The reason lies beneath our feet. Healthy, long-cultivated garden soil is not just a solid mass of earth. Different layers form a unique life system, where many microorganisms and other soil inhabitants have their place.
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In one square meter of healthy garden soil, trillions of bacteria, billions of actinobacteria, millions of unicellular organisms, and about 200 earthworms can live. Each is adapted to certain conditions and soil layers.
The shovel disrupts the established order
When we dig deeply into the bed, we overturn these layers and at the same time destroy the structure formed over a long time. The soil ecosystem can later recover, but it takes time. Therefore, the usual annual digging can do more harm than good.
However, there are cases when it is difficult to do without a shovel. Digging may be necessary when setting up a new garden or vegetable patch, or when adding manure or green fertilizer to the soil.
An exception can also be very heavy, clay soil. When disturbed in autumn, large clumps of earth are broken down by severe frost during the winter. After the frosts, the soil becomes finer and looser.
How to loosen the soil without overturning it?
To improve the structure of ordinary garden soil, it is not necessary to overturn it. A simpler and more soil-life-friendly alternative is to just loosen the soil and let more air in.
For this, a digging fork or manure fork can be used. It should be inserted as deeply as possible into the soil and gently lifted, but without overturning the entire layer.
The soil can be loosened even deeper with a special curved cultivator. It is especially useful where the soil tends to become waterlogged. The cultivator is pulled in long lines, about every 20 centimeters, changing direction so that a kind of chessboard pattern is formed.
So a neat bed dug up to the last clod in autumn does not necessarily mean healthier soil. If the soil is not heavy and clayey, it is often more beneficial to abandon the old habit – not to overturn it, but just to carefully loosen it.
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