Winter digging

Winter digging is an important part of the yearly cycle for me. There is a school of thought that says that the ground should not be undisturbed to let the bacteria and invertebrates do their job. I believe that digging once a year is essential for a number of reasons; to relieve impaction of the soil, aerates the soil, gets organic matter into the lower levels of the soil. I think the soil dwellers do not mind the disturbance given that hey short lived creatures. The birds, such as Robins get a chance to hoover up the slugs eggs and other tasty morsels. I think this helps see them through the winter making them available the following year to hoover up the caterpillars, green and black fly. My soil is quite fine so when we have a down pour some of it is carried away. I dig trenches around my beds. This does two things:
1. It catches the run off thereby intercepting the run off soil which in the spring in throw back on to the bed.
2. The trench makes the bed into huge raised beds which because it is drier heats up more quickly in the weak sun of spring time.

I have divided my plot into four main cultivation beds. I rotate the beds on a four year cycle. I put manure on the bed that is to contain potatoes. Having dug the bed over I just drop the manure on top a left nature do the rest until planting time. I dig trenches where the peas are to go and fill them with manure. However I only do this a couple of weeks before planting. Pumpkins go in the same area as peas so usually dig a slight hole and drop in half a barrow of manure and/or compost and plant a pumpkin. These greedy plants use the manure. What residual goodness from the manure carries over into the next year where beds will contain either brassicas or roots. These plants do not require a very fertile soil.

The rotation is to try to prevent or at least reduce the whole sale spread of potato blight which is very bad on the site. Club root in brassicas is also reduced by rotation however this is not something I suffer from. My soil seems to be to good for all sorts of brassicas.