Just Plain Digging...

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29819, 11 May 1962, Page 6

Just Plain Digging...

At this time of year, plain digging should be on every home-gardener’s mind. AU those odd plots where you grew vegetables or bedding plants have to be dug over and tidied up. Good plain digging is the art of doing this, but it is an art which seems to be dying, even amongst those who should be able to practice it; the mechanised age is slowly killing this form of cultivation. It should not do so, for the use of machinery in the home garden is often not possible in the restricted areas available.

Winter digging should

leave the surface clean—all weeds should be buried; level —so that there are no humps and hollows; and rough—so that winter rains will not produce a smooth, porridgy surface. This can all be done in a turn of the spade—if you have had a little practice at turning a spade! Digging, although it doesn't appear so, is quite a skilled job. In the old days digging was a much more skilled job than today, for it was done by contract, and the normally accepted measure of proficiency was the rate of a perch an hour. There are few gardeners these days who would care to hand-dig their 30-perch section in 30 working hours. Take out a trench one spade width and depth at the commencement of your digging. Wheel this spoil to the end of the plot where digging will finish, so that is available to fill the trench there. This trench is needed to enable you to manipulate your soil properly. If you have no trench the soil is humped at the start of the figging, and gradually slopes down as digging proceeds, until it ends up in- a slight trench—with no soil to fill it

If you are digging an extensive area, the plot should be dug half width, going down one side, reversing at the end, and digging back to the line where you started In this way the soil removed from the starting trench is close at hand to refill the ending trench, and excessive wheeling of soil is avoided Use a sharp spade—be prepared to sharpen it with a file occasionally—and insert it in the soil to its full depth Then lift the spit of soil and place it on the other side of the trench. This is the simple movement which requires the skill, for if it is done well that portion of the spit which was at the base is now at the top. If it is done badly, parts of the weedy surface layer are still exposed and weeds continue to grow. Don’t attempt to lift more on a spade than can be comfortably handled—a seven or eight-inch slice is ample. When you have dug half a dozen rows you will appreciate that skill in placing also affects the general soil level. Watch Your Levels

If your soil level is not watched carefully as you dig it will quickly develop irregularities. It takes no more time to produce an even surface than a poor humpety-

hollow affair. If your spit Is thrown high, It quickly gives a hump, and if it is thrown low, a hollow, and your trench begins to get smaller, too.

Does it make any difference? I suppose not—your cabbage will grow Just as well on an irregular surface as on an even one. But it is the difference between a professional approach and a modern, slapdash. “she's right” attitude. Why do a job roughly if you can do It well in the same length of time? If you employ a gardener occasionally, put him on the end of a spade, and five minutes will show you whether he is- a professional or a sloppy “ten-bob-quick" individual.