The soil in a vegetable garden requires intensive care if the plants are to thrive and bear plenty of fruit. This soil care includes work such as digging, i.e. deep loosening, but also fine tillage directly before planting. Digging up has many advantages, but it doesn't make sense in every garden or in every case.

The best time to dig is in the fall

New beds must be dug in any case

Unless you have just removed the topsoil and applied fresh topsoil (e.g. when turning a lawn into a vegetable garden), all fresh beds and planting areas must first be thoroughly loosened. In general, digging is advisable for all newly cultivated soil - including thorough picking out of weed roots and stones. A good spade or a digging fork as well as a sow tooth and a rake are sufficient for digging, but a powerful motor hoe is also useful.

The best time to dig up the soil is in autumn or winter

Digging up or other methods of deep loosening are also later part of the necessary annual routine for beds with annual vegetables and herbs. This work is best done in the fall after the beds have been harvested. But even in late winter - in good weather as early as January - digging is still possible and then even has the advantage that hibernating snails and other soil pests are removed at the same time.

Digging up the garden soil - this is how it works

Digging ensures good mixing and aeration of the soil. In addition, root weeds and stones can be carefully removed. However, do not order the bed immediately after digging it up, but let it rest for about two weeks. This deadline is particularly important for any autumn plantings. Also carry out the tillage when the soil is slightly damp, but not wet. Otherwise there is an increased risk that the wet soil will become additionally compacted. And this is how you go about digging in the best possible way:

  • Cut out the soil in rows with the spade.
  • In doing so, you cut off clods that are as wide and as deep as the spade blade itself.
  • The clods of the first row are laid down at the edge of the row when digging.
  • As a result, a shallow ditch is formed.
  • Now cut off the clods of the second row.
  • Turn them over and place them in the first row ditch.
  • Continue row by row until the bed is dug.
  • Finally, distribute the clods of the first row evenly over the bed.

Fine tillage takes place in the spring

The resulting coarse clods are automatically broken up by the winter frosts, and in the spring the fine tillage takes place, for which you proceed as follows:

  • Break up the coarse clods of earth.
  • Loosen the top layer of soil again.
  • Remove all weed roots.
  • Level the ground with a rake or rake.
  • Then there still remain many coarse lumps,
  • work the soil again with a cultivator.
  • Mature compost can then be incorporated immediately.

tips

Light or humus-rich, medium-heavy soils should not be dug up. Here, digging can lead to the humus being broken down more quickly. It is better to loosen these soils with a digging fork (but without turning the soil!) and a sow tooth.

Category:

Vegetable garden