We’ve just spent the last couple of weeks rotovating our veg beds ready for spring planting. Although I much prefer hand digging as each bed comes empty for a number of reasons (one being that I actually enjoy digging!) if you’ve read my previous posts you’ll know that the beds have been laid fallow for a couple of years so all needed to be done at once and quite quickly.
I’ve read a lot over the years about “no dig” techniques where you simply mulch each year adding nutrients as you go. Whilst I like the sound of this in theory I can’t really see how it would work on our land. We are situated in a valley bottom next to a stream which means our land is quite wet. It is also a frost pocket. This plus the large number of mature trees around us mean the land is late getting the sun in spring and late to dry out. The land tends to compact easily with being wet and quickly grows a surface layer of moss – again sealing the water in by preventing evaporation. We did install a number of land drains around fifteen years ago which helped to a degree but didn’t solve the problem.
My method for speeding up the drying of the land in spring so i can plant is simply to dig, rotovate, or a combination of both several times over a week or two. Breaking up the surface of the land speeds up evaporation, then, if I keep bringing more damp soil up to the surface by repeated tilling I can usually get a reasonably dryish soil. Weather dependent of course.
I’ve just completed this process over the last couple of weeks and most of my plots are now ready to plant.
Lets get some seeds in the ground!
