belated beginning with no-dig in established kitchen garden

[smallmeadowParticipant]

Hello!
Our twenty-year old kitchen garden (4 plots of 13’x18′,always organic, but lightly rototilled each year) is my responsibility these days and I am challenged about how to quickly transition it to no-dig. I’ve been looking for affordable compost and haven’t been successful yet, and here it is mid-March! I *may* be able to get a pick-up truckload in a week or two of compost with good provenance. Am waiting to hear.

I wonder what to do in the meantime and if I can’t get enough to thickly cover all that is now covered in the wintered over weeds-birdseye speedwell, dead nettle, new chickweed? I have lots of old hay on hand. The soil is pretty well nourished (I believe?) after all of the years of my husband’s amendments and small amounts of our compost and lots of mulch. Am thinking of cutting the wild cover, perhaps, and leaving in place and mulching with hay? Perhaps buying enough good compost for some beds and getting enough on to smother the weeds and plant into? A grand experiment.

My husband is skeptical, so I hope to be able to show him the benefits and possibilities. All I know for sure is that no-dig makes beautiful sense to me and I don’t want to wait until next year to begin. I will be doing my best to get a compost system going for the future.

Any thoughts will be gratefully received…

[CleansweepParticipant]

I suspect that you are outside of UK, so this may not be climatically appropriate but:
I would hoe off the weeds, which from your list, appear all to be annuals seeded from last season. With a couple of dry days, these will die, and then can be raked off and composted. Its best to keep them down, preventing flowering/seeding again.
Hopefully you will get your compost and once spread, can be immediately planted with ready vegetable plants, or suitably seeded.
Would be interested to learn of your approximate location.
Cleansweep

[smallmeadowParticipant]

I appreciate your response, Cleansweep. You are correct as I am in the US, in the countryside of Virginia. The hoeing makes sense, and something I can get on with while the compost situation resolves. Tho’ I suppose I will need to be thoughtful about not hoeing too soon before I find some compost, or more weeds will be invited in…

[greenhours135Participant]

Have you considered lasagna beds? I am sure you can grow in the 50 cm tall lasagna bed with 10cm compost on top – lettuce strawberries tomatoes potatoes spinach etc. For carrots and logs deep roots you may need some extra compost. Not sure because I grew everything lasagna the first year I started my garden and they did very well – except my carrots

[smallmeadowParticipant]

Hello greenhours…I’ve used the lasagna approach in places where there wasn’t an established bed as an easy way of starting a new bed in lawn, and I sort of tried that in the kitchen garden last year but the timing was wrong. I think it might work in autumn when everything can break down over the winter?

[RaySParticipant]

I practice no-dig with hay, mostly, sometimes woodchips, as the mulch cover. It is too hot and dry here to use compost as the covering. I’ve tried that more than once and it simply isn’t successful here. Compost, when I have any, is always covered with hay.
My preferred cover is woodchip but it’s not easy to access where I am and is getting more expensive each year. Too many people have seen the Back to Eden movie! I have ready access to hay so that’s what I end up using mostly. I love the no-dig approach and would never consider going back. Quite apart from anything else, I’m simply getting too old to be digging garden beds!
If it were me, I’d simply cut down the weeds, cover with hay and take it from there. Good luck with whatever approach you choose.

[smallmeadowParticipant]

Thank you so much, RayS. Your approach is pretty much what I did last year and it looks like I will this year as the load of compost I got is enough for about a bed. : ) I am cutting small patches of the weeds and my husband is slowly lightly tilling : ( so we will have a selection of approaches going this year and it will be interesting to compare them.

Going forward, I will focus on making compost and have a large area in our old stable almost ready to begin.

Thanks again!

[Author]

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