Topic: dig or no dig

[Derekthefox]

Yes, I find that argument almost impossible to argue with ...

[terrace max]

Sorry - but modern farming methods are completely unsustainable i.e. they destroy the structure and life within the soil upon which all our lives depend. I don't think emulating this insanity is anything to shout about...

[Derekthefox]

But we are talking about tilling the soil here, which has been done for hundreds, possibly thousands of years ...

[Icyberjunkie]

I agree with you both in many ways.  Modern farming methods do in many ways destroy the soil structure but...depending on the maincrop old lessons are being learned and used from organic methods.

eg - massive reduction in pesticides and encouragement of beneficial insects (eg hoverfly and ladybird) into the crop and pests out of the crop by intelligent planting or leaving of wild flowers around the fields or in some cases strips through the fields.  Slug control by letting grass grow long so it stays nice and moist for the slugs.    Creation of composting sites with all compost returned to the fields - for exactly the reason you state TM.  I accept however that my experience is limited to salad production so can't comment on fruit, or cereals.

Just a shame they have had to go round the loop again and the governmewnt continues to subsidise over production.

Iain

[blight]

@terracemax
if modern farming methods "destroyed  the structure and life within the soil" - it surely would result in  smaller crops....

[terrace max]

I think they artificially prop the yield up with artificial ferlisers....

[undercarriage plan]

Being a farmers daughter, he doesn't farm organically, I do....well, plot organically, we have some rather colourful conversations, but they do hurl loads of fertilizer on.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Pre-chemical farming was usually mixed, and dependent on large quantities of manure. I don't think ploughing itself does that much damage in our climate, though by churning oxygen into the soil it does speed up the rate at which humus is broken down, which can be disastrous in some circumstances. If you stop replacing lost humus you're just laying up problems for the future; as long ago as the 1920's there are cases of light soils being ruined by humus loss due to the over-use of inorganic fertilisers during the Great War.

[terrace max]

There's no counterpart to digging in nature.

Mulching,however, mimics (albeit at an accelerated rate) deposition of organic matter in the real world. That's been going on much longer than industrial farming which is just here today, gone tomorrow vandalism in my opinion.

[Icyberjunkie]

There is to some extent TM for that is in effect what worms and other insects do although accepted it is somewhat less dramatic!

A lot damage has been done by farmers through sticker plaster remedy in the form of lots of fertilisers but many are learning - if for no other reason than fertilisers are not cheap!

[terrace max]

There is to some extent TM for that is in effect what worms and other insects do although accepted it is somewhat less dramatic!

Take your point Icy - but look at the different outcomes  :(

[moonbells]

It is certainly an interesting argument. I've said before and no doubt will again, that I started off just wanting to grow organic carrots as it has been proven that they take up chemicals and you then eat these...  but gradually became fully organic.

I have also damaged my back permanently thanks to digging! I have got most movement back over the past 3 years but I will never again be able to touch my toes without being curled up. So I found myself moving towards no-dig, and have built several raised beds in which I'm now growing things. And it really does make life easier and I'm hoping that the soil structure will get better and better. Don't think that no-dig means you don't dig though - you have still got to shovel manure into wheelbarrows and then onto the plots!!! And then in order to keep control of weeds, you hoe and pull them continually, having to be more vigilant because you don't want perennials to take hold.

And if anyone with horrible clay soils wants encouragement, my Dad has a soil which I used to make little yellow pots from as a child...  he has never been able to really dig it (and it looked horrible if he did) Since he retired, he's bunged all his old pots of compost, and that of all the planters and boxes on one bed as mulch.  It's now fantastic and perfectly diggable. Good old worms have dug it for him. I can only imagine what the whole garden would have been if he'd done this 40 years ago when they bought the house!

moonbells

[amphibian]

@terracemax
if modern farming methods "destroyed  the structure and life within the soil" - it surely would result in  smaller crops....

Not initially, though eventually it will.

The roots of modern petro-chemical farming are to be found during WWII. It was understood even then that chemical based farming would damage the land, but was adopted as a necessary evil to produce larger crops during the ration years. Unfortunately after the war no-one returned to the older methods as the drive for profit took over.

The farmer is forced to use chemicals for several reasons; to keep costs down, as the supermarkets will always go for the cheapest crop as they have shareholders to look out for; many modern hybrids rely on chemical intervention, despite alledgedly being stronger or more resistant (it is worth noting that many of the commercial seed producers ultimately belong to the same agro-petrochemical companies that sell the fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides to the farmer); the commercial grower is forced to produce uniformity of colour, shape and ripening time, this is most easily achieved through chemicals; many farmers practice mono-culture, this is only possible with chemicals or else disease sets in without the crop rotation.

