My allotment is full size, apart from the tiny part my daughter uses. My neighbours all come from school of straight lines , no weeds, and double dig. I don't have rules , am not pretending to be wholly organic, don't have any weeds only pollinators, and plants needing a more suitable home.
I get immense pleasure from removing couch grass to its rightful home, the grass borders, and allow the bindweed to bind away next to the railway line so that I can play "Grandma! Grandma !Pop out of bed !' in August. I don't worry if my 3 colour rotation is tweaked , as long as onions never grow in the same ground 2 years running.
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| Picture one |
I don't dig, I gently fork out Some deep perennials like Dandelions and Nettles and bountiful and profligate free seeders like Sow Thistles and Borage before winter, I know the hoped for frosts will kill the little annuals like Chickweed and Groundsel , Spurges and Creeping Speedwell, and my favourite Scarlet Pimpernel but welcome them the following year, easily hoed out . I leave them on the soil as mulch.
I do not have access to a ton of Stable manure as my neighbours do. My plot is not next to the road so the tractor can tip it into the yearning bins. I have to barrow it all from the pile dropped by the road to my bins. I cant manage that. Friend Colin brings me beautiful 2 yr rotted down stuff from his small holding when he has time, and barrows it to the bin for me, but it is past being manure, it is lovely compost, friable and rich and I am sparing with it.
All no -diggers add mulch on top of beds every year, mulch on mulch, on mulch and on mulch. My soil is never bare, Crops over winter, and bare soil on beds which dont change like Asparagus and Rhubarb are cushioned in mulch all winter.
My 3 year rotation suits me . I don't need to grow many cabbages, so one brassica bed is enough most years, as I like Sprouting Broccoli which crops for up to 2 years if the growing points are nipped off. I have about 10 raised beds in old builders bags filled with greenstuff which rots down, like the masses of creeping bulky Nasturtians which easily fill the empty bag beds in October. I usually plant the bag beds up with garlic the first year .
This is how my easy no dig works
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| Raised bed and dormant straw bale awaiting its fate |
- Divide your plot into strips so that you can work without treading and compacting the soil.
- Work out each autumn what you want to grow the next year, and plan where you want to put them within your rotation system , 3 year or 4 year
- Don't think you have to cultivate each strip the first year
- Work on one strip at a time, depending on what time you start
- Starting in Autumn cover strips with cardboard and mulch ( could be manure or heavy stones or bricks to weigh down from wind)
- Cardboard is the best friend of no dig. Encourage your friends to give you all theirs from buying large items. Ikea is your best friend here! Cardboard should be brown and with no sellotape or writing all over it, or a shiny layer. Plain porous brown is best, just remove tape and staples. Cover your strips with it , having taken out perennial weeds and large stones first and raked as flat as is practical. (Ruth Stout planted on top of grass field , but you will have to google that as she planted on bales of hay.)Stop the cardboard blowing away by watering it and weighing down with bricks or large stones. My foolproof method is to buy 10 bale of barley straw every Spring which I leave to get thoroughly damp and wet so that by the autumn it can be separated into slabs and easily placed on the cardboard. See Picture one
- Just gradually do this to all your strips
- If you are using a strip as Add Manure in Autumn, my yellow strips that year, add chicken pellets on top of straw , or stable manure if you have some. Add more in the spring too .
- You are now up and running . By the spring you can plant straight into the bed, even if you have to make a hole . I rarely plant seeds straight in to strips as most seeds can be sown in modules and dug into bed when large enough . I put potatoes under more straw and never earth up , just making sure straw is thick enough to block the light, as green potatoes are poisonous. Brassicas go straight in from modules when about 6inches big with 6 leaves, Leeks the same , Chard the same , sweetcorn too and beetroot. You use the modules discarded by garden centres, and fellow gardeners. I wash them and use very year until they split. 6 or 9 are the best, as the tiny ones have not enough root run and have to be replanted in to larger ones . Our Nursery Reighton sells ready grown seedlings in a 5in flower pot ready to be pricked on into modules, these are cheaper than buying a packet of seeds.
- I often let vegetables go to seed , and when plants come up around them I use these, Chards and broccoli do this easily.
- If you are starting in the Spring you have to make sure not too much bare soil is open to the 'weeds' so plant Green Manure until you ready to use. Cover with crops as soon as possible, even radishes, and lettuces to cover. I would plant lots potatoes under straw the first year just to use the land , and gradually do the 3 Colour rotation.
- I plant Garlic, Onions ( from Sets) and broad beans in the autumn. More sets can be planted in the Spring. Advice from Mr Hessayon still applies to cultivation here.
