To dig or not to dig?

If you have been gardening for a while, and you read or listen to garden media, you have probably heard of the ‘No Dig’ method. First popularised by Esther Dean in the 1970s, and more recently by Charles Dowding, a British gardener, the theory is that healthy soil should be as undisturbed as possible.

Esther Dean’s original ‘No Dig’ garden method was about building a garden easily in an area such as lawn or in heavy clay soils where digging a patch would be difficult, for example. I have built several of these over the years with success.

However, the more modern iteration is a bit different. It would be more accurate to describe modern ‘No Dig’ gardening as ‘Anti-Cultivation’ gardening. Proponents argue that by not digging or regularly cultivating the soil, we protect the soil biology, which leads to better garden productivity and soil health.

This version of ‘No Dig’ doesn’t mean never digging a hole (for example, to plant a tree). ‘No Dig’ means minimally cultivating your soil while adding copious organic matter to the soil. For example, a no dig approach would mean not digging over your patch at the end of the season after removing the spent plants, then replenishing your soil by adding compost and other organic matter to feed your soil.

Many leading gardening advocates have promoted this theory in recent years. There’s a lot of ‘before and after’ photos or ‘side by side’ photos on websites that apparently show the benefits of ‘No Dig’, but to be honest, that is not convincing to me. I prefer data, not anecdotes (please note that what I am about to describe is the very definition of ‘anecdotal evidence’). However, as more gardening experts extolled the benefits of this approach as the best way to treat your soil microbiome, I decided to give it a try.

My Approach

In the past my approach to soil health has comprised some similar ideas to the No Dig gardeners. I always add organic matter (homemade compost), dynamic lifter (pelletised chicken manure), and mulch (usually chopped sugar cane mulch) at the end (or beginning) of each gardening season. Sometimes I also sprinkle rock dust on the soil. Every fruit tree receives a bag or two of aged sheep manure in Winter, followed by an organic fruit tree fertiliser each month during the growing season. However, at the end of each planting season, I have always cultivated the whole garden bed with my trusty fork first before adding the organic matter. This has been my routine for ten years.

This Spring, following the ‘No Dig’ approach, I did not fork over the soil as I would usually do – I just left it alone. I did everything else the same.

The Results

My results were not great, I have to be honest. I put this down to a number of factors, which include the fact that South Australia is in a drought – we have had just a third of our average rainfall so far in 2025 and according to the ABC, we are experiencing the driest recorded year since 1849. Street trees across the region are dying. My water bill was three times the usual, mostly because I have been trying to keep my many fruit trees alive.

I am used to gardening in dry conditions. What I noted when trialling this method is that my veggies were generally more unproductive than in other seasons. Even pumpkins, which I always have success with, shrivelled on the vine (with hand pollination)! Nothing in the veggie patch really seemed to take that well, except for the green beans (and of course, the plants in the greenhouse, but they were not grown with this method). Everything else just seemed to sulk.

Again, this could have been related to weather conditions. However, the opinions of long-range weather forecasters is that these are the conditions we can expect in South Australia from now on. If that is the case, then I cannot expect that this approach will help me with this poor growing conditions. If anything, what I will need is to completely change what I grow and when. I’m looking into that now.

This week, a little later than usual (due to the a recent trip to New Zealand), I pulled out all my very sad looking plants. After a poor season, partly due to the very dry season and possibly the No Dig/Anti-Cultivation method, I decided to revert back to my old ways and dig over my bed. What I discovered astonished me! My previously beautiful, dark, friable soil was full of roots and rocks, all through the bed. I dug out over two kilos of roots of unknown origin from one 1m x 2m section of garden bed. My previously healthy, well cultivated soil was now some kind of playground for roots from…well, I have no idea. Now I know one possible reason my plants were sulking and unproductive – they were competing for water and nutrition all Summer long.

Again, these roots could have been due to the dry conditions. A tree or plant from a neighbouring garden, or even from one of my own fruit trees elsewhere in the garden, could have sent roots through to find water. This probably started in the Spring (we have been in drought for a long time). If I had dug the patch over earlier as usual, I could have nipped it in the bud as I would have discovered some of this earlier. I don’t know where all the rocks came from, but there were so many!

The current version of the ‘No Dig’ garden method was developed in the UK. Charles Dowding has stated that this method can work anywhere. I am not sure that can be the case for any gardening method. It’s also unnecessary, in my opinion, to try to make the case that one method can be successful in every climate and region. If ‘No Dig’ is best suited for cool temperate regions like England, Tassie, or New Zealand, that is fine. Those regions are famous for their regular rainfall (I just visited a part of New Zealand that receives 10 METRES of rain a year! Inconceivable!). South Australia, unlike New Zealand or England, is famously the driest State in the driest continent in the world – and this year, it is even drier.

On his website, Charles Dowding states that “good soil feels naturally firm, or even hard, especially when dry.” He says that this is good for plants to grow in, as this means that it has good drainage and air channels. I believe that in climates with decent rainfall, this might be the case. But in Adelaide, our soil is regularly cooked throughout the season from Spring right through to late Autumn by baking hot sun – in full afternoon Summer sun, the temperatures can easily reach above 50 degrees Celsius. In other regions of South Australia, it gets even hotter. Our soil is not just ‘naturally firm.’ It can be rock hard, cooked by an unrelenting sun and no bloody rain. That has to make a difference in how we approach gardening, and how we treat our soil.

I agree we need to take much, much better care of our fragile soil than we have in the past. I am just not sure this approach is the best for my soil in my garden. I am sure that ‘No Dig’ is a successful approach for some folks in some climates. Perhaps if I had the time, patience, and different climactic conditions, it would work out well in my garden over time. But I believe that for my patch and weather conditions, it was unsuited.

How about you – have you tried the ‘No Dig’ or a No or Low Cultivation method in your garden? I’d love to know if it was more successful than my effort – let me know in the comments!