Topic: No Dig

[1066]

Welcome to the A4A Charles. I'm on clay aswell, and the point Digeroo raised about bindweed is relevant for me - no matter what mulch I put on it still pops up  :-\

[tonybloke]

Or even 1000 litres! In our manure today there were loads of worms even before we built our heaps.

the types of worms found in muck / compost heaps are not the same types as are found in the soil, the ones commonly found in mucki / compost are usually Eisenia foetida, or Dendrabaena veneta. what you want in the soil is the common european earthworm, Lumbricus terrestris,. there will appear as the soil organic matter increases. ;)

[Digeroo]

no matter what mulch I put on it still pops up 

Pop hardly describes my problem.  It produces miles of roots in a very short time.  Goes on a major take over bid is a better description. Particularly loves a good mulch.

[1066]

Maybe that's the problem Digeroo - along with feeding the ground I'm feeding the bindweed too !
I know from previous gardens I used to pull as much of it up as I could see / find and it did stop it over time, but the clay seems to hold onto it for longer!

[taurus]

I'm on clay to, and like a lot of people try to garden organically.  My solution was to lay the bind weed on thick plastic and paint with weed killer so it went into the roots and not on the soil.  When your digging on clay it doesn't seem to matter how carefull you are, you allways seem to leave tiny bits in the ground. And covering it hasn't made any difference, it just travels underneath the plastic till it gets to daylight. Pity we can't cross it with the veggies we try to grow ;D ;D

[Digeroo]

I am on gravel and it loves it as well.  I try and be organic but have resorted to poisoning it at times much against my better judgement.  Even with the painting or putting into a plastic bag and spraying it still gets into the roots and so the chemical gets into the soil.

I did spray just before planting some raspberries, I just knew it was going to cause havoc otherwise.

[1066]

Taurus - I think that probably is the only solution - shame eh?!

[taurus]

It goes against the grain 1066 but sometimes needs must I'm afraid.

[earlypea]

(very long post sorry, it's something I think about a lot)

I'm interested to see you too Charles. :)

The no-dig book is very well-thumbed from my first year of growing vegetables, but was most impressed by the sowing advice, which works much better for me than a lot of books which seem to have a strong 'plant everything in spring or be damned' bias and the descriptions of seasonal differences.  I became a keen advocate of no-dig.

(Got the salad one too, but didn't really get around to using it yet.)  

So that was last year, but over winter I read a lot of books and decided actually no-dig is slightly flawed and doesn't fit every situation.  My totally no-dig prepared beds, covered in cardboard, a hell of a lot of manure and plastic on top were very under-productive in a dry year.  The worms didn't do much work, the ants moved in and it was arrid all season.  I've got two other no-dig beds, which I didn't put plastic over and they seem less moisture retentive than the others too.  My brassicas in one of those were very small and slow and the marestail (yes, I dug it all out first) loves it to death.

My first beds, which my family helped me with were done with very well dug in shop compost and they went big guns.

Anyway once I read Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web by by Jeff Lowenfels, Wayne Lewis  (Terrible pun which stopped me reading it for a long time)

I began to question the whole thing.

The no dig way seems to assume that all plants use the same kind of nitrogen, whereas there are two types:  the fungal type, which is fine to pile on top, leads to an more acid soil - just right for squashes, spuds etc. Other plants use the bacterial form of nitrogen which needs to be broken down by soil bacteria and the more you mix it in the better contact those microbes will have - this is better for alkaline loving plants such as brassicas.  That's it in a nutshell - much better explained in the book.

Also, it's not the case that there isn't usually organic matter breaking down lower down in 'natural earth' because there will be small roots growing and dying all the time.  So unless you do have plants growing all the time you need to dig stuff in (I think) or use green manure to attract the earthworms.  The roots also release chemicals which draw in worms.

So, I think I'll keep my no-dig beds and see what happens to them, but I'm all for digging in (not too deep) or for piling it up these days depending on the crop.

I can't just use compost or manure anyhow because the marestail loves a rich dark mulch - I have found so far that a lighter mulch of straw/hay on top of that puts it off more.  I think maybe it reacts to the warmth that darker mulches have.

Anyway, I hope I'm not going to get my head shot off because other forums seem unable to discuss this sensibly.  Seems both sides dig or no-dig have some religious fervour about it.

I'm an inbetweeny.

[1066]

earlypea - thanks for such a comprehensive post! I'm not great on the science of gardening, but I did understand and appreciate your post  8)

From another "inbetweener" - has dug beds / has no dig areas / has crates for carrots / etc.....  :D

1066

[Digeroo]

I have two strips which had beans in them this year and have decided to hedge my bets and have one no dig and the other dig and see how they get on.  I am getting older so the thought of no dig is very appealling for the future.  But particularly on my lottie where there is a lack of worms.

For beans for example I try and double dig a lot of bio matter right down into the second spade depth.  I believe that this is good not only as food but to hold the moisture. 

On the other hand digging is certainly not good for the worms and I have chopped up several of the few.

Thanks for your post earlypea.  Seems there is a great deal to learn about soil. 

[Psi (Pronounced 'Si'!)]

hmmm really interesting.  I have been laying council compost/rotted manure on my raised beds since September in an effort to improve clay soil.  I've had the plot a year and think I can already see the difference.  Elsewhere I have been piling weeds/bolted crops/unwanted leaves on other beds to act as a mulch and the worms look to have been very active so all good.

