To have healthy living soil is much easier and safer than having the unhealthy dead soil that most gardeners create with chemical. This is why I cannot under stand why anyone would choose to poison themselves and their families by using pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers. Health soil simply requires you to apply plenty of organic matter and let nature do its thing of breaking it down into food that your garden plants need to grow. Health soil also promotes health plants and health plants have their own defense against insect infestations, making pesticides unnecessary. I have never used any man made chemicals on my garden and have had very few insect problems or weed problems if you use the no work garden method. My only conclusion is that advertising and misinformation has brainwashed most people into thinking that gardening is only possible with these chemicals or that you will have larger nicer fruit and vegetables, or that bugs will eat more of your garden than you do if you don’t use these chemicals. It’s a lie. I get beautiful giant heads of cabbage, peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, with few or no insects and they taste better than the stuff in the store.
Weather you live where there is sandy soil, or a clay soil area as I do you can have healthy living soil. It will be an automatic benefit of the no work garden method. What I mean by living soil is that bacteria and earthworms are necessary to breakdown organic matter into healthy nutrients, aerate the soil, and leave supercharged fertile castings. Chemicals kill earthworms and bacteria creating dead, hard, depleted soil where the only way to grow anything but weeds is to put more chemicals on. After abusing the land in this manner long enough the only thing you get from it is tasteless nitrogen molecules that resemble fruit and vegetable only fit for the common grocery store shelves.
The 6 inches of hay that I use to keep the weed down, and moisture in, breaks down very quickly into compounds and nutrients through the action of earthworms and bacteria. Soon you will not even need to dig or till your soil. It will become soft, dark and rich. Beneficial Earthworms will flourish, leaving their super fertile castings....and super fertile living soil.