This topic contains 25 replies, has 10 voices, and was last updated by Don Foley 8 years, 5 months ago.
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I am sure that others who are more experienced no-diggers will chip in here but, having just listened to the broadcast (thank you for the link), I should like to make a few comments.
I have just worked on an area of 78 sq.m, covering the 1.2 m wide beds with FYM at a depth of 3-5 cm, but not the paths. This cost £25. Christine doesn’t mention the area she covered at a cost of £200, just that it is ‘not that big a plot’. 3-5 cm is the depth that Charles recommends for starting off, if compost is in short supply, unless using compost for smothering a weed infested plot (see Charles’ article ). I am using mypex for getting rid of the weeds and the thin layer of FYM to kick start soil improvement. I would guess that Christine’s plot was already in good heart so I do not understand why she advocated using ‘8 to 10cm’. ‘Less weeding and digging’ is mentioned. No-dig results in fewer weeds even without the addition of compost as no new seedlings are brought to the surface and the amount of digging needed is implied in the name!
My neighbours have also bought in FYM at £25 per load but they have dug trenches and buried it – same cost but much more work.
Christine uses the terms ‘very very expensive’ and ‘unless you have a phenomenal source’ and I think that this use of language and what I think is her erroneous advice on depth needed is enough to put people off no-dig. Not ‘dismissive’ of the system, but certainly not encouraging.
As a Scouser, now relocated in sunny Exmouth, I can see that FYM might be difficult to get hold of in central Liverpool, but there may well be other options rather than expensive bags of conditioner from the garden centre.
Hi digWinstanley
First of all may I suggest a name change to no-digWinstanley 🙂
Sorry, but I put this up before reading your reply. It would be good to hear what Charles has to say.
If I had a 112sqm plot I would calculate, using 1.2m beds and 0.6m paths, that the area needing a compost cover would be 75sqm. Using Charles’ minimum depth of 3cm, I would need 2.25cum. The bags work out at £10 for 0.32 cum so I would need £72 worth.
I would also, like you, use my veg and fruit scraps from home, cardboard from home and veg debris from the plot to build a compost heap to supplement, admittedly by a small amount, my 3cm of bought compost.
I would also consider growing green manure to bulk up the compost bin, either where there are short season crops or in dedicated beds. An Exmouth plot holder conducted an experiment over a 30 year period and was able to sustain a no-dig approach, without outside inputs, using one third of his land for green manure crops to ‘feed’ the rest of the plot. Although this reduced his growing area he was able to use his growing areas more intensively.
You mention 3 things that put people off no-dig.
Relative costs and resources: most of my neighbours, all diggers, either buy in FYM or lots of fertilizer. The latter group also uses lots of water on their crops as there is little in the ground to hold onto the rainfall. We are on Pebble Beds, not as free draining as Bagshot Sands, but with little to hold on to moisture. I think some also spend lots of money on weedkillers and insecticides, equipment for digging, rotavating and so on. I doubt that the diggers spend much less overall than the no-diggers. The cost of the compost is only one item in the equation. Of course if you go in for copper tools like Charles the argument may fall flat!
Time: I have no doubt that the time involved in digging and composting is far greater than no-digging and composting. Even digging without adding compost is far more time consuming. I have also no doubt that there is less time needed for weeding and watering using a no-dig approach. The saving of time and making the work less physically arduous are two arguments put forward by Charles.
I think there are other things that put people off no-dig:
The strongly voiced opinions of some plot holders who extol the virtues of digging and decry other approaches.
Incorrect information given by well-respected expert/professional gardeners, as in the case of Christine on GQT
Advice given in many books and articles about the NEED to dig.
A misunderstanding of the distinction between getting rid of weeds and feeding the soil. I think that many people see Charles’ instant raised beds on meadow grass with 15cm of compost and then they do the calculation for their allotment and end up with scary figures. They do not see the sections on adding minimal amounts of compost on clean soil which has been cleaned by traditional methods or light suppressing mypex before going no-dig.The main difficulty I have with no-dig is that I actually like digging! 🙂
Best wishes
JohnThanks for these interesting posts.
I am not saying that any thickness of compost is necessary for no dig to work, but I advise up to two inches annually for abundant, good vegetables and less weeding. A neighbour does successful no dig for ornamentals with a gravel mulch.In the 1980s I used a half inch of compost per year on 7 acres of beds and had good results, but was also adding a thick wadge of straw to paths i.e. feeding soil in a different way.
Now I find it simpler to add compost to beds only, compost means less slugs. I add more than before in order to have higher yields and more double cropping, also less weeding i.e. its time efficient.
However the extra compost does cost more in some places, so I suggest a thinner layer if that is the case.
I would suggest Winstanley to use less, it just means you will have some extra weeds and slightly less abundance. The same applies whether you dig or not – vegetables are hungry plants. At least your not-digging is conserving more organic matter in the soil, compared to having some carbon oxidise into CO2, when digging.If you read the Market Gardener by Jean Martin Fortier, he proposes putting compost on half of his land each year. He divides his crops into heavy and light feeders and only puts compost on the beds for heavy feeders. He uses minimum tillage. He reckons the cost of buying in is low compared to the amount of harvest that he makes.
I have used the no dig method since I had my allotment in July 2014. It was waist high in weeds and after an initial cut we covered everything in card board paper and weed suppressant.
I planted onions garlic and shallots in a bed prepared by hand weeding and covered this surface with a fair amount of compost.
My crop was the envy of lots of the plot holders so I have continued and my crops have all been great. I will continue as this is the best way for me without the worry of digging.
KathleenI garden on around 50sqm of no-dig beds plus some paths, which I cover in spring with the waste generated during passage of ‘compost’ through a coarse sieve.
