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I really like Lobjoits Green Cos, an old variety. It is a vigorous grower with delicious crunchy leaves that are easy to pick, over a long period.
Dobbin said “…wire clippings, bits of plastic, shards of glass etc…”
Sounds like the bag of Levington Multipurpose compost I bought from a garden centre. Never again.With the no-dig method promoted by Charles, I don’t think there would be a problem with boron deficiency, even if the underlying soil was deficient, because of the amount of organic material placed on top of the soil.
The exception might be if the source of the organic matter was solely compost derived from your own garden: “A garden cannot pull itself up by its own shoelaces”, to paraphrase John Seymour.
Seaweed is a very good source of trace elements, and personally I would rather use an “organic” source (in the chemistry meaning of the term) than apply a chemical, which may carry the risk of over-dosing, although I do not garden “organically” (as in the Soil Association meaning).
It is my first year of no-dig growing, in North West Wales. Voles have been very active from late summer onward. They don’t seem to eat the roots, but unearth plants by undermining them; they do eat the leaves, and completely destroyed my newly-planted kale plants. I have not seen the creatures, but I presume they are field voles.
We do have owls close by, and buzzards sometimes come into the garden, plus the neighbour’s cat (which is a good “ratter”) but they don’t seem to have had much impact on the vole population. Perhaps their numbers will be reduced in the winter, but I will probably have to resort to trapping them. I have caught grey squirrels with peanut butter on toast, but I don’t know what voles find irresistible.
Bracken makes an acidic compost when it decomposes. If you cut it in summer while it is still green but not soft, it shreds well and rots down quite fast.
I have created 5ft wide beds with 2ft paths. They have worked well, but if I had the space, I would have made the beds 6ft wide. I think that being able to step onto the beds is a great benefit of this no-dig system.
I planted 3 bush courgette plants across the bed, but they spread well into the path on each side.
Also I grew Sarpo Mira potatoes which needed lots of space as the tops grew up to six feet in length. We are in North Wales and it seemed to rain every day from St Swithens day onward, so that might explain the rampant growth. They fought off blight, though and gave a good crop.