Spring Gardening: Will You Be Ready, Groundhog Shadow or Not?

Phil does what Phil does. Shadow. No shadow. We can’t predict what Groundhog Day will bring us this year. But if indeed he finds that no shadow is in sight, will you be ready in terms of your gardening for spring and summer 2026? Could you glide right into an “early spring”, confident you know which plants to buy, whether or not you need to amend your soil, and which new and nifty tools might work best for you? If your answer is anything other than a strong, YES… well, get going.

Truth being told, I don’t know that I feel ready right now for an early spring. Certainly I may have nothing to worry about: Again, Phil does what Phil does. But I do know that I need to feel confident in my soil and its quality before I go about thinking of which plants to add to my garden in May, June, and beyond. And I do feel pretty confident, thanks to my recent efforts to practice no-dig gardening.

No-dig gardening (substitute “no-till” planting if you are working on a larger scale with crops): If you haven’t heard of it, it’s not the name for a lazy person’s approach. Instead, it takes a strong person to practice no-dig gardening. Restraint is needed on the part of the no-dig gardener, who tries to let organisms and organic matter work their magic, as undisturbed as possible. 

The no-dig gardener aims to overplant in an effort to achieve good, complete soil coverage. Amendments—typically compost—can be added to the top and allowed to seep into the soil with rainfall and watering from a hose or irrigation system, but disturbing the soil by digging into it is avoided as much as possible. When new plant-starts are added, the soil is often sliced to create a space for them, and then it is packed back together with as little disturbance as possible. But other than for the purpose of initial planting, the soil is not sliced, aerated with a pitchfork, dug with a pointed shovel…. Instead, the soil is left alone so that each and every tiny creature can play a role in making the soil as rich as possible. Bacteria and fungi are left to improve the soil; earthworms’ movement aerates the soil, and their excrement enriches the soil; microorganisms are left to grow in number, multiplying the nutrients in the soil and helping plants to access them. No-dig gardening: Pretty amazing!

In some parts of my yard, I continue gardening with a pointed-tip shovel. I use it for digging, and I know that I truly disturb the soil in these parts of my property. Digging like this is a familiar, comfortable approach in these beds where I tend to plant annuals. In the past, I assumed the “disturbance” was good for soil aeration, so I would dig a bit more than I had to, trying to fluff up the soil as much as possible. But creatures within the soil can take care of aeration for us. So in other garden beds, I enjoy the perennials that faithfully show themselves each year, allowing the tightly packed plants to fight it out for sun. Seeing them in these beds, I realize how they thrive. The heavy plant cover on these beds prevents weeds from sprouting, for the most part. And even though I do see some flowers craning long, long necks to get their faces in the sun once they push up past the heavy and thick foliage of other plants, I think that most of my plants in the no-dig beds are very happy.

So how does this connect to Phil? Well, first off, associating Phil with no-dig gardening is both odd and helpful: odd because groundhogs themselves are diggers, but helpful because no groundhog—not even the sweetly round and certainly obliging Phil—really wants to be disturbed when he is underground, minding his own business. Perhaps no creature does. Perhaps the microorganisms in the soil should be left alone, to the extent possible… same concept, really. I have experimented with this over the past few years, and I see the benefits of no-dig gardening, or modified no-dig gardening which is a little more manageable (that is, disturbing the soil as little as possible but not aiming for absolute perfection).

Well, tomorrow is Groundhog Day. If you think you’re not ready for an early spring, maybe you’re wrong. Try a no-dig gardening approach in at least a portion of your garden. You’ll be ready to not dig, not disturb, right? Try it and see what happens. I suspect you will be very pleased to see the resulting quality of your soil by the end of summer, and by next year.