I didn't find double digging too bad as a female and that was clay in November. Didn't see many dead worms, but did see an awful lot of worms Robin had a few, though out of the thousands in the ground I doubt it upset anything. The key is simply to do a little bit each day, don't try to lift to much in one go and enjoy the exercise.
I don't think with our clay I would have much of a veg plot without a few years of double digging at least. I will add well rotted compost too and cultivate it over in the spring. I would never get rid of the compost heaps, dual purpose, we have grass snakes lay their eggs in them and I think they would get very annoyed with me if I stopped composting.
I've never heard wiser words than you can't take out what you don't put in - so digging in a lot of manure is my way to get the plot in shape. I don't think there is anything wrong with throwing organic material straight on top either, it is all good in the end.
I have grown veg in the past in raised permaculture beds, both ways seem to work so each to their own. But filling up the beds each year wasn't all that much less work than just digging it all over. Did my bad back the world of good too double digging this year, if somewhat counter intuitive I have been much more mobile and in less pain after double digging half the plot this year. I remember this day last year, struggling to walk 40 feet to the remnants of our old wildlife pond. Now I'm back to doing five mile walks without discomfort and that pond is now renovated and ready for its first spring. All hard work, all immensely satisfying.
One thing I would say though, there is nothing wrong in one season of simply cultivating it over, putting on compost and running a cultivator over again. Start growing stuff for a season before the double dig. I think potatoes go a long way to break it all up as do the root crops. Weeding the first year meant plenty of hoe work, but the annoying weeds like mallow were easy to identify and remove root and all in the Autumn dig. I just let them grow a bit once the onions were up and it was very easy to identify them and get each one out.
Is that really less work than putting everything in a compost heap, stirring it with a strong stick once and week and turning it once when it's half-made, then spreading it on the veg patch for the worms to drag down?
Particularly when you consider that when the vegetable waste is breaking down in your trench it'll use up nitrogen from the surrounding soil for quite a while. I don't have a large enough veg patch to leave areas fallow for a season.
I love my compost heaps
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I get the material at the wrong times to put it straight on the plot, can't see how one can do it if there is veg in most of the time and like you Dove I don't have plans for a fallow part of the plot. I lot of the material that went to the heaps this year was soil with weed roots too, by the time it's finished they will be a distant memory.
I don't dig as such, I use an azada and kind of batter my way through it. It's much, much less painful on the back and it does the same thing- I can run it over once just to break up the soil, or a couple of times to make it finer
on one of my plots, the empty beds have been dug over, manured amd left to do its thIng. The other plot needs to be gone over, so I'll break it up with the azada, have another quick run over it then get some manure down while I can.
i'm not saying that it's a foolproof way of doing things, but it works for me
This is how I compost in winter. Dig one trench - not hard work - fill it with my bucket of kitchen waste and cover that over from digging out the next trench. Then that's ready for when the bucker's next full - tip it in then cover it and there's the next trench dug, ready and waiting. I've got all winter...
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I didn't find double digging too bad as a female and that was clay in November. Didn't see many dead worms, but did see an awful lot of worms
Robin had a few, though out of the thousands in the ground I doubt it upset anything. The key is simply to do a little bit each day, don't try to lift to much in one go and enjoy the exercise.
I don't think with our clay I would have much of a veg plot without a few years of double digging at least. I will add well rotted compost too and cultivate it over in the spring. I would never get rid of the compost heaps, dual purpose, we have grass snakes lay their eggs in them and I think they would get very annoyed with me if I stopped composting.
I've never heard wiser words than you can't take out what you don't put in - so digging in a lot of manure is my way to get the plot in shape. I don't think there is anything wrong with throwing organic material straight on top either, it is all good in the end.
I have grown veg in the past in raised permaculture beds, both ways seem to work so each to their own. But filling up the beds each year wasn't all that much less work than just digging it all over. Did my bad back the world of good too double digging this year, if somewhat counter intuitive I have been much more mobile and in less pain after double digging half the plot this year.
I remember this day last year, struggling to walk 40 feet to the remnants of our old wildlife pond. Now I'm back to doing five mile walks without discomfort and that pond is now renovated and ready for its first spring. 
All hard work, all immensely satisfying.
One thing I would say though, there is nothing wrong in one season of simply cultivating it over, putting on compost and running a cultivator over again. Start growing stuff for a season before the double dig. I think potatoes go a long way to break it all up as do the root crops. Weeding the first year meant plenty of hoe work, but the annoying weeds like mallow were easy to identify and remove root and all in the Autumn dig. I just let them grow a bit once the onions were up and it was very easy to identify them and get each one out.
Is that really less work than putting everything in a compost heap, stirring it with a strong stick once and week and turning it once when it's half-made, then spreading it on the veg patch for the worms to drag down?
Particularly when you consider that when the vegetable waste is breaking down in your trench it'll use up nitrogen from the surrounding soil for quite a while. I don't have a large enough veg patch to leave areas fallow for a season.
I love my compost heaps
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I get the material at the wrong times to put it straight on the plot, can't see how one can do it if there is veg in most of the time and like you Dove I don't have plans for a fallow part of the plot. I lot of the material that went to the heaps this year was soil with weed roots too, by the time it's finished they will be a distant memory.
I agree whole heartedly with you Punkdoc. Work at the beginning on the soil; no shortcuts pays dividends.
Fun seeing this thread as I have creating new beds at the allottment
Paths covered with bark Chipping's , so I do not walk on the beds after the second dig but no double digging , most of the soil is nice and loamy
Also cover beds with horse manure to over winter and keep the weeds down
Happy digging
I don't dig as such, I use an azada and kind of batter my way through it. It's much, much less painful on the back and it does the same thing- I can run it over once just to break up the soil, or a couple of times to make it finer
on one of my plots, the empty beds have been dug over, manured amd left to do its thIng. The other plot needs to be gone over, so I'll break it up with the azada, have another quick run over it then get some manure down while I can.
i'm not saying that it's a foolproof way of doing things, but it works for me