Linda Chalker-Scott, an associate professor at Washington State University, is the author of The Informed Gardener and producer of the column “Horticultural Myths.” In The Truth About Garden Remedies: What Works, What Doesn’t, and Why, Jeff Gillman, associate professor at the University of Minnesota, is just as rational and informative
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Do go ahead and dig in soil improvements, Chalker-Scott advises, for vegetable gardens or annual flowerbeds, in which nutrients need replacing yearly. But there’s really no need to dig organic amendments—manure and peat moss, etc.—into landscapes that are permanent. Treat those plantings of trees and shrubs as if they were forest ecosystems, not agricultural fields—wood chips and decaying leaves on top, no tilling-in of fertilizer.
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It must drive both authors nuts to hear people say, “I’m an organic gardener. I never use chemicals.” Everything on earth is composed of chemicals.