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Just pulled up my first carrots since starting no dig . The result is great ,also the parsnips .
Thanks for the feedback Slasher and good that the squirrel has not got involved. Its been a good year for most root vegetables, so far.
My carrots this year are also good using no-dig – currently thinning and having daily salad and a few lunch vegetables too. Strangely, Nantes are all perfect specimens, whereas Sweet Candle have forked a lot. All in same ground, all planted on root days.
Early Nantes is such a good variety!
Me too. I’ve not being growing veg for many years (apart from chillis), and this year my almost no dig carrots (touchon) and parsnips are marvelous. Root parsley and salsify look to be good too. My carrots have tended to fork in my heavy stony clay soil, and digging them out can be difficult. That said, forked or not, they taste good. Weeding has been much easier, as there have been almost no weeds thanks to the mulching action of the compost.
Beetroot has been a mixed bag. The yellow cylindrical have been all leaf and no root. And most bolted. Was this actually chard seed? The red beetroot from Real Seeds has done well, no bolting.
Pak Choi has been a mixed bag too. Early plantings under fine mesh were lovely. Second plantings were destroyed by insects, despite being quite big when planted out from modules.
The only downside for me is the extra cost of compost, but it is worth it for the reduced workload. Friends bought 5 builders bags of manure for £100, that makes no dig cheap.
Hi Leif, glad that your roots have been a success.
Local farmers here in North Yorkshire have provided manure that has produced great results, and at a price even less than your gardening friends obtained. If you have any local to yourself it may be worth an ask. Of course, could just be the Yorkshireman in me 🙂
Leif good news! and you may have sown your yellow beetroot too early? My first sowing is late April in the greenhouse. Until that date, I sow only Boltardy, which is bred for early sowing, not to bolt.
Hello Charles, yes I guess the yellow was not bolt resistant. What is odd is that I have grown two varieties of yellow beetroot, and both had raw flesh that burned my throat, even when young.
Hello Stringfellow, good point, thanks.
On the cost of compost, look at this post I received on Facebook:
Hello,
We got our first allotment in April and after reading your book decided we wanted to go no dig. We couldn’t afford to buy loads of compost so used a mix of newspaper, straw, alfalfa hay, manure and compost to build our raised beds
Despite the fact that our time at the allotment has been really limited (had a baby 3 weekd ago so being heavily pregnant / with a newborn and a 2 and a 3 year old too hasn’t made it so easy to get there!) our first summer of growing has been amazing! Our neighbours plots are covered in weeds and ours have been so manageable and weve had some great produce / learnt loads too.
This was tonights harvest and we’ve been getting similar every few days… no dig abundance!
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