Charles, one thing that fascinates me is your concept of cleaning the soil to make it weed free.  I am inexperienced and can hardly believe that is achievable. paths on my allotment site are couch grass containing all the usually suspects like dandelions, thistles, nettle and I get an awful lot of weed seeds germinating between rows.  Other than killing the paths or covering them I dont see how  can overcome this problem.  maybe i ought to buy the book!  I must say that experience from this year suggests that my raised beds will need little digging if I continue to add organic matter and use leguminous crops judiciously.

I'll keep an eye on this thread!

Psi

[earlypea]

PSI you can actually read what Charles has to say about not digging on amazon.  The first chapter is there to see.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Organic-Gardening-Natural-No-dig-Way/dp/1903998913/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257674458&sr=1-1
The rest of the book really doesn't elaborate on that side of things, which is a shame and the reason I bought it.

I don't want to stymie sales, but it's not in depth about that aspect.  I'd still get it but for other reasons - sowing/growing advice and varieties.

and there is an article on his website about how to tame an allotment, in case you missed it.
http://www.charlesdowding.co.uk/index.php?main=articles/allotments&st=4

I'll just add a review of the book above while I'm here because I don't really do it justice, it really was a penny dropped kind of read considering the way different crops reacted to my various methods.

Snippet saying what I said overly simply above

Some plants, like brassicas and other vegetables, prefer their nitrogen in the form of nitrates and do better in bacterially dominated soils. Others, such as perennials, shrubs and trees prefer their nitrogen in ammonium form and do better in fungally dominated soils. Fungi to bacterial ratios have been observed for different plant groups. Vegetables such as lettuce, broccoli and carrots like 0.3:1 to 0.8:1 while tomatoes, corn and wheat prefer 0.8:1 to 1:1. Orchard trees on the other hand do well with 10:1 to 50:1 and hardwoods from 10:1 to 100:1.

Good compost has per teaspoon 1 billion bacteria, 400 to 900 feet of fungal hyphae, 10,000 to 50,000 protozoa and 30 to 300 nematodes. Compost can inoculate, maintain or alter a soil food web in a given area. Careful selection of compost ingredients can produce a bacterial, fungal or balanced pile.

Mulch ingredient selection can support bacterial or fungal webs also. Even the same mulch material applied in different ways can influence a specific soil food web. Mulch placed on the surface supports fungi while mulch worked into the soil will support bacteria. Coarse, dry material benefits fungi and finely chopped, moist material benefits bacteria.

http://www.goveganic.net/spip.php?article93

BTW - This book is also actually pro not digging except working stuff in for some crop a few inches as most of the work of soil improvement is done by bacteria.  But it's more complex than just putting any type of compost on top.

[Psi (Pronounced 'Si'!)]

I'm intrigued.  Good stuff to read there - quite enlightening.

ive just naturally dug compost/manure into the beds but it makes a lot of sense to just lay it on the top and let nature do it's thing - not sure why I haven't thought of this before to be honest!

might go and lay for manure over a bed in an hour or so now!

[cornykev]

I've layed the council compost on top of some of my empty beds and will nature do the work, others on the site dig it in, I just don't see the point, I dig all my beds, I nearly forgot welcome Charlie boy.   ;D ;D ;D

[caroline7758]

If anyone has Nectar points (From Sainsbury's etc) you can get Charles Dowding's book  for 2450 points. I've just got his "Salad leaves for all Seasons" for the same.

[Deb P]

Thanks for that Caroline....excellent idea!!! ;) ;D

[charlesdowding]

Thanks for the welcomes :) it is great to see a lively debate on matters that are definitely not considered enbough.
Cowpea your post is interesting and is borne out to some extent by results from my dig/no dig experiment, where late season brassicas are the main vegetable to grow bigger for soil being dug. But most vegetables on the no dig beds grow better, especially in spring and early summer, maybe because the dug soil is still overcoming its trauma of being dug, then recovers after about midsummer - only to be re-dug in November!
Total yields off the dug and undug beds are almost identical. What about quality? I have sent some samples of each to Surrey University, for analysis of minerals, results in March I think. Salad and spinach leaves in the spring have a much glossier, healthier appearance on the undug beds.
Going back to brassicas, in the rest of my undug garden I have superb calabrese, purple sprouting and swedes, so it is not as though they do not grow without digging! This year they have loved a thin mulch of cow manure.
Re cardboard, I advise using it in first, weedy year only. Yes, full mulches do encourage ants. Compost is best mulch for sure.
Re bindweed, it never goes away but I have found a much diminished vigour over the years as I mulch and then its roots come nearer the surface so I can pull them out, which I do regularly. There are sometimes no easy solutions, but persistence can bring us to a point of relative ease.

[earlypea]

Cowpea  :D  is that a freudian slip or another unusual edible to investigate?

I'll be interested to hear the results of your mineral analysis.  I realize size does not always equate with balanced nutritional values and whopping great brassicas may be too high in nitrates, although the larger results from using rock dust rather confuses me on that one.  :-\

I noticed another difference from digging in - carrots.  My no-dig carrots are extremely vigorous and handsome and have good flavour, but my brother-in-law's dug in with heaps of leaf mould carrots are exceptionally well flavoured so I hope to be doing a half bed test of that this year.  

Sowing some crops direct seems to suffer from no-dig for me too - root brassicas and beetroot don't always do very favourably.  Maybe the very top layer is too acidic/fungally dominated for them??  Plug plants would have their roots put straight through to a more soil, but I do prefer to sow a lot of crops direct because I've no greenhouse.

I do visit your site and see your photo records of your comparisons from time to time.  It would be good if you could be more detailed - For example, exactly what do you mean by 'digging' on your dug beds? How far down, what exactly do you dig in?  

[earlypea]

For those of you who are interested in Charles' no-dig ideas did you notice he's got a new forum up?
http://www.charlesdowding.co.uk/forum