The Seed of No Dig Gardening Has Been Sown

[alex]

Hi Charles/everyone

I’ve been meaning to report back in on what I’ve been up to since attending the No Dig course back at the beginning of April 2013. With chronic back ache and a garden filled with mean gangs of slugs and woodlice on the rampage, the time had come to declare No Dig war on this foe.

First I tackled the greenhouse, removing the slabs, gravel and mypex covering – totally cleaned it out and removed all unnecessary hiding places by way of junk and tools, then covered the soil with cardboard, just to be extra sure that the weeds wouldn’t resurface, then put down my layers of manure.

I then worked through your book Charles, plotting my new planting regime into my little mini iPad and got to work on sowing my first seeds and the rewards are already showing. My Radishes are through and doing so well – in the early days each morning I would tip toe down to the greenhouse holding my breath to see if a slug had got in and had eaten all my seedlings planted into the ground of the greenhouse, but each and every day I’ve been rewarded with lots of lush green growth, untouched by the slimy population, indeed untouched even by the ever present woodlice, who also seem to be avoiding the greenhouse at long last!

Until the hard work of converting the garden is completed, onion sets have also been planted into the greenhouse ground and they are thriving too. Plus all my lettuce seedlings and Beetroot are growing away, this year untouched my marauding jaws and gums.

For those of you who hav year after year been thwarted – you have the best of intentions regards your vegetable production, but it’s damaged or destroyed by pests, you’ll understand how I feel when I say I am ecstatic – the pleasure and joy of ‘visiting’ my seedlings each and every day shows no signs of abating!

So, for the past two weekends I have dedicated myself and my ailing back to converting the rest of the garden – this has entailed the removal of a low dry stone wall that I built 9 years ago when we first moved in and the removal of masses of nettle roots and other nasty perennials. In my case I’ve had to dig to become No Dig, but boy, I know it’s going to be worth it.

Would love to share pictures with you so might start up a new Blog so that you can see the progress – just need to organise the delivery of all my manure and I’ll at the very least be able to get one or two new beds started in the garden ready for the planting out of the greenhouse bounty.

Thanks Charles – you have been an inspiration to me – friends are intrigued by this ‘new’ method of gardening (well, new to them anyway).

Hope work is progressing well on your new plot – looking forward to seeing some of your pics uploaded to the site!

Kind regards

Alex

Alex Trapnell (Mrs)
Easton Grey
Malmesbury
Wiltshire

[alex]

LOL – just seen your new pics Charles – wonderful!

Alex

[charles]

 Thanks for sharing this Alex, I am so pleased to hear how well it is going, growing is fun once you get things going!

[Author]

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