If you let nature do it, your garden will become healthy.
My husband and I moved in January 2021 into what appeared to be a house with a garden plot tacked on—a small house with a large, unmanaged yard. The house was move-in ready; the yard had suffered years of withheld maintenance. Weeds and an abandoned lawn blanketed solid ground that was as hard as concrete. To me, it was a blank slate—and I was eager to revive it, shovel-free.
Instead of digging, I adopted no‑dig gardening and allowed nature to guide me. Besides sparing my back, the advantage is less in the way of weeds and a much healthier garden. This is how this process functions and why you may want to adopt it.
What Is No-Dig Gardening?
Gardening without digging sounds silly, but think about the way forests and meadows create themselves naturally: they have leaf litter layers, with debris piling up and enriching the soil. Ecosystem engineers are worms, insects, birds, and microorganisms like fungi and bacteria. They aerate naturally, break down, and form rich humus.
Plants, animals, and microorganisms combine to create a living system, each of which relies on the others. Being human, our well-being is indicative of the well-being of the world that surrounds us. Soil is alive—and it takes life to cultivate life.
No-dig gardening dares you to coexist with this ecosystem rather than disrupting it. Rather than tillage, you cultivate the soil life by mulching and composting and letting nature win. Soil is life—and by not disrupting it, you create resilience.
Benefits of No-Dig Gardening
My passion for no-dig regenerative gardening prompted me to author my book, GROW NOW: How to Save Our Health, Communities, and Planet—One Garden at a Time. Through research, I realized that most beneficial microbes we cultivate in the soil also live in and nourish our bodies. The more diverse the soil, the better.
Key benefits of no‑dig gardening:
Creates a healthy soil ecosystem that supports pollinators, insects, birds, and wildlife
Works to build fertile soil structure and tilth
Provides nutrients naturally, so less fertilizer is needed
Suppresses weeds as seeds are covered under compost
Improves water storage and drought resistance
Saves labor—no tilling, less weeding and watering
Sequesters carbon—soil carbon storage stops climate change
Builds a biodiverse garden that yields more nutritious produce and encourages physical and mental well-being
How to Start a No-Dig Garden
No-dig gardening is effective in food beds, perennial borders, and raised beds—even on hard, compact soil or a lawn. My initial action was sheet mulching—also referred to as lasagna gardening—which completely changed my yard without digging up the soil.
Nine months later, soil is light, fluffy, and teeming with life—ready to be planted. Here’s how to begin:
Sheet Mulching (Simplified)
Lay down four sheets of newspaper or a cardboard sheet on the existing surface. Saturate it thoroughly.
Apply 2–4 inches of compost on top—more for food to grow; less for flowers or perennials.
For perennial beds, lay down 1–2 inches of compost, topped with a wood chip, bark, or coarse organic matter mulch layer.
Keep Adding Compost
Compost nourishes the soil ecosystem and works alongside plants. Incorporate 1–2 inches of compost in the spring and fall—surface only, no till. Let nature digest and assimilate it.
Planting in a No-Dig Garden
Be patient. Begin sheet mulching in the fall so soil has time to ripen during winter and be ready by spring. When planting, handle the soil as little as possible. Dig only enough hole for the root ball with a trowel, hand, or pencil. Press the plant gently into place and pack soil back around it.
By working in harmony with nature instead of fighting it, no‑dig gardening transforms even the toughest yard into a healthy, thriving garden.
