Permaculture Farming

Posts Tagged ‘dig garden’

What is a no dig garden?

The No Dig Garden is a garden where the no-dig gardening cultivation method is used on its crops. A no dig garden is favored by organic gardeners and fall under the Permaculture principles. The idea and concept of a no dig garden was started by a Japanese scientist (microbiologist), Masanobu Fukuoka in 1938. Masanobu Fukuoka pioneered the no-till grain cultivation system referred to as “natural farming”, Fukuoka Farming, or the Fukuoka Method. He wrote a few books on the subject including the famous books:

• The One-Straw Revolution,
• The Road Back to Nature and
• The Natural Way Of Farming

Why no dig garden?

The concept of a no dig garden is important in gardening and farming because digging can damage soil life. By not digging, farmers and gardeners can preserve the soil with the help of other methods that are the Permaculture ways. For example, one way to preserve the soil without digging is to entice micro organisms to the surface because they excrete and aerate the soil by burrowing.

You can add organic matter and weather protection to entice these organisms to the surface of the soil, therefore avoid having to dig the garden soil.

What does no dig gardening mean?

No-dig gardening employ methods that rely on nature to carry out cultivation processes. In a no dig garden, you can add organic matter including rotted manure, compost, leaf mold, spent mushroom compost, old straw to the soil. Worms will pull them downwards.

Worms and other soil life are critical to the no dig garden because they help with building up the soil’s structure. Their tunnels providing aeration and drainage, and their excretions bind together soil crumbs.

Benefits of the no dig garden system

Apart from making the soil last longer and healthier, the No-dig gardening systems are free of pests and disease, possibly due to a more balanced soil population being allowed to build up in this comparatively undisturbed environment, and by encouraging the buildup of beneficial rather than harmful soil fungi. Moisture is also retained more efficiently under mulch than on the surface of bare earth.