How to do No-Dig Gardening (and never weed again)

I've got six raised beds rotting so badly they're falling apart. Luckily, growing spectacular vegetables has nothing to do with raised beds. You only need one thing. One. The most important thing in gardening, write this down, is the soil. You mean dirt, right? No, I mean soil. But that's just a fancy word for dirt. No, it's not. Listen, dirt is a part of what soil is composed of. Dirt is non-living, inorganic matter. Sand, clay, silt, minerals. Soil is a living, dynamic ecosystem. In one tablespoon of soil, there are more microbes than there are people on the planet. Yes, I mean billions of microbes. Then there's fungi and insects and earthworms, plus lots of decaying organic matter. So sure, there's some dirt in there too. But soil is so much more. It's rich and full of nutrients. If you have great soil, you will grow great plants. So you're telling me this is soil? Yep. So this heavy, dense earth is going to grow great plants? Yes, it just needs a little help. Look, look at the life pouring out of it. Worms, bugs. See, they're all scattering because we just disturbed their precious ecosystem. But what do those critters have to do with our vegetable plants? Well, take earthworms, for instance. They tunnel around and create pockets of air, make it easier for roots to penetrate. Worm castings enrich the soil. Worm what? Worm poop. It's like compost. Okay, but I'm going to put my back out tilling this stuff before we can even plant. Don't worry. You do not need to do any tilling. Okay, smarty pants. Tell me how we're going to get our vegetables in the ground then. Follow me. So we know there's a whole world beneath our feet. The soil is teeming with beneficial life. We want to preserve that ecosystem and nurture it. Well, one of the best ways to do that while gardening is a method called no-dig gardening. And the best part is that it's easy gardening. Here's what it is, very simply. You do not till your soil. You do not disturb it. Instead, you add layers of richness right on top of it. Think of the way a deciduous forest works. The leaves fall from the trees. Annual plants die back. All this organic matter lays on the forest floor, undisturbed and decomposing. This decomposing layer protects the soil from drying out. It protects the soil microbes from harmful UV rays. And it becomes a natural compost, building up the soil and adding nutrients. In no-dig gardening, you mimic this natural cycle by adding compost on top of your soil. It could be animal manure or green waste like raked up leaves or food scraps. Whatever it is, the compost feeds your soil. And the soil feeds your plants. I have six raised beds that were here when I bought the property earlier this year. The soil inside them was pretty low. I knew I wanted to top them up about four or five inches. But when spring hit, the beds were covered in weeds, annuals like chickweed and bittercress. So what do you do about weeds when you're doing no-dig gardening? You certainly don't use weed-killing chemicals. You fast-forward their life cycle to decomposition by smothering them with darkness. My tool of choice was cardboard, a biodegradable material that forms a perfect barrier for blocking weeds from sunlight. I had plenty of moving boxes on hand, so I flattened them out, then fitted them to each raised bed like puzzle pieces, overlapping the edges by six inches or so to make sure no light leaked through. And then I covered the cardboard with compost. I had the compost delivered right to my yard by dump truck, which was a lot more economical than buying it in individual bags. After I got a few inches into a bed, I tamped it down and then added a couple more inches for an ultimate height of about four to five inches of compost. I live near a lot of mushroom farms, so it was easiest for me to get mushroom compost. I have started making my own compost with kitchen scraps and yard waste, and I'm going to dedicate a whole video to composting. As for the cardboard, I know you have a few questions, so let me head those off first. Yes, I did pull off all the packing tape that was stuck to the boxes, which was probably the most annoying part of the whole process. But I didn't want that tape in my garden beds. And yes, I did do a bunch of research into any potential chemicals lurking in the cardboard itself. And from what I can tell, I don't have to worry. The corrugated packing boxes, typically sold flat in bulk, are not coated with any chemicals or oils that you might find in food packaging or cardboard that's made into specialized boxes. And lastly, you might be wondering how the roots of my plants are going to get through the cardboard. Let me show you how soft this cardboard is already from the rain alone. Let's see. I have a stick here. Not even feeling it. It just keeps going down and down and down. I laid this cardboard back in March. It is just the beginning of May already. Cardboard breaks down relatively swiftly. And the best part is that it's a favorite food of worms. So your vegetable roots can push down, but the weeds can't push up. They're busy decomposing underneath, adding further nutrients to the soil. If a stray weed does make it through alive, I can easily pull it. I'll plant all my vegetables right into this top layer of compost. And as you can see, I already have my Baker Creek, lettuces, kale, mizuna going strong. Some bok choy, Chinese broccoli have just germinated. Now, you don't need raised beds for no-dig gardening. You can do this right on your lawn. You don't even need to rip up your grass. Just place the cardboard down wherever you want to make a bed. Cover the cardboard with about four inches of compost, just like you saw me do. Now, the only thing I'd recommend with doing it here on the lawn, especially if you're looking to plant for this season, get your hands on some weed barrier landscape fabric. It's usually black and comes in rolls. Cover your bed, your compost, and your cardboard in fabric. Weigh the sides down with wooden boards or pin it with landscape staples. That fabric will block the light best for a persistent perennial like lawn grass. When you want to plant your vegetables, just punch holes in your fabric. Put your plants in or your seeds and keep that fabric on through the growing season. By season's end, that grass should well be gone. Now, the best news with no-dig gardening is that you'll have minimal weeding to do. You may have to pull a stray weed here or there, but you'll never have a mat of weeds like you saw on my beds earlier this spring. Because weeds are one of nature's ways of healing the earth that's been dug up and turned over. It's like a band-aid. Weeds establish themselves to cover the exposed earth. Their roots try to hold everything in place again. We're not digging up the earth here. We're preserving it. At the start of next year's season, I'll just add a couple of inches of new compost. No need for new cardboard. I'll simply feed the soil. And that soil will feed me and my family.