The Cons of No Dig with Clay Soil

good morning everybody in last week's video i mentioned that i am not 100 no dig and that i would explain why in an upcoming video last night we got a ton more rain it's way too wet to work in the garden so i thought i would take the opportunity to share with you all my thoughts on the no dig technique specifically no dig in clay soil which is what i am dealing with here in my garden in theory i love the ideals of no dig and i firmly believe that minimizing soil disruption is very very important all of the wonderful beneficial microbes and critters that work and live in the soil do so in just the first couple of inches of topsoil and these little guys are responsible for some very important tasks that include the breakdown of organic matter fixing gaseous nitrogen into a form that plants can actually use and even fighting off the bad guys in the soil and each and every time the soil is worked and turned over or tilled a lot of these beneficial microbes and creatures can be killed off not what i want happening in my garden now according to the delightful charles doubting who in large part is responsible for the popularity of the no dig method reasons to consider the no dig style include both minimizing disruption as well as minimizing the reoccurrence of weeds popping up in your garden from the charles doubting website whenever soil has been dug loosened or turned over it recovers from the disruption by recovering with weed growth both from roots of perennial weeds and seeds of annuals and i have seen this to be true in my own garden when left uncultivated undisturbed basically no dig soil has less of a need to recover and grows fewer weeds no dick soil is also full of beneficial organisms and microbes which help plants to find nutrients and moisture now this is all true and in theory sounds like a wonderful fits all solution however in practice no dig isn't the perfect solution for everyone i've attempted multiple iterations of the no dig style through the years in my own garden and have run onto some stumbling blocks and just in case anyone out there is not super familiar with nodeg the basic idea is that you go straight on to wherever you want to make a bed so say that's lawn or bare dirt or even gravel you lay down cardboard about six inches of compost and you plant directly into that now that's a very simplified version but that's essentially the idea now the very first issue i ran into was simply sourcing the sheer amount of compost needed to build true no dig beds at the scale that i'm gardening on to apply compost at the rate recommended for a new row in my garden which is six inches deep with my rows being about 35 feet long and two to three feet wide i need just shy of two cubic yards which ends up being roughly two-thirds of a load of compost in our dump trailer i'm not at a level yet where i'm producing this kind of volume of compost so to purchase this outright in bulk i'd be paying 150 per garden row and right now my garden has six rows plus a lot of additional bed space i don't know about you but that's a little bit out of my price range now proponents of no dig will say start small and gradually build over time and this is great advice but if you are relying on a large space to feed your entire family this may not cut it the second issue is that compost dries out very quickly at least compared to my soil which being clay tends to hold moisture for a long time with no dig especially the first year in you are essentially growing in that compost this will work fine as long as you keep the compost moist i can see where this would work exceptionally well in a really wet rainy climate here where rainfall is sporadic and we seem to always have too much or not enough for optimal results i would have to have an irrigation system in place to ensure that that compost bed did not dry out while my seeds were germinating or while young seedlings are getting established and the third issue is that while fans of the no dig method claim that it works beautifully on all soil types clay included this has not been my personal experience no dig will absolutely improve clay soil particularly if you could pile a bunch of organic matter like compost manure wood chips etc and let it sit for a couple of years the addition of organic matter and the increase in microbial activity will help improve soil structure over time without having to do anything to help it along but for someone who is wanting to build a bed and plant in the same year there are cases where no dig can actually make the problems inherent in clay soil worse and let me point out i'm not just dealing with your plain old everyday run-of-the-mill clay here what i have here is a lot of clay with hard pan hard pan is a layer of soil so dense that air water and roots can barely move through it if at all we tend to have a lot of hard pan in this area exacerbated by decades of conventional farming practices including repeated multiple tilling every season the use of heavy compacting equipment and the repeated applications of chemical sprays which kill off soil microbiota this distinction i am sure has led to some of the specific issues that i have run into with no dig so right here you can see where that hard pan layer starts it's got a distinctly different color and a very sticky dense texture and that's where you can run into issues with drainage and this is a decent area that has been in nothing but lawn and clover for decades there are some areas around here where you dig down and that topsoil is only an inch or two thick and then you go straight into that clay hard pan there is of course the issue of drainage you can dump all the compost you want on top of here but until you address what's going on underneath open the soil up enough so that water and oxygen can move through it you're just basically setting yourself up for a nightmare of anaerobic soil conditions next by piling a bunch of compost on top of clay that hasn't been amended or aerated in any way you can be setting yourself up for a situation where the plants actually refuse to root down into the clay that's underneath the compost they hit that hard compacted layer of clay and say nope and just keep all their roots up there in that nice soft compost for many plants this is not an issue but particularly for tall top heavy plants so think something like corn you might be able to imagine what happens when you get that first really severe summer storm coming through and your plants are only rooted into that top couple inches of compost or an even bigger risk you get a ton of excess rainfall all of that water pools underneath the compost because it can't drain down through the underlying clay and essentially your plant roots sit in that and drown now in spite of all of that somewhat negative feedback i don't want to dissuade you from trying no dig but rather just to let you know that sometimes in gardening those amazing one-size-fits-all solutions are not always all they're cracked up to be i really just want to encourage everyone out there not to get dogmatic with your gardening try no dig if it's working for you that is awesome but if it is not don't stick to something that isn't working just give something else a try gardening never has to be all or nothing the best style for you is the style that doesn't lead to you becoming so frustrated that you give up for myself i'm going to stick with a hybrid style which includes some potential digging aeration broad forking sometimes even tilling to address my hard pan clay underneath and then focusing on minimizing soil disruption as much as possible from that point on no it's not 100 no dig but it is working very well in my garden now i'd love if you all would share your preferred style of gardening with me are you no dig are you all the digging are you somewhere in between it's always interesting to hear what is working well for other gardeners and if you enjoyed today's video please consider subscribing to my channel growfully with jenna thanks for watching and i'll see you next time

Channel: Growfully with Jenna

Views: 102,862

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Id: uk3NZ9MEodA

Length: 8min 49sec (529 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 15 2022