Organic Gardening - Don't Turn The Soil

Conventional practice is that a gardener turns his soil each season in preparation for the next planting. For the organic gardener, this is a practice to avoid. Soil researchers have demonstrated that it takes years to develop a healthy biological layer of microbes and tilling the soil collapses these bio processes and 'resets' them. Chemical farmers don't worry about this because their plants aren't fed by the soil - they feed them with synthetic fertilizers. For the organic farmer, the soil feeds his garden plants. Or more accurately, the worms and micro life feed his plants the gardener feeds the worms and the worms feed the plants. This is how the earth woks in it's natural cycle.

If you don't put chemicals in your garden soil, and you don't walk on it, you should never have to till your dirt. It can be composted over the top and fertilized organically with each seedling you plant.