensive in my area, so I'm making a new future garden area by adding wood chip mulch on top of cardboard along with grass clipping and leaf mulch. It should be good to plant in after 2 years.

I'm 'no dig' now, but when I initially put my beds in, I tilled - once. I wanted to use my beds that same season and needed to break the sod and blend what was there with purchased compost. I only amend the beds now and they are in great shape and full of life. I am not opposed to tilling if it's not frequently repeated. Sometimes tilling needs to happen when circumstances make sense.

Great explanation. I agree. Though I have two 5 foot by 50 foot raised beds that I use nothing but no dig in and they produce tons of food, I also have a couple traditional garden spaces that I still grow cover crops and till. We are clay soil too here in East Texas. To start the no digs I did however use a fork a couple times a year to just crack the soil. I don’t need to do that any longer. One size does not fit.

Gr8 video! Luv your detailed explanations! Thanks!

Thank you for your reassuring advice

I've found burying sticks and other biological materials in my hard clay has done amazing things for revitalizing my soil. The difference between where I've done it and haven't is huge!

I love the idea of no dig, in any soil. But, to be real about getting results, in clay, not much beats French biointensive double-dug soils. A couple years of spring exercise/digging gets you many years of high yield soil.

What a great critique

You are so informative!! Love you, girl!! Thank you ❤️

I have clay soil(not as thick as you) and my biggest problem is that I don't really have to water often because my soil holds water really well. I set up raised beds and you have to water constantly because it dries out so fast! I had the same amount of weed issues too. I prefer digging the amendments into the original soil. It's the only thing that has worked decently for me. But, my budget is so low even that feels impossible. 1-2" of compost is still expensive 🙈

I use no-dig on the same soil in Ohio. Just do an initial till to start the beds, and broadfork once a year (could be more, but I borrow my fork from a friend). Has worked great. I use hay instead of cardboard though bc I have free access to it. I do a light cultivation till, then add plenty of hay and then 3-4" of compost. Saves on compost bc of the hay, yet gives more depth. So every bed also just naturally becomes a raised bed.

I’ve been gardening In my backyard for about 40 years, so I’m not starting from scratch! I used to turn everything over in the spring, but for several years I gave been following the no-till regimen and also mulching my vegetable beds with shredded leaves collected in the fall. I can’t say that the outcome is significantly better, but I’m certainly digging less, weeding less, and watering less. The Nova Scotia climate is harsher than that in southern England, so I can’t follow Charles Dowding to the letter, but I’ve certainly learned from him. I also follow other gardening RU-vidrs who live near me, and that helps. I make my own compost from kitchen scraps, yard waste, and leaves. It never gets hot but always has worms, even in the dead of winter. We get a fair amount of rain and I collect it in rain barrels. I hand water my small garden when necessary, and rarely use tap water.

Very well said. I used tillage to start my garden because of clay and then switched to a broad for after year one. I’ve had nothing but positive results but could not have done it without tillage. I’ve tried to talk with newbie no-till people because that model only works with optimal soil conditions. Layering of soil can be just as damaging. After all we are humans and only live so long. We can’t wait too long for mother nature.

Hi Jenna. I'm in an area in Canada that has a decently long growing season but my lot is positioned over a thick clay sheet many feet deep and only a few feet below ground. It's a blue clay that is so fine it was actually mined at one time to use in pottery and brick manufacturing. As a result, my so called "topsoil" is almost impenetrable. There is no way in Hell that "no dig" would work for me. Earthworms are seldom found in my soil and I suspect the soil's microbial health is very poor. I've had to go to raised beds to grow anything but recently had some success on a hillside by digging up the clay and incorporating lots of compost. (NO SAND!) The hillside location allows it to drain and by leaving a lot of clay in the mix, it doesn't dry out so fast. Each garden location has it's own special problems and I'm glad to see that someone is finally speaking out about all these "one size fits all" solutions.

Would mulching your compost rows help combat the issues you're having with no-dig and the drying out at the surface? I agree that you might need to till initially, but I wonder if a mulch layer (straw, hay etc) would help.

