Digging

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Digging

Digging is a part of the science and practice of gardening which does not always receive the careful study ef the amateur gardener that its vast importance deserves. What, it may be asked, is the object of digging ?

Purpose of Digging

To put the matter in its crudest and simplest form, it is the promotion of the aeration and good drainage of the soil. The free admission of air to the ground enables the atmosphere to perform its function in the preparation of plant food which shall make the soil more fertile.

Good drainage protects plants from drought in summer and from stagnant moisture in the winter. Digging also provides a deep root-run, and, if it be carried out at the proper seasons of the year, a fine seed-bed, when both are most needed.

But, as is the case with most gardening operations, there are right and wrong methods of digging.

Provided one has sufficient physical strength, it looks an easy enough piece of work, but unless some amount of care and forethought be brought to bear upon it, it is certain to be done badly.

Obviously, it is useless to endeavour to dig well with the maximum of effect, if an old, rusty, shallow spade be the implement employed. The spade should be bright and clean, as it will be if care has been taken of it when it has been put away in the tool-shed, and its blade must be of such a depth that it will be possible to penetrate at least a foot into the ground.

Good digging consists in driving the spade into the ground well down to the haft, almost vertically ; in turning the spit completely over, and in thoroughly breaking up the soil that is to remain below the surface. The reason for this last-named rule will be clear when it is remembered that only a prolonged and abnormal frost can be expected to pulverise the soil to a depth of a foot or eighteen inches. If therefore the lower layer of soil be not thoroughly well broken up during the process of digging, it will remain in a cloddy state during the summer, and the crops will inevitably suffer when their roots are most in need of a free run in search of nourishment.

Too much emphasis cannot be laid upon the necessity for deep digging. Where there is a good depth of workable soil there need be no hesitation in turning the soil completely over, provided the subsoil be not brought to the surface. But it not infrequently occurs that immediately beneath the top twelve or eighteen inches of soil the gardener will find, as was indicated earlier in this chapter, a layer, more or less thick, of some hard, impervious substance. This it should be his object either to remove entirely, if it be of stone or rock, or to break up, so thut it may become loose and porous, and thus add to the efficient drainage and consequent fertility of the upper layer of soil. In order to accomplish this efficiently it is necessary to resort to the operation known as trenching. This involves the disturbance of the soil to a depth of at least three feet. It means the expenditure of considerable time and a good deal of hard manual labour ; but it will be found to be labour well spent, and the reward in greatly superior crops will be great.

When to Dig the Soil?

Digging and trenching of the garden soil are both best accomplished in autumn or early winter, but where circumstances prevent them from being impleted before spring it will be advisable to allow the land thus treated to remain undisturbed for at least a month before seed-sowing or planting is attempted.