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Thursday, November 8, 2012

Bastard Trenching

I don't have a picture to go along with this note, however I discovered one evening that I have been misrepresenting myself as double digging my garden, when I have actually been Bastard Trenching it. Apparently here are the differences. In some soils or locations, you can dig down and remove two spade lengths (spits) of soil from your trench before you hit subsoil. I use both a Round Point Tiling Spade, a Square Point Shovel with a short handle, and at times a Mattock. The subsoil imagined, as soil not remedied with organic matter and undesirable to mix it in the topsoil. Then having removed approximately 24 inches of topsoil, the underlying subsoil is broken up once again by the Round Point Tiling Spade. Then one takes a potato fork and works in manure or compost in this layer which is three feet down from the surface. However  Bastard Trenching is used,( such as in my case where the subsoil is pure wind deposited clay), and only 12 inches down from the surface. The good soil is only 12 inches deep. So it is removed and then the second layer, broken up amended and so forth. In this case one inches deeper over the years until the soil can be properly doubly dug. Sorry if I have misled any one on this point of distinction.

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