- This topic has 4 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 15 years, 10 months ago by .
-
Posts
-
Have just been reading all info. We have an allotment which has had one growing season and want to go no dig. how do we start – we have kale and onions and some cabbage currently growing. do we just pull up any other plants, rake then mulch and manure and leave it? Or can we leave the weeds that are currently growing and mulch over them? Once we harvest the remainder of the vegies can we then mulch that area – we will probably use a mixture of green compost and manure…
Sounds good, I suggest pulling all weeds, except the really tiny ones, because unless you spread three or four inches of compost and/or manure on top, they may grow through and then be more difficult to pull out. You could clean and manure/compost the whole plot now, even around existing vegetables, or do it in stages as harvests finish. Onions want pulling, cabbages should be hearting soon, kale can go on producing leaves until the spring.
The beauty of no dig is that you can have lots of winter vegetables, since there is no need to clear a plot in order to dig it over. My garden is 95% full at the moment of vegetables for harvesting now, through the winter, and some just sown or planted for next spring.
I agree, clear the weeds, top dress with 50mm or more each of manure and compost. The no dig principle does allow you to be cropping, planning, planting crops all year round.
Many people on allotments make the mistake of just growing from spring to autumn, which to me is a waste, what about the rest of the year?
My plot is coming on nicely, will be approaching my second year of growing in early November. The first lot of manure arrived today, so gave my trenches between my late crop of potatoes a top dressing, rounded off with chipped bark and then a small sprinkling of lime, to balance any acidity. Hopefully this will protect them until Christmas so we can have new potatoes with out Christmas lunch.
The idea to is to keep the potatoes warm now that the weather is getting colder. Gave a top dressing of manure around my fruit bushes and raked it over to kill off any grass and to feed the bushes ready for next spring.
The compost bins got a few loads of manure as well, the smaller one just one load the second much larger 4′ x 12′ bin got several loads, this will be topped off with some bark and then piled up with more manure. The idea being that this will all be ready for top dressing in spring.
There are some crops planted as well, 60 cabbages/cauliflowers and radar onions, spring onions. The 32′ x 6′ plot got some broad beans (aqua dulce) planted in them last week ready for picking in spring.
Well that is me done for today, more digging tomorrow before more manure arrives at the weekend if not before. Away for a few days from Wednesday, so it will get one more dose of slug pellets before I go away just to deter the slugs, will be moving away from those in the coming years but for now will stick with them. So for now that is half the plot dug over or with crops in it or top dressed with manure and chipped bark. That just leaves the remainder of the plot which will be covered in chipped bark/manure ready for top dressing of compost in spring.
Hi Stevie
It is great to hear about your enthusiasm for the garden you are working on, and it is good to see you sharing your experiences with the rest of the no dig community, however this forum is really designed so that people can share their questions about their gardens with others who have discovered how to deal with similar problems, for the betterment of all subscribers. Unfortunately your posts to the forum do not seem to be following in this spirit and I am concerned that you are posting information here which is not appropriate for a no dig, organic forum; you discuss a lot of digging over the ground and make significant use of slug pellets, so I do not understand why you are posting here.For example, my experience has shown that chipped bark encourages slugs by providing habitat for them, hence you are increasing a ‘need’ for the horrible pellets. I always advise against use of bark mulches for vegetable growing, except in special situations such as wide amenity paths between beds for disabled gardening etc.Slug pellets can be used in extreme situations, individually and with great care. I use about twenty pellets per year, in growing many thousands of plants. I use them only in conditions of extreme, continued summer wetness, to protect one or two especially sensitive plants in my dig/no dig experiment, not in the main garden.If you have to use bark, why put a layer between two layers of manure? This doesn’t seem to make any sense. You need to justify such statements, preferably after seeing a result which you can then post back here to the forum.I strongly advise against spreading lime near potatoes. Lime encourages potato scab, and the cleanest potatoes grow in slightly acidic soil. There are few soils I know of which have benefited from the use of lime. Using compost and manure tends to raise pH anyway, as Ramsay Shewell Cooper of the Good Gardeners Association has found: on a soil of pH5, his compost heaps are of pH8, even though they contain some of his acid soil! His vegetables are superb, simply grown with compost on top. Your posting makes it all sound more complicated than it really is, and I feel it may be confusing to our readers.Everything I write here is rooted in decades of growing vegetables with lots of trial and error. I write about my mistakes afterwards, so that people can learn and benefit from them; not beforehand, which can lead to difficulties in other gardens.I would ask that you restrict the postings to simple questions, or concise advice based on the results of experience. If you do want to make long posts about your everyday activities then it would be more appropriate to start a separate blog on another, or your own site, which is more in tune with the approach you outline above.Whilst there may be thoughts that my approach is over complicated perhaps that lies in the details but for me it is simply of statements which are posed as a series of open questions for response from those are who are in the know.
Whilst it may be felt that my posts are outside of the remit of this forum, where do you suggest I find out the information that I need if this is not the appropriate forum for gaining information on No Dig?
The reason for the chipped bark on top of the compost and then sprinkling with lime was that the manure was very fresh and still steaming. Way too much ammonia which I thought needed a barrier between the manure and the lime, hence the lime and bark chippings.
Slug pellets are used to protect what crops I have and have been used what you may seem excessively but not everything can be controlled by organic methods. I have heard this from organic gardeners who grow commercially that outside of the workplace they use a mix and match method and try to remain as organic as possibly when growing for themselves. Whilst you and others may not agree with this method there is more than one way to skin a mongoose. What does it matter what you do as long as the results are consistent, whilst doing the minimum damage to the environment.
My approach is to use the minimum amount of chemicals if at all and to be as organic as I possibly can in the real world. I have no control over what others do at the plots next to mine which in turn may cause problems on my plot. Whilst I am in transition what choice do I have?
Sometimes it needs a scorched earth principle to counteract these problems. Simple questions are all well and good but growing is a complex matter.
As for the mystery of composting, I thought it was standard practice to build up a compost heap in layers, so I fail to see why anyone else is mystified. Am I doing it wrong? What else am I hear for but advise and experience which I can use to formulate my own method and adaptation of methods and principles used by others. One size does not fit all and any plan or policy on growing should be adaptable. Using the KiSS principle of course. Oh Keep it Simple Stupid, which is how I approach my posts, by supplying all the information in what I have done or plan to do, so that hopefully those who consider themselves to be more expert can offer their advice which I can then take on-board, I fail to see what the problem or the issues are? Are we not all here to gain more knowledge and information.
And finally the mystery of digging, it is for the first and last time before moving over to no digging. As I have limited income, I can not go out and buy lorry loads of manure or compost/top soil as unfortunately I am not Middle Class which is what is perceived of the many people who grow whether that is organically or not by the majority of society. Nor am I currently employed, yes one of the great unwashed. So for clarity let me explain lest there should be any confusion.
The soil on my allotment site suffers from water logging, the level in relation to the paths or from front to back of my plot does not help in the matter. In order to finally kill off the couch grass, I will dig it all over for the first and final time. Then top it with bark chip, manure and finally top dress it with compost from my newly made bins in spring. This then gives me a medium to grow in. Resolving a number of problems killing off the couch grass, raising the soil level and aerating the soil so those wonderful little beasties can get to doing there work faster. Has the confusion arisen because this is a No Dig site and I am digging? Oh dear, sorry for the confusion, my allotment plot is in transition to No Dig.
So what is the problem, am I not here for advise or are you all from the “We know best school of thought”?
P.S there are 3 ways to skin a mongoose.
Unfortunately it seems I do not fit in to your square holes as I am round peg.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.