"Do you practice any deep digging?"
Well, deep digging is more work than shallow digging. I do prefer to have soil that is as deep as possible. But to avoid digging. I know that my soil seemed loose further down than I commonly dug into it, to check it. In other words, it was loose to a deeper level than my fork was long. How much deeper, I don't know. I didn't want to disturb it, to find out. Since I didn't have a post hole digger, that would have meant digging 3-foot wide hole, emptying out the soil in a 3-foot wide circle. Or getting a soil-sample extraction tool that is longer than those commonly sold (which are about 8 inches long I think).
Actually I did do some holes to put trellis posts in, and I think my soil was loose and had added organic matter, down to about 12 inches, even though my walk-behind tiller was designed to only dig down 8 or 9 inches. Past 12 inches I had to work hard with my shovel, to break up what I think was clay-glued sand.
I avoided unnecessary digging. If I could avoid stepping on the soil, it would stay loose without frequent hand-forking or power-tilling. I think it is best to keep the soil levels the way they naturally tend to settle into, since disturbing the soil disturbs the ecosystems that start to develop. Now, these are NOT "natural" ecosystems. They are new "naturalistic" ecosystems that are specific to the particular soil being cultivated. The best "cultivation" is leaving alone when you can leave alone, and interefere when it is necessary and prudent to interfere, and leave alone as much as possible. Once they develop, I think disturbing them tends to undermine the systems that build up to keep the organic matter functioning within nitrogen cycles and oxygen cycles. Different organisms thrive where they are. Move them, and they tend to die. Competitors then tend to overgrow. Running out of their normal food, they may begin to attack the plants you are trying to cultivate. So once I loosen the soil the first time, I like to re-loosen it as infrequently and as un-enthusiastically as possible.
One way to have loose soil to a great depth is to simply pile the soil from the paths, onto the beds. I did this for carrots. My carrots never did turn out well, however, anyway. Straight without too many forks, and good texture, yes, but not good flavor. Cetainly, i think they are more likely to have fungi attack their skin, in soil that is disturbed too frequently, than in soil that has settled into a happy ecoystem.
Melons and squash, their roots don't seem to penetrate too deep. They like to spread out, not down. Melons and squash can be grown on trellis tho. They can save enormous amounts of space. But take some work to build strong enough to support heavy fruit.
Commercial growers almost invariably grow bush-type beans and peas. However I found that the vine-type always taste better, and they also produce ready-to-pick fruit over a more prolongued time, instead of being bred so that a machine or a crew can go down the row once, and pick all the fruit at picking. The crew leader signals when they are ready, and then they all get picked, some being just a little bit undermature, and some being a bit over-mature. With vine types, you pick them a little at a time, when they are closer to just perfect. They also use much much less space, growing up on a trellis or sticks or whatever. This makes them more-labor-intensive, from every angle you can think of, planting, caring for, and harvesting. Where labor is expensive, and land is not, commercial growers always want to reduce labor needed and don't worry too much about how much land is needed. However vine beans taste much much much better. If only the public knew that, and appreciate that. But they don't. The difference IS hard to put your finger on. I'd be hard pressed to describe it. But I know it is there.
