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Right now if you go to a social media space dedicated to vegetable gardening you will get the answer "No Dig!!" to every question you ask. I understand the theory -- that it is best not to kill the worms and the fungal mycelium, and let natural processes take manure/compost placed on the surface down into the soil. And best of all, you don't have to do any hard work! The problem that I have with it is the idea that this method is the best idea whatever your local soil type. It's caused something of a disagreement with Mrs Elephant, who has enthusiastically believed the crud.

I have just spent a week creating 3 large flower beds at the front of our house, and I've spent much of the last 6 months digging in various parts of our five acres. There are three layers. There's about an inch of topsoil (if you're lucky) at the top and what archaeologists call "the natural" starts about 12 to 18 inches down. This is glacial till, consisting mainly of clay but with plenty of mudstone, sandstone, pebbles and gravel, and it is much as it was when the ice retreated 10,000 years ago. Between this natural till and the topsoil there is a layer which consists almost entirely of stones, in some places like a pebble beach and in others with much larger random rocks. This has been created by 10 millenia of creatures - moles, rodents, earthworms - taking the clay from this "middle layer" and dumping it on the surface, where it eventually gets washed away. The result is a small layer of topsoil on top of a 12 inches of rocks which have had most of the clay removed. There is absolutely no way that "no dig" can maximise the veg-growing potential of this area. The only sensible thing to do is get as much of the rocks out as possible, preferably down to where the rocks stop but otherwise as far as you can be bothered to dig, and replace it with organic matter (of which we have a large free supply). The thing that irritates me is that so many people believe the advantages of not killing a few worms and fungi outweigh the disadvantage of trying to grow vegetables in rocks. It's completely stupid.

Rant over.

Raised beds then? Leave the rocks be and save your back?

I always ask no diggers how it works with root crops.

clv101 wrote: ↑07 Feb 2023, 21:32 Raised beds then? Leave the rocks be and save your back?

Could be an answer, but I believe the best solution is simply to dig. Yes it will be hard work, but that doesn't mean it isn't the best solution. In the three beds outside the front of our house I have recently removed at least 10 barrow loads of rocky material and replaced it with at least 20 barrow loads of manure. The result is a thick layer of manure mixed with some smaller rocks and clay, sitting on top of the glacial till subsoil. We're going to have to do the same to all the veg beds next year -- its too much to do it this year on top of everything else I've done and still need to do.

I think what winds me up is the uncritical way many people have embraced no dig. It looks to me a lot like laziness dressed up as eco-credentials. Agriculture was never supposed to be easy. It was always back-breaking, until it was fully mechanised and fossil-fuel powered.

To be clear: no dig may well be the best solution long-term. The problem is the initial creation of a bed when you've got very thin topsoil sitting on top of rocks. I have no intention of double-digging every 4 years.

Potemkin Villager wrote: ↑07 Feb 2023, 21:43 I always ask no diggers how it works with root crops.

The roots grow through the rocks of course!

I second raised beds. I also suggest before you chuck a load of soil etc. in the raised beds you put down a layer of charcoal. I have found this quite the eye opener, the resulting crops that is.

Console yourself with the thought that if you go raised bed, no dig will then be your future. An altogether happier future too, your other half will get her way, and you won't suffer back ache from shifting a load of stones and rocks.

dustiswhatweare wrote: ↑07 Feb 2023, 21:56 I second raised beds. I also suggest before you chuck a load of soil etc. in the raised beds you put down a layer of charcoal. I have found this quite the eye opener, the resulting crops that is.

Console yourself with the thought that if you go raised bed, no dig will then be your future. An altogether happier future too, your other half will get her way, and you won't suffer back ache from shifting a load of stones and rocks.

I agree that no dig is probably the best long-term plan. I do not intend to "double dig" every 4 years, or dig every year. I just want to go through a one-off process of replacing a large amount of rocky material with a large amount of manure - after that we can just add organic material to the top. I want the active soil layer in full contact with the subsoil. I can see no advantage to leaving the rocks there apart from to avoid a temporary back ache. I think the back ache is a price worth paying for a small patch of ground that doesn't have excessive rocky material in it, and doesn't need raised beds (which have to be constructed and maintained).

We are adding charcoal when it is available. I deliberately try to create it when having large bonfires, by heaping embers and then digging it up and scattering while it is still hot.

You can probably only no-dig when the soil looks like the contents of a grow bag. If I stopped digging my soil it would be as hard as concrete in a few years.

