One silver lining in this cloudy Covid Age: gardening has roared back into popularity, like nothing we’ve seen since the Victory Gardens of WWII. The stars aligned, you and millions of your best friends were stuck at home, anyway, and a startling number of you decided gardening would be your new favorite thing to pass the time – even if you’d never planted anything before. In most states and many countries, garden centers were allowed to stay open, so you had easy access to the things you needed for your new endeavor, including people who could help you get started down this primrose path.

Newbies had mixed experiences, as you’d expect. Some ran away screaming, “OMG I had no idea how much work this is! Find me a farmer to kiss, ‘cause I’m never growing my own food again!” Others discovered a fun, rewarding physical activity that also delighted the senses, and in time allowed them to proudly put the literal fruits of their labors on their tables and flowers in their vases.

How to make it easier, though, so you’ll want to keep at it? A guy that tried to sign me up for a pyramid scheme decades ago gave me a little pearl of wisdom before I smiled politely and crept away: “Work smarter, not harder!” It’s not that gardening isn’t hard work, but I’ve found a “new” (to me; it’s been around forever) approach that’s indeed smarter and will eventually be easier: no-dig or no-till gardening, and its alternate names/similar practices (lasagna gardening, sheet mulching, the “Back to Eden” method, and the more complex hügelkultur).

Setting up the beds is a good bit of work, but worth it for the work it saves later, and your aching back that won’t be quite as ache-y. Awesome side benefit: it’s also better for the environment and a path to the worthy goal of living lightly on the land, disturbing your soil’s complex, vital ecosystem as little as possible and substantially, sustainably improving it.

The premise of no-dig is to build the best possible soil right on top of your existing soil, with organic matter layered instead of dug-in. Not digging is an idea borrowed from nature, who has rarely been seen to pick up a shovel herself but remains our planet’s most accomplished gardener. Consider this: where in nature do you find the richest, darkest soil with the best, lightest texture? Just about any forest floor, that’s where.

Millennia pass and each year brings a new layer of fallen leaves, twigs, logs, dead animals, poop…but no one comes along and digs these things in, they just fall in place in natural layers. Rain, fungi, insects all wear away at it, creating a wonderful growing medium for the trees and understory plants alike. Wouldn’t that be nice in your home garden?

If you want great dirt but you’d rather not wait centuries to get it, no-dig is the shortcut that will get you there. I came to this not even two years ago, so I’m definitely not an expert, but I’m hoping you can grasp the concept then run with it as far as you’d like.

The various techniques range from simple to elaborate, but almost everything I’ve researched starts with cardboard. Admittedly, you won’t find cardboard underneath the soil layers in forests, but it’s a useful base for what you’re about to build at home. Determine the area you want to plant and lay down a layer or two of cardboard (tape and staples removed) DIRECTLY on the intended planting patch. You don’t even have to pull or shovel the weeds or grass, and in fact, that would miss the point of no-dig. Your goal is to smother the weeds with the cardboard and build successive layers of organic materials up top.

First layer, as I do it: sticks and twigs, chunky bark or arborist chips (no cedar, please, though most other wood is fine). This layer will take longer to decompose than the finer ones you’ll follow with – it traps dead air space which insulates and helps warm the soil, encouraging strong growth for what you eventually plant.

Above that, you’ve got a lot of choices on what to layer with. Straw is good on top of the wood, also leaves airspace for roots and warmth but breaks down faster. Autumn leaves on top of the straw? Great choice. Grass clippings? Yes please! Regular compost, either your own, or stuff you’ve bought bulk (recommended), or bags (expensive)? This should be your almost-topmost layer, where you’ll plant your starts and sow seeds. BUT – once you’ve done that and any plants from seed have grown a few inches tall, you’ll want to apply a light, coarse mulch again to retain moisture, prevent erosion, and give weed seeds a less-friendly place to germinate. This will also greatly reduce your watering chores – exposed compost dries out fast.

I’ve gone rogue and planted these beds soon after creating them, but I think it’s better if you can let them be for about three months before planting. That will allow the layer materials to break down a little and be more plant-friendly, as decomposing organic matter uses nitrogen to break down (particularly the woody stuff) and can steal vital nutrients from your plants. Honestly, the salad greens I’ve planted in my newest beds are looking a little stressed and yellow while the beds created months ago are producing the lushest, healthy plants I could ask for. Lesson learned! Building the beds in the fall lets them lie undisturbed over the winter, making them ready for spring planting. You can also make them in February or March if you want them to be ready for May when you plant out your tomatoes and other warm-season veggies. Truthfully, any time of year will work, but try to give a little time for it to settle before planting.

So, some quick FAQs. “Really…no digging?” In the beds, no! You’ll no doubt be shoveling stuff into a wheelbarrow to take to the beds and dump, and you’ll likely use a rake to spread the layer to cover everything beneath it, but that’s it. No digging into your native soil or churning organic material into it. No more excuses that “I can’t plant anything because my soil is so bad!” Your soil type is irrelevant if you’re building on top of it.

“How do I plant without disturbing the layers?” Not really an issue if you’re sowing seeds and don’t go deeper than the top layer, but for starts, just dibble a hole that’s no bigger than you absolutely need for the root mass of the thing you’re planting. Don’t stir and blend the layers at all if you can help it. Carefully tuck the plants in, water them and move on.“What about harvesting? How do I protect the layers if I have to dig root crops?” This is where we have to accept that no-dig actually means LESS-dig.

Obviously, you need to pull carrots, beets, onions, etc., and you need to dig potatoes, but the lighter texture of this soil should at least make that easier, possibly even allowing extraction by hand, with less disturbance than a shovel would inflict, anyway. Most of the things that grow their useful bits above ground…? Cut the stem off right at ground level when the plant is done producing, leaving the roots and soil they’re in undisturbed. Not too many will re-sprout, and those that do will get the message if you hack them off a few times until they’re fatally weakened and break down.

“What about weeds?” You’ll still get some, but fewer, and they’ll be 12,000 times easier to pull! Live the dream and pull out a whole dandelion with taproot intact! But remember: dead weeds break down, too, and very few should go to your yard waste bin, which you’ll use less and less as you start hoarding organic matter for your beds. Ideally, throw the weed down by the hole you pulled it from to dry and eventually die in the sun, finally to decompose and become a part of your top layer. Don’t like the look? Understandable. Throw it on a bed you won’t be planting for a while that doesn’t need to show off its pristine compost-y beauty just yet.

“Really, don’t throw away any weeds?” Oh no, there are exceptions. Big grass clumps, buttercups, anything with thorns, bindweed, and horsetail should all go to your yard waste bin but you can pretty much keep everything else, including those uprooted dandelions.“I’m not interested in growing food – does this work for flower beds?” Beautifully! And it’s far less complicated since you won’t be disturbing the soil after planting.

I found the overall quality of the no-dig YouTube videos I watched to be very good, and I’m confident you’ll find great info there that I either didn’t have the space or the knowledge to present here. Go ahead and kiss a farmer if you need to – ask their permission first to avoid any awkwardness! – but if there was anything you enjoyed about your difficult first steps into gardening, even if it was more work than you thought, maybe it’s time to start collecting cardboard…?

Not Digging It