new beds with six inches of compost

[Spadeless]

Hello Charles,

We’re working our way through your book “Organic Gardening: The Natural No-dig Way” and your online course. The no-dig approach certainly makes a lot of sense to us as having had woodland for the last ten years we’ve come to understand the importance of soil structure, life in the soil and how nature achieves things without us disturbing it.

Last summer we moved to a new property in Kent (England), and we’re looking to establish some vegetable growing beds on land formerly used as paddocks for horses. I’m told that the ‘grass’ contains thistle, plantain and ragwort and that we don’t have couch grass. We’d like to start growing vegetables soon and were intending to prepare the beds with six inches of compost applied on top of the ‘grass’ but without using any other form of light barrier. Do you think this is wise or should we consider plastic sheeting?

Many thanks,

Simon

PS Sorry for the forum display name – I thought I was being encouraged to choose an alias and now I can’t see how to change it to my normal name or remove it. I obviously frequent too many forums where that sort of thing is the norm.

[DemelzaCat]

Hello Simon. When we made our beds we turned over the top layer of soil (turf), pulled out any obvious weeds, then put compost and manure straight on top. I think Charles may not turn the soil – just puts cardboard down on the grass with a really thick layer of compost on top. It takes a persistent weed to grow through that lot. Our way probably needed less compost to start but it did disrupt the soil temporarily. But then, digging out weeds would have done so too. Ever since then we haven’t dug – just added compost and manure on top. Hope this helps. You have made a wise investment in Charles’ book btw – it is my absolute lifeline and I still refer to it constantly after eight years of no-dig. Happy growing!

[charles]

Its not the end of the world if some soil is disturbed when starting, if it needs that to remove troublesome weeds, brambles, whatever. Usually I don’t but there are exceptions.
The cardboard is not always necessary for beds, especially if there is 6in manure/compost. I would use it in paths only. Simon you may need to pull some regrowth of ragwort for the first months, depending how vigorous it is. Good luck with your growing and Spadeless is a fine name except how will you plant trees?

[kathy]

I’ve been using Charles’ methods for making a new garden out of what is basically a pasture field. I have found that a layer of cardboard has been more successful than compost alone .for weed suppression. The compost kills the grass no trouble at all but things like buttercups of which we have rather a lot, do come through and I have had to hoe them off and cover them with more compost. I used the cardboard on the new veg garden last year and it was very successful, no buttercups, but in the new ornamental garden this year I got a bit lazy and just put a layer of compost on top of weedy grass. Fortunately I do have access to a ready supply of cardboard so will go back to that method which works for me.

[Don Foley]

Spadeless! What a very apt name for a no-digger!!!

Don

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