If your land is similar to mine it will vary enormously within very little distance, from just a couple of inches top soil over smashed slate to feet deep over sand or clay. The moles will give you a clue, they love well drained deep soil in field corners. Don't write off the shallow soil areas, I planted an orchard on some and it's doing great. Those stones will make great paths too, you'll appreciate them after a wet winter.

I know one farmer and two gardeners who find that digging or ploughing at long intervals, rather than every year or every crop has much to commend it.
See here for "minimum ploughing" viewtopic.php?f=52&t=27645

UndercoverElephant wrote: ↑07 Feb 2023, 22:47

dustiswhatweare wrote: ↑07 Feb 2023, 21:56 I second raised beds. I also suggest before you chuck a load of soil etc. in the raised beds you put down a layer of charcoal. I have found this quite the eye opener, the resulting crops that is.

Console yourself with the thought that if you go raised bed, no dig will then be your future. An altogether happier future too, your other half will get her way, and you won't suffer back ache from shifting a load of stones and rocks.

I agree that no dig is probably the best long-term plan. I do not intend to "double dig" every 4 years, or dig every year. I just want to go through a one-off process of replacing a large amount of rocky material with a large amount of manure - after that we can just add organic material to the top. I want the active soil layer in full contact with the subsoil. I can see no advantage to leaving the rocks there apart from to avoid a temporary back ache. I think the back ache is a price worth paying for a small patch of ground that doesn't have excessive rocky material in it, and doesn't need raised beds (which have to be constructed and maintained).

We are adding charcoal when it is available. I deliberately try to create it when having large bonfires, by heaping embers and then digging it up and scattering while it is still hot.

Subsoil? SUBSOIL! You're spoilt you are. I can only dream of subsoil. 1''-4'' very crappy topsoil with clay underneath all the way to Australia, that's me. Raised beds are the only way to grow anything here, and each one has a drain trench dug all the way round it run off water in to a swale or they would be permanently waterlogged.

I have 1 x 80', and 8x 20' beds. The large one is for apple trees and they're doing fine, the others mixed veggie and fruit bush stuff with ornamental companion planting. I built the damn things then finding I could no longer walk straight after digging the drainage channels ho ho, handed ongoing use and maintenance to Mrs. Wotsername, which means they are permanently no dig like it or not.

Hire a mini digger to get rid of the rocks, your ongoing back health will thank you.

dustiswhatweare wrote: ↑08 Feb 2023, 13:19 Subsoil? SUBSOIL!

Well, it is not really soil. It is glacial till -- clay with stones in. Wouldn't be much use on its own, but mixed with horse manure it starts to resemble actual soil.

Hire a mini digger to get rid of the rocks, your ongoing back health will thank you.

I did try to hire a mini digger - not to get rid of the rocks but to move an enormous amount of horse manure uphill. I found it very hard to find anybody willing to do the job. Too small a job, and not enough competition wanting the work. And I can't operate one.

Mini diggers are straightforward to use as long as you remain aware of their instability if you forget/ignore the stabilisers. The ideal tool for that job and sooooo many others is a compact tractor with loading bucket and backhoe. With one of those a smallholding enterprise is transformed from one of constant struggle to one where all those shitty manual labour jobs become fun. You can't hire those, and if you don't have a friendly neighbour with one really worth considering buying one second hand, or new with all the shiny bits fitted if you don't mind Chinese manufacture. Which by the way is no bad thing, I bought an ex demo Benye years ago equipped as mentioned above. They are tough as old boots and no mod cons but the job gets done. Something like this would do it as long as you are'nt ploughing, baling or other such heavy work.

https://www.siromer.online/lightning

People in Australia use concrete mixers to mix soil and compost and any other useful materials to get useful garden soil.

No dig is great once you have created a good depth of fertile soil. It is a matter of common sense although don't say that to your wife!!

Making raised beds on top of your existing soil or removing the stone first would depend on how the raised bed would work in differing conditions. If the beds would be too wet without the drainage of the stone layer, leave the stone. If the beds would be too dry with the stone layer, remove the stone. Likewise if you remove the stone and build beds on the clay layer. Remember though that clay contains a lot of nutrients and clay based loams are some of the best soils available. Only you know what your local conditions are and you might find that leaving the stone in some areas and removing it in others gives the best results.

Long term though I think that you will find no dig the most sustainable way forward. In my seventies, I definitely favour no dig! We dig once in a rotation when we harvest our spuds: I don't think there is a way of harvesting spuds, and getting them all out, without turning over the soil.