My strategy at the moment is:
1. Visit a local stables in the early autumn and do about 4 runs in the car with 4 ‘green waste bags’ supplied by the council and a spade, to create a heap of horse manure + straw which rots down over the next 12 months, creating enough to treat the bed for potatoes the following spring, the dedicated pea stretch and the small cherry, plum and pear trees.
2. Generate 0.5 – 1.0 cubic metres of homegrown compost, through a combination of building 0.8*0.8*0.8m heaps in a oner in April time, using fresh horse manure, grass cuttings, newspaper, cardboard (from the waste of a local garden centre), leaves, turning them several weeks later and then transferring this into green bins, where subsequent additions of comfrey, kitchen waste, green waste from harvested crops etc etc is incorporated, along with twigs and small branches (which never fully rot down but are repeatedly returned to compost heaps to help with humus creation). These are topped up repeatedly until about October when they are left to rot down over winter to be ready for use in the spring as needed. The second big heap generated is transferred to other green bins in September and those are topped up through the winter with food waste and then left from March onwards to mature for use in where late summer/early autumn plantings take place.These first two sources cost only the petrol for collecting the horse manure – probably no more than £15 a year plus whatever you charge to the car depreciation for 60 – 70 miles (probably another £25 – 35).
3. The soil/compost used for growing tomatoes/potatoes in pots is kept in the bags the compost was bought in over the winter and used on salad beds. This is costed not in no-dig calculations but rather in the cost of growing tomatoes or potatoes in pots!
4. This year, I am experimenting with a leaf covering of the bed to be used for parsnip, onion and carrot after a successful small-scale trial in 2015. This of course costs nothing.I’ve looked at the cost of buying ‘commercial’ manure and its £70/tonne around here. However, if you had a 250sqm allotment, you can get a ‘lorry load’ from a local farmer for under £50, which sounds far cheaper (as it will be several tonnes delivered to the allotment site).
My calculations say if you cover the whole garden with ‘compost’ I need around 1.25 – 1.5 cubic metres per year.
Using the various sources I describe, it all costs in at around £100, of which about half is the cost of compost used to grow tomatoes and potatoes in pots (I do grow rather a lot of tomatoes outdoors – around 100lb a season on around 20 plants). The rest is the petrol plus depreciation costs for collecting all the manure.
I will be most interested in what the outcomes of leaf mulch trials will be, as I can source enough fallen leaves within 200 yards of the garden to cover all the beds easily. The only problem is when you have storms like this weeks’ ones and a whole bed of leaves end up on the garden grass again! I guess there may be a case of putting protective sheeting over the leaves and weighing down with bricks etc.
I’m also going to acquire a wood chipper soon and try a little experiment placing wood chip as a ‘permanent mulch’ to see it the stories on the web about this being a ‘magic top dressing fertiliser’ have any substance or not (since neighbours have sufficient large trees which are cut regularly to provide a sufficient source for many beds if such an approach has real benefits in real trials).
I have written something of my experiences of the cost of no dig in the Cost of No Dig thread, which might be of interest.
It costs me about £30 a year in mulching compost for my back and front garden and my allotment which I think is half a standard size (although here it is called a full sized allotment). The back garden is around 30 x 100 ft and includes a 12×40 ft polytunnel, the front garden’s growing area is mainly three raised beds of 4 ft x 8 ft)
I also have home made compost.
My allotment is very easy to maintain, DigWinstanley even though I don’t have much time!
Until a month ago I was not only helping Charles with the picking in his garden and the courses but also running a large no dig kitchen garden on a private estate single handedly – even though my working days often started at 5 am it was still possible to keep my allotment, beds and polytunnel full of abundant veg because it is so simple and effective.
The only bits of my garden that did not fare well thanks to my very long work and domestic commitments were existing borders which were not set up no dig, where perennial and annual weeds had a bit of a party. That is a job for this winter!
I always listen to GQT and remember this episode in paricular because it was pro no-dig and abut a bad back!!!
I am new on here, although my Grandfather, a farmer in the (mostly early part) of the 20th century, always used to top up the vegetable gardens each year. By the 1950’s they were far higher than the grass paths!
Woe betide any child found straying onto the garden- nothing must be trodden down!
We grew the fruit and vegetables in the gardens round the farmhouse by this method. I remember the year when I first saw anyone digging – it was the time when the horseradish roots had escaped and had to be removed from an area of about 18 square yards!
Of course, in those days, everything was organic and since we had cows, chickens, pigs, etc , everything from potatoes to raspberries loved their roots 🙂 the compost heaps smelt beautiful as well. (you have to have been brought up on a farm to appreciate the last bit).
We also had about 80 acres of fields and meadows so it was my Grandmother and Mother who looked after the orchards and gardens.
My Husband and I have now been gardening for nearly 3 years. Our Son-in-law reminded me of no-dig in 2012 with a reprint of a leaflet which made me decide to finally give up smoking and spend the money on raised bed gardening when we moved to our new home .
The rest is history. We started with 4 raised beds built by my Son-in-law and his Brother (a carpenter) who then added 2 more at the edge of the lawn. this year we added 3 more in the middle of the lawn..Thanks JMOB a nice bit of history here. Your grandfather was very early to no dig, was he known for it I wonder? I like that you financed your beds with giving up smoking, win-win.
Hi digWinstanley
Thank you sharing this point of history, an inspirational story of rebellion against vested interests. Unfortunately it was not a happy ending as the Diggers were forced off St George’s Hill and other places where they settled and the vested interests got their way. Plus ça change!
I am tempted to change my name to diggerJohn in honour of the movement but fear it might cause some confusion on this website!
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