Sharing the joy of no-dig gardening
A year ago, I wrote about the new-to-me technique of “no-dig” gardening.
While seeking advice online using search terms like “how to not suck at growing vegetables,” I had landed on a bunch of YouTube channels promoting this method.
Judging by the calm, beaming gardeners who espoused no-dig gardening, it seemed like a less adversarial process than the one I was familiar with. For me, gardening had always been a one-woman battle against nature, with nature pulling ahead in early July and running victory laps around my tired, sweaty, dirt-caked body every fall.
These experts claimed that no-dig gardening required less maintenance than traditional tilled gardening and resulted in fewer weeds and happier earthworms. Before I had even tried it, I became a vocal advocate. I gushed about it to my friends and explained as gently as I could that their gardening methods were, no offense, dumb.
“I gushed about it to my friends and explained as gently as I could that their gardening methods were, no offense, dumb.”
I knew the hard part would be preparing the beds that first year. But from the videos, it didn’t look all that difficult: 1. Lay sheets of old cardboard in the size and shape of the desired bed to kill the underlying weeds. 2. Top the bed with six inches of composted soil. 3. Grow a beautiful, weed-free garden. 4. Harvest.
The videos, accompanied by peaceful acoustic guitar music, showed the first and last sheets of cardboard going down and the first and last scoops of soil getting spread with a rake. They skipped over the middle parts.
I soon found out why. As an example, for a decent-sized garden, a little math will show that you need a minimum of two tractor-trailer loads of flattened cardboard boxes to cover the space.
I wasn’t about to do the math, so every day I was caught by surprise when the three boxes I had found at stores in town wouldn’t even cover five square feet. (“No-dig gardening takes a whole lot of cardboard,” I told various checkout clerks, who, maintaining their professional demeanor, pretended not to be fascinated.)
It also takes a lot of soil to cover your entire garden six inches deep. I don’t know how many trips it took me to move four yards of soil from the pile on the lawn into the beds. But when I got done, I had to take the wheelbarrow in for its 40,000-mile check-up.
Looking back, it’s hard to say whether my first no-dig season was a success. I got a late start, having spent all of May and part of June just getting the beds ready. “But it’s not a waste of time; it’s an investment,” I told anyone who would listen, as if I knew.
My vegetables did grow well once they finally got going, and the weeds seemed less antagonistic than in past years. But year two, I told people, is when the pros say I’ll reap the real rewards—in vegetable production, soil health, weed reduction, and saved time and effort. Though friends urged me not to go to the trouble, I insisted I’d text them with daily updates on my crop yields this summer.
Last week, I went out to the check the gardens and face the consequences of not cleaning them out last fall (I’m a work in progress).
To my surprise, the weeds I found were not like the weeds I was used to, which had roots that extended into the center of the earth. These came right out, leaving me with dark, loose soil already primed for planting.
No-dig was working.
I hooted with joy. I cried. I may have taken a bow. It was the first time I had ever felt that gardening was something that could be manageable, perhaps even pleasant.
With minimal effort, I got half the beds cleaned up in under an hour, putting me two months ahead of past years. I called Mark right from the garden to share the good news. “Mm-hmm,” he cheered.
He’s so supportive.
I still need to bring in a bit more compost to top off the beds for the upcoming growing season. But my indoor seedlings are doing well. And—drum roll, please—I could put my peas in as soon as Saturday!
Even though my no-dig journey is objectively a big deal, sometimes I worry that the people around me aren’t as interested in it as I am. I hope I’m wrong.
If they think I’m boring now, they’re going to find me downright insufferable by Labor Day.
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(Originally published in the Addison Independent April 2025)
