Status: 14.10.2023, 17:00 PM
By: Ines Alms
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When it comes to the question of how much you should work the soil in the garden before winter, the opinions of hobby gardeners are divided. However, experts have a clear opinion.
For many years, it was common practice to dig up the beds in the garden in autumn in order to loosen it up and prepare it well for the next season. Today, the time-consuming, laborious work only makes sense in exceptional cases. Here you can find out what these are and what methods hobby gardeners use instead to improve the soil quality in the garden and prepare it for spring.
Digging makes sense in two cases
Digging up the soil in autumn only makes sense in exceptional cases. © Westend61/Imago
According to the Federal Information Centre for Agriculture, there are around ten billion creatures in one litre of soil: microorganisms such as fungi and bacteria, but also woodlice, earthworms and moles. They convert organic waste into valuable humus. It takes some time for the creatures to be well organized and for everyone to work in the soil layer where they belong and where they find the best living conditions. If you dig up the ground, you cause chaos and disturb the balance in the earth. In addition, digging up moves weed seeds from the depths to the top, where they can now thrive.
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Uwe Böhm, agricultural engineer and soil expert, therefore clearly advises against reaching for a spade and digging deep with it in the mdr garden magazine. However, this makes sense if the soil is very heavy and loamy: Thanks to digging, ice crystals can blast thicker clods of earth apart into smaller crumbs during the so-called frost fermentation and relieve the gardener of a lot of work. Even if you want to create a new bed, digging is recommended.
Better than digging: compost, green manure or mulching
With normal soils and long-standing beds, you can save yourself the trouble – here it is enough to gently loosen the soil with a sow tooth, which you pull through the soil at a distance of about 20 centimetres. The experts at gartenbauvereine.de mention other methods that are really important in autumn and winter instead of digging: green manure, mulching and the addition of compost.
In the case of green manure in autumn, the sowing of plants such as phacelia or sunflowers via their root system leads to a natural loosening of the soil. In this way, precipitation also prevents the soil from silting up. A layer of mulch made of leaves or straw about five centimeters thick protects perennials, for example, from the cold and drying out. Only at the end of winter or in spring should you work some compost into the soil so that the new seeds and plants have a good start to growth. It also makes the soil more permeable.