Outside ... in the ground and no-dig

In the ground and no dig? What does that mean?

In our no-dig beds we spend our time building up the beds rather than digging over the beds.

If soil from below is dug to the surface, weed seeds are brought up to the light and think it's their time to grow! Grrrr. Many good things are happening down in the dark. Like the highways that worms make underground to get about. Or the pathways that old plant roots have made which transport water and nutrients for future plants. So we try our best not to dig.

At the start of each season, we top up our no-dig beds with 2-3cm of compost and blood and bone. The bed is then ready to be planted into. Often the crop is covered with cloth to provide protection from bugs/birds/wind/frost/sun/heavy rain. 

When the crop is finished at the end of the season, what happens next depends on what the crop was. Some crops, like tomatoes, we chop off just under the soil surface. The bed's then ready to be topped up with blood and bone and compost, then replanted. If it was a crop of something like rocket, we prepare the beds for new crops by covering them with tarpaulins, until the previous crop and any weeds have died down. The covered beds stay moist, the worms do their work and the bed gets to have a rest until it is replanted.

We interplant with edible flowers to encourage bees and other helpful insects by providing food and a home for them and in turn they pollenate our crops.

A big part of our growing is bug prevention. Because we don't use synthetic pesticides to deter bugs, keeping them out in the first place is essential. A big part of prevention is keeping our crops as healthy as possible. A stressed plant will be the most venerable to bug attack. We use netting and cloth to cover and protect our crops, especially when they're young. If we need to, we use natural, non-harmful sprays such as garlic and chilli spray or neem (in the cool of night and once the bees have gone to bed).

No-dig suits us to a T. Less time weeding, successful crops grown in beautiful rich soil. No heavy digging.

We first learned about no-dig gardening during a lockdown. We had been struggling to grow in the ground and were ready to give up, we were sick of spending hours upon hours weeding. We thought surely there's a better way. We stumbled upon Richard Perkins on You-tube, a market gardener in Sweden. It was a revelation. We then set upon our local small town, begging cardboard boxes from every shop. Why cardboard?

To set up the beds we laid cardboard down upon the grass. We then used wooden planks to set up a guide where to tip the soil for growing beds, and woodchip for paths between the growing beds. We ordered and had delivered to the farm a big pile of beautiful, well balanced soil and another big pile of woodchip. Then we set out to fill bed/path/bed/path until we had 20 x 20metre beds, 75cm wide and 8 x 5metre beds for herbs. The soil and woodchip are 150-200mm deep. Once each bed and path was filled we'd remove the wooden planks. The cardboard and soil smothered the grass and they couldn't grow anymore because they couldn't see the light. And boy did our seedlings love the beds. And we fell in love too, no (or very very little) weeding.

We love the idea of using our own compost ... but we've trialled it, and it's very tricky to make sure the compost gets hot enough to kill seeds. I used some of our compost to make some new flower beds, and it's ended up with ... mustard, cucumber, tomatoes, pumpkins, lettuces, coriander ... you name it, it's growing there! Our compost is good for around our orchard trees, where it isn't a problem, but not in our no-dig beds where it's vital to earn income. As I've mentioned already, we don't have time to weed. So buying in locally made compost that we can trust is fantastic quality and won't sprout weeds is a huge advantage.