The Zen of Backyard Gardening

I have some optimistic ideas this spring. We're planning to do a small vegetable garden in our backyard, now that we have a backyard. I'm incredibly ignorant of the entire gardening world and there's a huge learning gap I need to fill, and fast.

Since it's a long weekend I thought I'd get out there and get a headstart. It's been a rainy couple of days and I decided to do some digging in the beds, to see what the soil is like. I turned over a few shovelfuls and right away I see some lovely plump worms - which I've just chopped in two with the shovel's blade. Gasp!

How do Buddhists garden? Perhaps they turn over the soil with their fingers. Somehow I don't picture extreme Buddhists doing a lot of heavy lifting, nor getting particularly dirty. But I put out the question to the blogosphere. How does one garden without turning the activity into "Saw V" for our little wormy friends? Or is this just part of the whole deal?