After five years on my plots, I re-read what I'd written on my enjoyment of digging with a slightly sad smile of reminiscence!

Nowadays, I find it's enough to fork lightly over a bed to remove the last harvest of weeds and vegetable residue for the compost heap; sow a green manure; and covering that in spring - either by forking in, or by edging my grass paths and turning that trench on top of the green manure.

Years of winter mulches of horse manure laid on top of the bed, or adding compost from the heaps every spring seems to be enough to keep my soil healthy and productive.   I've also noticed that the beds which I've got round to double-digging (about half of them) are in much finer fettle.

For more information on no-dig techniques, have a look at the HDRA factsheet.

Much though I enjoy digging, it seems that my plots are leading me to be a "no-digger".   Ah well - I'll just have to go with the flow, and find some new bits of land to dig!   The basic steps in converting to no-dig?

• Start by double-digging the bed to incorporate horse manure deep down.
• Don't walk on the bed - not even with planks!   Why compact your soil?
• Keep the bed well-covered throughout the year - with your vegetable crops, over-wintered green manure, or even a mulch of compost and black plastic.
• Keep your cultivation to a minimum, light, and on the surface - forking out weeds after a harvest, forking in compost/green manures in the spring.

It's even possible to grow potatoes without digging - growing them on the surface, under a mulch of straw or similar.

Once again - "You grow the soil, and the vegetables grow themselves."