It is also worth asking, why if modern hybrids are more resistant to pests and disease than the older open-pollinating varieties, why do they rely so heavily on chemicals, their supposed bred-in resistance seems weak.

Modern farming is driven purely by profit (unfortunately the farmer himself sees little of this money and the PLCs are the ones raking it in), the land is being polluted and eroded and will not continue producing bumper yields forever. I have no idea how they'll manufacturer all these artificial fertilizers as oil becomes mre scares. Unfortunately the supermarkets cannot really change their behaviour as they are obliged by law to make as much profit as possible for the shareholder.

Personally I do not view digging (ploughing) as a problem, erosion occurs now because soil is used again and again, it is not left to settle nor to pasture and so blows and washes away. The problem is overuse rather than tilling itself.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Chemical farming has roots further back than the 1940's; some years ago, I read the autobiography of one of the first organic farmers in the UK. They'd been forced to use chemical fertilisers by the government in WW1, and it had ruined their light soil. He ended up being unable to pay his rent on time because the farm was, basically, ruined by it, and had a long struggle to get it going again by keeping large numbers of pigs which manured as they went. I think the problem really got out of hand in the 1950's and 60's, after the war, when they went for maximum production at all costs. The CAP hasn't helped subsequently; I remember the case of a farmer in Cornwall who got a large grant to 'improve' land which was earmarked for a nature reserve, and which didn't even belong to him!

[John_H]

Maybe if I was running a large field system for single crop agricultural production then quite a lot of factors would encourage me to look at ploughing and routine digging. But I  don’t really want to be a farmer, I,m an urban person, with a 5 rod plot round the back of the bus garage, where I want to grow a whole range of crops with different harvesting times.

So when I was first casting round for ideas, farming driven by retailing didn’t seem like the model of food production which could offer too many useful practices. I wanted small amounts of stuff a few times a week, rather than a tractor full of ‘just in time’ beetroot when prices were at their highest.

As well as allotmenteering, I do quite a bit of walking in the highlands, where its been interesting to see some of the crofts destroyed at the time of the clearances. Those houses in the glens have long since been broken up and the building material used for sheep pens / new walls, but you can still see the way the raised beds were used before the people were driven off.

There must be lots of other cultures which have top tips for home growing and while it may have marginal appeal for the telly companies, I would really like to see a gardening programme looking at the way different cultures grow their home veg (if only as some light relief from the ‘24 hours to throw everything into a skip, paint a pergola and do some decking’ genre).

[Robert_Brenchley]

I don't know how it works, but I've seen some really interesting pics of intensive vegetable cultivation in Mali (where my wife's family originated); insterad of raised beds, they use small sunken beds with raised paths, to keep the plants moist.

[lynndan16]

I've seen vegetables grown similar to  this in India.  Earth up the soil as with potatoes and then plant in the dip. Watering is easier - just run it along the bottom of the trench.

[Derekthefox]

I feel my ability to contribute to this thread is now being challenged, there is so much knowledge put forward, particularly on the history and politics of farming. This is definitely a serious and interesting subject, and access to other cropping methods would be fascinating. I am absorbing the case for no-dig with genuine attention, I feel I should perhaps section off a small area of my plot for a no-dig experiment. Then I believe I will be able to contribute with confidence.

[jennym]

......instead of raised beds, they use small sunken beds with raised paths, to keep the plants moist.

This works well - I've tried it last year in a small way, on lettuce, and just dug out a channel in one bed and planted in that. Offers a bit of wind protection too. I think it was something I read by Bob Flowerdew that prompted me.

[aquilegia]

I'm doing no dig this year. (well it's past the solstice, so it's the new year for me!)

I dug my new four beds this year from scratch, but hope never to have to dig them again now. My soil is heavy clay so that took a lot of work and I don't want to have to repeat it. The soil will never be walked on (raised beds).

I've spread a layer of rotted manure and compost and covered that with cardboard on beds that are not used over the winter. The other beds will be mulched in the spring.

When I planted my garlic in the autumn, I mulched half the bed and dug an equal amout of compost into the other half to see if there is any difference.

I will however, plant my spuds in the normal way as I reckon the slugs will eat them all if I just cover them with plastic.

I enjoy digging, but will save that pleasure for turning the compost heap and digging new beds. And I really did enjoy searching for treasure last year when I dug them up.