by Sammy Stein

Created on: March 31, 2009

There are two main ways to implement a 'no-dig' gardening system in your yard.

The first involves the use of raised beds and polythene or weed membrane - this may sound an odd combination but it works. First you make a raised bed, either by piling up and levelling soil or creating a 'box' using timber, plastic or a kit which you can buy for around USD40 for a metre square.

Fill the bed with good all purpose compost - it is important to use good growing medium because with the no-dig method you will rasie plants from seed or seedling to maturity in the same bed so you will not be able to change their growing medium. Next cover the bed with weed membrane or black polythene- making sure it is of sufficient quality not to split easily. Take your seeds or seedlings (the no-dig method works best with seedlings because you can be sure they have germinated and avoid thinning as you can place them in their final position) and make sure they are of good quality. Make small crosses in the black cover material to reveal openings to the growing medium and plant the seedlings. This way, you can plant them in their final spacings with no need to dig or thin. Following this, you do not dig the bed. Weeds should not be a problem because without light, they cannot germinate and any space without a plant will be covered in the black sheeting. This is popular for potato growers because the tubers can easily be placed in planting holes created in the black covering and potatoes soon grow to cover both the planting hole and the restof the black sheet.

The second way to implement a no-dig growing method is to grass an area for a season or longer to remove all weeds and then grow a crop in the newly revealed bed once you have removed the turf in the second or third season. This works well where you have a site with a severe perennial weed problems like dock, nettles or maidenhairs because traditional digging will not remove all parts and can in fact help spread the plants because they can regenerate from even the smallest piece of root or stem left.

Many gardeners consider the no-dig method as 'not proper gardening' but if you think about it, a plant needs to reach maturity with being disturbed as little as posible. Save for hydroponics, the no-dig method offers the best opportunity to do this.

Some plants like lettuce bolt if dug too often and some will not compete well with weeds (onions for example) so you lose a lot of your crop potentially. The no-dig method , especially if used on

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