I’d appreciate any advice anyone has for no-dig gardening on very heavy clay soil.
At my Dutch allotment I have 300 square metres of just about the heaviest clay you can imagine. It was the bed of the Zuyder Zee until 1932, then the bed of the freshwater lake the IJsselmeer until the late sixties when the polder (Oostelijk Flevoland) was drained. It’s several metres below sea level and the old ‘sea clay’ here is often either sticky or rock hard, and sometimes waterlogged. Good news: it contains old seashells, so there’s calcium in there too.
I’ve wanted to go no-dig from the start (my home gardens have been for many years), but I decided to spend the first two years working up to it. Drainage has been improved (perforated plastic pipes a metre underground), 75 wheelbarrows of municipal compost have been added, and I’ve dug the whole plot over twice, partly to remove perennial weeds, mainly bindweed.
I notice that even on well-dug soil the compost does not get incorporated by the worms. Maybe that will happen in future, now that I’ve dug in so much compost already. There’s no shortage of worms, but the experience of local farmers is that they make their way through holes made by roots and don’t go beyond those.
One discovery I’ve made is the importance of paths. I managed to get hold of a lot of old decking (cracked and partly rotten but two planks laid side by side works a treat) and divided the plot into 24 mounded beds. If I need to tread on the beds, I always use a plank or a duckboard. In some places the soil is now crumbly and I’m determined not to dig it in future. Other beds may need one more dig next winter. Digging for certain crops such as potatoes may be allowed on a few beds, but no more than once in three years.
My husband and I have decided that twenty wheelbarrow-loads of municipal compost twice a year is as much as we can manage to add at our age (it has to be wheeled quite a distance from the main gate), but of course we make as much of our own compost as we can.
As I say, I’d love any tips anyone has for this kind of situation. I tend to think that if no-dig vegetable and fruit growing works here, then it’ll work anywhere. (I actually really enjoy digging, but I’m starting to see mycelium and can’t bear to keep breaking it up.)