I took up veg growing when I retired a few years ago . I didn’t have to learn how to grow veg etc because I lived with my Grandmother during the 1950/early1960 ‘s in a cottage in the Clyst Valley in Devon and gardening was what you did. You had to grow your own veg. We lived opposite a farm. The farmer gave no manure for free and we didn’t have the money in those days to buy it. The cottage had no taps ( we had a well and a pump ) a tin bath , a cast iron range and 2 Primus stoves for cooking. Aladdin lamps provide lighting. The toilet was a wooden shed with a large bucket
Our only compost came out of the large bucket but was obviously not spread on top of the ground. It was always buried in a fallow area of ground in a very deep trench so the bucket contents were 2/3 feet below ground . I spent several years digging holes and emptying buckets. But we always had wonderful veg all year round. This was ,apparently , the way we enriched the ground in those days. I am not sure how all this was converted to plant nutrients but we always had super veg and fruit.
We never in those days dug the soil as such but used what my grandmother called a ” rounding up ” hoe to clear any weeds for the next planting . Nor did we have wooden sided beds because nobody did that in those days. Just weed free earth paths!
I can now understand why I am a convinced no digger. I shall continue to spread old horse manure. I have no desire to have a wooden shed or a large bucket or to dig deep holes around my allotment.
