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Can someone remind me why it's not good to dig wet soil. I dug up the last of my potatoes today because I didn't want the slugs to get them in all this rain (too late for some of them :(). But the soil was pretty wet and I wondered whether I should have sacrificed the potatoes for the sake of the soil. I did stand on a plank while digging.

This is why it's not good to dig wet soil (Scroll down to Soil compaction):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/basics/weather_wetweather.shtml

Quote from: caroline7758 on August 22, 2008, 13:33:31
Can someone remind me why it's not good to dig wet soil. I dug up the last of my potatoes today because I didn't want the slugs to get them in all this rain (too late for some of them :(). But the soil was pretty wet and I wondered whether I should have sacrificed the potatoes for the sake of the soil. I did stand on a plank while digging.

I had to do the same, but the soil you can always put right by double digging but you cant recover you spuds if they rot off or become to slug damaged.

I don't dig very wet soil because it's too heavy! I've never worried about compacting it by digging - it should be grateful for any digging it gets!