Transforming a Market Garden

[Vivian GParticipant]

Hi Charles,

I’m sorry to have to ask these questions, especially after reading (almost) all of your brilliant books. But this will be such a huge change in my garden(ing) that I would like to be extra sure:

My 1/2 acre market garden was ploughed in spring (just before I go to know you and the no-dig-approach), I then devided it into 32 inch beds and 16 inch paths. I then planted and sowed and weeded and harvested all through summer and now have about 50 cubic metres of green waste compost sitting there, waiting to be spread to start transforming the garden into no dig.

During this first season my main weeds have been: Solanum nigrum, Chenopodium album, orache, Galinsoga, Echinochloa crus-galli and Equisetum arvense. All of them are annual weeds, except for the perennial horsetail.

The garden is on a south-west facing slope of about 5-7°. The beds run downhill.

I’m afraid that I won’t be able to put down any cardboard before mulching with compost. Do you think this will be a problem?

How much compost would you suggest putting onto the beds and the paths?

We’ve had heavy rainfalls in the past couple of weeks, have you (or has anybody else) ever experienced compost being eroded? I’ve had quite bad erosion on the beds I had prepared for sowing lambs lettuce. Will firming it down by walking on it be enough to prevent erosion or should I try and establish a cover srop before winter (which could be difficult seeing that the autumn has been very cold so far with nighttime temperatures regularyl dropping to 7° C)?

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my questions.

See attached a photo of my garden and the erosion two weeks ago.

Regards
Vivian

[Vivian GParticipant]

And the second photo.

[charlesModerator]

Hi Vivian
Gosh quite a slope and your soil is fine so that erosion looks bad.
Compost will be better but until it settles, can wash down. My previous garden on a slope lost compost from pathways mainly, never from the beds, which ran up & down the slope.
I used to put the washings in a barrow and push them back up to the top, whenever it happened which was say twice in 5 years.
So yes you will be much better off in that sense, with no dig.

You look in control of weeds so 10cm compost beds, 2cm paths is a good start.
If it were me I would make 34in beds, 14in paths.

Best of luck, a nice job for autumn.

[Vivian GParticipant]

Hi Charles,

That does sound encouraging 🙂 Thank you! The weather is supposed to calm down for at least the next week or so, just as you wrote in your mid-september update. So I’ll get started soon!

By the way, I just noticed I chose the wrong unit: my garden is on a slope of 5 to 7 %, wich is about half as much as what I wrote in my first post. So not quite as bad as you might have thought in the first place.

[charlesModerator]

That is a better slope Vivian!

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