Lots of compost needed for no-dig gardening….

[Ken AdamsParticipant]

Hi all – I’m another newbie who took on a fairly large and neglected plot earlier this year and I have become fairly convinced that no-dig gardening is the way to go. However, it does seem to require large quantities of mulching material of various sorts.

Right now, all I have is fairly big pile of mud and weeds which I cleared and covered during the summer (before I started investigating the no-dig methods!). It’s fairly heavy soil, mostly clay I guess. There also seems to be an intermittent delivery of horse manure from an unknown source.

In the absence of a sufficient quantity of self-made compost, I’m wondering if I can somehow process the soil from the pile of waste soil into a usable mulch so that I can avoid buying stuff in bulk. I’m thinking about making a pen out of pallets and layering in soil, horse manure, sand, cardboard, activator and anything else I can think of. Unfortunately, there will be only a relatively small amount of green stuff available and I’m inclined to use what green stuff there is in order to make a separate compost in a more conventional manner.

Does anyone think my idea would result in a usable mulch in time for the coming spring? I have planted grazing rye and vetch in about a quarter of the plot and it is growing very nicely indeed, so there will hopefully be a quantity of green manure available during April or so.

Thanks in advance

[RhysParticipant]

Ken, I had the same thought process as you three years ago, albeit on a smaller scale. Here are a few thoughts:

1. Every time you cut grass, you have green waste, it decomposes very well if mixed in with leaves/twigs.

Grass cuttings arise mainly in spring/summer, whereas leaves/twigs are abundant in late autumn. Collecting as much leaf/twig deposits now is a good storage strategy, ready to mix with grass you cut in spring/summer. I fill 10 or so green waste bags each autumn for use/storage.

2. Cardboard is good brown waste, I get free stuff from skips at a garden centre.

3. Garden waste (spent flowers etc), haulms from crops etc are good summer sources of green.

4. You can build a 1cubic metre pile of horse manure via three or four runs to a stables, using 4 council green waste receptacles to transport them in. Putting layers in a heap you build is very valuable.

Obviously, if you can find a farmer who will deliver you 5-10 tonnes of manure for a price, that is a huge difference.

But I manage to build 3 cubic metres of piles each growing season without such a dump, so there are ways to get started….although they finish up as around 1.2-1.5 cubic metres by maturity…..

The optional extras are comfrey plants, addition of rock dust and I control my yarrow plants by adding them to the heaps after they have been turned….

Hope this helps…..

[Ken AdamsParticipant]

Hi Rhys – thanks for the reply – I definitely hope to be able to organise an ongoing system of creating useful quantities of mulching material. I’ve made a start with planting some green manure, but I’ve already worked out that there are various ways to use the various types of green manure which can be utilised.

Right now, I’m trying to decide what to do for my first growing season – the only material which I have in any quantity is the pile of weed-laden diggings which I created during the summer, plus a quantity of horse manure from an unknown source.

I have planted grazing rye and vetch in about 20% of the plot, and I spread horse manure over the adjacent 20% in November before covering it with permeable membrane. The remaining 60% of the plot is bare soil.

My pile of diggings has been covered with black plastic since November, but I am guessing that it contains a lot of seeds. I’m wondering if there is any way in which I can make the weed-laden soil safe to use as a mulch in time for the coming growing season.

Ken

[charlesModerator]

Yes you can hoe the weed seeds. When tiny.
It would go more quickly if you buy a few sacks of compost from a garden centre or cheapest local source, just spread a half inch, weeding is then easier.

[Ken AdamsParticipant]

Thanks for the reply, Charles – I guess I was being a bit too ambitious in hoping to find a way to neutralise the seed content of the soil in time for the coming season. I’ve read about the idea of pasteurising soil in the summer months by spreading it out and covering it tightly with plastic so that it will heat up enough to kill the seeds without destroying all the goodness. I now have a question about green manure, but I’ll post it separately. Ken

[Plot 33Participant]

Hi Ken,

Do you have any micro/small breweries nearby? I have been taking spent hops from my local brewery since the beginning of the year. We collect between 4-6 big sacks each week, which we mix with stable waste (delivered direct to our allotment site), veg peelings, cardboard & paper shredding. We used to have grass clippings, but our pet hens ate most of the grass in our north facing garden, so that’ll have to wait until I re-turf it for the 3rd time on 10 years!

The compost that we make is fab. We do turn it on a regular basis and we have quite a few bays, but it could be done on a smaller scale. This year has been my best ever for produce from the plot. This site & Charles are inspirational. Looking forward to getting my copy of the new book.

Clare

[Ken AdamsParticipant]

Thanks for the tip about micro breweries, Clare – I’m always glad of an excuse to visit such places…

Unfortunately, I no longer drive which probably means I can’t even organise a pick-up in a brewery… (joke!).

Ken

[Richard FreedmanParticipant]

Hi, I have a large allotment and reading all about the No Dig System is of real interest to me, defiantly will be easier than digging the plot.

My plot is 24ft x 96ft, would you have any idea how much compost I will need each year?

Thanks

Richard

[charlesModerator]

Hello Richard, welcome to no dig.
You need to decide whether you want high yields and cropping throughout the year, or lower yields and just one crop of say onions, with nothing planted after, such as fennel, chicories, beetroot etc.
For intense and continuous cropping, your size allotment (it’s 1/17.5 of an acre) can use up to three tons annually.
For less intense cropping, and perhaps more weeding, one or two tons.
Vegetables demand high fertility, whether one digs or not. The amount of compost/added organic matter you need is slightly less in no dig than when soil is dug, because no carbon is lost to atmosphere in the cultivation process.

[Richard FreedmanParticipant]

Hi Charles, thanks for the reply, that is a lot of compost, there is no way that I could make that much compost from my plot.

Could you provide any advice where I should go to purchase the compost in bulk?

Thanks

Richard

[Ken AdamsParticipant]

Hi Richard – I think Charles’s comment about deciding your priorities is very true. The amount of compost required will be closely related to the amount of produce which you want to grow. There is another recent thread on here about green manure – my own preference, at least for the time being, is to use only part of the allotment at any one time for growing veg. The parts of the plot which are not under cultivation for growing food will be planted with a green manure cover crop. The use of green manure crops, like everything else in the world of gardening, attracts a wide variety of opinions and it does require some thought and planning. There are several possible reasons for planting cover crops and one of them is that it can generate a useful supply of green matter for mulching and composting.

[CarolTParticipant]

Hi, I have started work on my first allotment and want to use the no dig method after discovering it once I dug some of it already! Should I now put a deep layer of compost on or should I wait as the weeds are asleep although the paths have a lot of couch grass.

[Don FoleyParticipant]

Hi Carol,
The sooner you get started the better. Charles outlines the process in detail under “no-dig growing” – click on the main menu above.
Don.

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