Gardening Term of the Day~ Double Digging~

Double digging, you say??? Whaaaaat??? Sounds like a lot of work, right?? Well, since some of you may be starting to plan out your Spring gardens, I thought I'd talk about it. A friend of mine and I were talking about her future garden. She has a section of her yard that gets enough sun and wants to make a garden there. Since this is just old, hard, clay soil, she thought she should remove a lot of the soil and bring in new stuff. Heck, NO! With some elbow grease and some compost, peat and/or some worm castings (all of the above, preferrably), she could have some really super yummy soil! But, I digress....Now, what's all this nonsense about double digging?? What is it? Well, it's the systematic loosening of the soil to about 12 inches (roughly two shovel depths) to ensure that the roots of your babies can wiggle their toes!

Does this make sense? Basically, it's digging a trench or ditch, dumping the shovel of soil down at the other end, then starting a new ditch, flipping the soil you just dug out into the first ditch. Nice way to zen out on a cool day, right? Add your organic matter to the top layer and work into the soil, then smooth out and start picking out what you want to grow! As they say, dig now, chow down later! P.S. Get those kids to help! Take shifts! Bribery with cash and prizes works!