A long timber raised bed of red and green lettuces growing in dark compost, with a drip line along it

What no-dig looks like

One heavy day, then small regular jobs

Building the bed is the only heavy day. After that the work is small and regular: watering, pulling the odd weed while it is still tiny, picking, and replanting each gap as it opens. Once a year, usually in late fall, you spread another inch of compost over the surface and let worms carry it down. You never fork it in. Paths get the same treatment with wood chips over cardboard, so the whole plot stays mulched and you rarely see bare soil.

Three ways to build a bed without digging

Open one to see where to start. Square foot gardening and straw bale gardening can add their own lines to the kit.

Compost on cardboardThe classic bed. Cardboard goes straight on the ground and 4 to 6 inches of compost goes on top. It is the cheapest per square foot and suits any yard with reasonable soil underneath.

Start here

Flatten enough plain brown boxes to cover a 4 by 8 foot patch that gets at least six hours of sun, and peel off the tape and labels. Then build the bed with the steps below.

Charles Dowding: No Dig

Square foot gardeningA 4 by 4 foot frame filled with a light mix of compost, coir and vermiculite, then gridded into 16 squares that each hold a set number of plants. Good for poor or compacted ground, and anyone who wants a planting plan handed to them.

Start here

Mark a 4 by 4 foot square within reach of the hose, set a 6 inch deep frame on cardboard, and add the square foot gardening gear to your kit. Fill it with equal parts compost, coir and coarse vermiculite, then divide the top into 16 squares with twine.

Square Foot Gardening Foundation

Straw bale gardeningThe bale is both container and soil. Two weeks of water and nitrogen start it composting from the inside, and you plant into the top. It works on gravel or concrete and sits at knee height, but lasts one season.

Start here

Set two or three bales of straw (not hay) cut side up where they will stay, and add the straw bale gardening gear to your kit. A feed store or farm supply sells full-size bales for far less than a shipped one, so call there first. Start conditioning 12 days before your last frost date.

Straw Bale Gardens

Young seedlings growing through a thick layer of straw — Seedlings up through straw

The two methods, from their sources

Build your first bed this weekend

Tick each layer off as it goes down

Two muddy hands pressing a seedling into the surface of a timber-edged bed — Planting into the top layer

Free mulch for the paths

ChipDrop Sign up for a free truckload of arborist wood chips for paths

What you can grow in your first month

One finished bed

Cardboard down, compost on and planted in a single afternoon, with the grass underneath already dying off.

A row of radishes

Sown straight into the compost, they are ready to pull in about four weeks and tell you the bed is working.

Cut-and-come-again salad

Loose-leaf lettuce gives a first picking of outer leaves around week four and keeps going for two months.

A gridded square foot box

A 4 by 4 foot frame planted with 16 different squares, if you go the square foot gardening route.

A conditioned straw bale

Twelve days of watering and feeding turns a bale into a warm, planted bed for tomatoes or squash.

What trips beginners up

Too little compost

Two inches over cardboard dries out and lets grass through the seams. In year one, 4 inches is the minimum.

Deep-rooted crops in the first spring

Carrots and parsnips stall when they hit cardboard that has not rotted yet, which takes 8 to 12 weeks. Start with salad, radishes, beans, squash and transplants.

Glossy or waxed cardboard

Printed, coated and waxed boxes break down slowly and shed plastic. Plain brown corrugated only.

Contaminated compost, manure or straw

Some hay and lawn herbicides survive composting and cup the leaves of tomatoes and beans. Sow a few bean seeds in a pot of any new batch and wait two weeks before trusting it.

Slugs under the mulch

Damp cardboard edges and half-rotted mulch shelter them. Keep bed edges tidy and plant sturdy transplants rather than tiny seedlings when slugs are bad.

Perennial weeds coming back

Bindweed and quackgrass will poke through. Pull each shoot as it appears and they starve within a season. Do not dig them out.

Planting a bale too early

A straw bale that has not finished conditioning runs hot enough inside to cook roots. Wait until it feels barely warm.

How much time it takes

Young kale plants in a board-edged bed covered with straw and compost mulch — A mulched bed a few weeks in

Plan on two to three hours to build a 4 by 8 foot bed, most of it moving compost. Through the growing season a single bed needs 10 to 15 minutes two or three times a week. Straw bales want daily watering in midsummer, so most people run a soaker hose along them. The yearly compost top-up is an hour's work per bed.

Where to learn more

English market gardener Charles Dowding has run side-by-side dig and no-dig trial beds for years and publishes the results, along with free sowing timelines and videos. For what to plant and when in your own climate, your state's Cooperative Extension service is the most reliable source, and its Master Gardener volunteers answer questions for free. Look up your hardiness zone first so the planting dates you read make sense for where you live.

Free no-dig and growing advice

Two cupped hands holding a heap of dark, crumbly soil — Dark, crumbly and left alone

Why the kit looks like this

There is no spade, fork or tiller on this list because the method does not use them. Cardboard is free from any appliance or bike shop, and wood chips are often free from tree crews. Compost is where the money goes. A bag holds about a cubic foot, which covers 3 square feet at planting depth, so the one bag in the kit starts a small patch or tops two straw bales. For a full 4 by 8 foot bed, a bulk delivery from a landscape supplier costs a fraction as much per cubic foot. The square foot and straw bale lines only join the kit when you choose that route.

A wicker basket of cut herbs on a wood chip path between raised beds — A wood chip path between beds

Stack the bed kit

Compare the options on each line, then set your tiers and check out from the cart. Clicking a card selects it there, and clicking the selected card again takes that line out. The square foot gardening and straw bale gardening lines and the optional dibber start out of the kit.

EssentialSoil and mulch

Bagged organic compost

Compost is the bed. It smothers the weeds, feeds the plants and is what you sow into.

budget

Espoma Organic Land and Sea Gourmet Compost with Lobster & Crab Meal; the Best of Both Worlds! Gourmet Planting Mix for Vegetables, Flowers, Trees & Shrubs. 1 Cubic Foot Bag

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$26.74

No-Dig Gardening

What no-dig looks like

Three ways to build a bed without digging

Build your first bed this weekend

What trips beginners up

How much time it takes

Where to learn more

Why the kit looks like this

Stack the bed kit

Bagged organic compost

Vegetable seed assortment

Hand trowel

Watering can with a fine rose

Flexible garden tub

4x4 raised garden bed frame

Coarse vermiculite

Coco coir brick

Jute garden twine

Straw bale

Blood meal fertilizer

Soaker hose

Garden dibber