Thanks for the insight!!

As a no dig gardener I find your video really good. I believe Charles Dowding has clay soil but maybe not with the underlying soil you have. I am sticking to no dig for several reasons. I like the fact it doesn’t disturb the microbes in the soil or release carbon. Also as a disabled person who can’t dig this is the only way I can grow my own food. I can roll over the ground, which is fine on compost but not on soil. It is difficult sourcing enough compost to start but I have friends and neighbours giving me all their compostable waste so I’ll soon be making plenty and it’s only the start when you need loads. I appreciate this may not work for everyone such as yourself, well done for giving it a go. If you message Charles he is really helpful at answering questions. Good luck with your growing from zone 8 UK x

Let all your grass and clover grow without cutting it and stop watering it. This will do two things; cause your grass to grow a deeper root system, and give you all the organic matter you need for a productive garden. You can also add things like mallow, mustard, dikon, and burdok to break up that hard pan. Let them grow for a season and chop the tops off and the roots will decay to become organic material much deeper than you can till. The spaces left by the decaying roots will add the aeration you lack.

Heavy clay soil here. Adding organic material is #1 solution but just a couple observations: Use gypsum. Our heavy clay is over saturated in Mg which makes it very sticky. Gypsum, at a molecular level, 'pushes' Mg off outer valance orbital bond and replaces it with Ca. That Can atom decrease the stickiness. Gypsum works faster than ag lime as the texture is finer plus the add'l S in gypsum is a boon for many enzymatic process in the soil biology. *Perennial* warm season grasses are great at breaking through clay and 'plowpan'. You mentioned (6:00) you still had issues even though the area had been lawn and clover for years. Mown lawn and clover have short root systems, it may be dense but it doesn't penetrate. If you can swing it, let a portion of future garden just go "feral". Don't mow it. Maybe help it along by sowing switch grass or bluestem or whatever warm season perennial grass grows in your area. After 2nd year weed whack in early autumn and let it grow again following year. Those tough, depth seeking roots 1) open channels for bacterial life/worms. 2) when you cut back the plant to ground level, the plant will then automatically 'prune' it's root system to compensate for lost photosynthesis. All those dead roots are leaving OG and plant acids which soften the clay. Good luck

Hi Jenna, Compliments on your outfit! Looks really professional! You asked for a comment on clay: Setting up the patch I dig down to the clay, approximately a foot down, and mix it in with well rotten, 2-3 years, manure. Last year I topped it with bought compost. This year I put some rough coco coir with quite big chunks in it, mixed with perlite. I saw a French professional gardener doing the perlite in the patch, so I gave it a try as a topping. My view is how the mix will do in the long run, and of course, it has to be usable this very season, at least agreeable for the plants put in it. The patches that have been there for a while, three-four years, is way above ground level, up to two feet, and is doing fine. I never till or turn it around, just leave it and it will till itself - for exampel you harvesting the potatoes or put in or taking out some sticks for the verticals. At last, the water: How about digging in a drench pipe?! Farmers have done that the last hundred years to really improve the productivity. It leads the water away from your patch.

Good points, well presented. Great video

I would be kicked out of the no dig religion. There are a lot of fanatics in that church. The same goes with the food forrest people. When I started in my garden areas. I tilled mountains of screened wood chips and compost in the clay rather it was aged or fresh. My goal was to get loamy soil sooner than later. It has been about 12 years and I do have very good soil now. Although it didn't take that long. Maybe one year to be acceptable. People that have store bought fake garden soil can only dream of it. The Dowding method works for him because he has reliable moisture. People in drought country shouldn't do that, unless they use the compost as a mulch. I even think the Eden method should be tilled once in a while. Currently the only thing I use wood chips for is water retention until I get a strong wind storm that can scour them off, and use the fines as compost to be tilled in lightly. Always make clay a part of your soil mix in any raised bed. If you have sandy soil then find some clay. This year I may not till as much because of the fuel prices, unless I can get it done real quick with the Mantis. It pays to have several garden sections that can be planted and prepped at different times.