Last week’s main picture showed two famous non-dig gardeners — Charles Dowding and Ramsay Shewell-Cooper. However, the no-dig movement began in America. It was pioneered by Ruth Stout (1884-1980) who gardened in Kansas. She advocated using a thick eight-inch mulch of hay to suppress weeds and keep the soil moist. Stout used cheap ‘spoiled' hay that wasn’t suitable for animal use. When she planted potatoes she chitted them and threw them on to the surface and she planted seeds in the same easy way. Ruth Stout became famous for not watering her garden for 35 years and Kansas is a dry place in summer.

Her system wasn’t labour-free, however. Her partner Richard recorded that you needed 25 bales of hay for a garden plot 50 feet by 50 feet. Someone had to spread it over the garden and one surmises it was probably not her! The other famous no-dig gardener was an Australian called Esther Dean. She wrote No-Dig Gardening and Leaves of Life in the 1970s.

Winter always finds me feeling restless and soon I shall be turning the soil over with my fork. The frosts and wintry weather will do the rest. The technique is to turn the soil over once so that it forms large clods. These should be left on the surface in large lumps, not broken up.

This increases the surface area of the soil exposed to the weather. The action of freezing and thawing (brought about by frosts) breaks the clumps down over winter. All that the gardener needs to do is rake the soil into a tilth in spring.

I do share one thing in common with Ruth. When it comes to the hard jobs (like double digging) it’s the ‘partner’ who does the work. Double digging involves removing one spit (or a spade’s depth) of soil.

The bottom of the trench is then roughly dug over with a fork to break it up to improve drainage. At this stage manure or garden compost is incorporated into the trench and covered with the remaining soil to make a raised fertile mound.

There are pros and cons for both methods. No-dig gardeners believe that nutrients are leached out by digging. They advocate adding a two-inch deep top dressing of compost that can be pulled down by worms. This leads to warmer soil early in the year and less weed seeds germinating in spring. No-dig gardeners feel their approach keeps nutrients in the ground.

It isn’t lazy — you have to be prepared to barrow in organic matter to cover the plots, and your compost has to be free of pernicious weeds.

Most no-dig gardeners find slugs and woodlice a nuisance, so Charles Dowding (who was inspired by Ruth Stout) raises all his vegetable plants in modular trays in the greenhouse before planting them out into the garden.

Joy Larkcom (the great lady vegetable gardener) and her trusty husband Don (a double digger if ever I saw one) used the same system for many of their vegetables.