Charles Dowding's no dig garden in May
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 มิ.ย. 2024
- After a long wait in a slow spring, plants are not holding back! We've been at full speed to keep up and there is much to show you.
The hungry gap ends and we enter a period when new harvests happen.
Currently we are picking spinach, pea shoots, asparagus, rhubarb, lettuce, cabbage, kohlrabi, fennel, small beetroot and carrots just starting. Peas and broad beans very close.
See the results of different mulching methods, for new no dig beds.
Ideas for intersowing and interplanting.
Propagation tips for June.
The joy of no dig and few weeds. An area which was masses of bindweed / convolvulus roots just two years ago.
April tour • Embracing the Winds: A...
I start slowly, jump to 01.15 for strawberries.
00:00 Introduction, the sun has arrived!
01:09 In the polytunnel - strawberries, lettuce for seed, aubergines and peppers, more lettuce for picking, tomatoes
03:15 Garlic bulb, starting to swell - I explain the stage of readiness
04:20 Cucumbers - reason for removing sideshoots and baby cucumbers
05:15 Basil, and onions for seed
05:44 Garlic scapes, hardneck
06:10 Watermelon and loofa
06:26 Root veg, including Jerusalem artichoke
06:41 Potatoes, dahlia and oca (New Zealand yam)
07:10 Outdoor garlic - problems with rust
08:06 Herb garden - thyme, rosemary, alecost
08:26 The ‘new area’, and how we dealt with the bindweed
09:06 An interplant of spring onions between celeriac
09:13 Courgettes
09:32 2nd polytunnel - doors very rarely closed - aubergines, peppers, tomatoes, garlic, and a brief mention of an experiment with magnetic water
10:41 Spinach, cropping well, and thoughts on succession
11:39 Possibility of sowing carrots between recently harvested lettuce
12:01 Beetroots, multisown from homesaved seed, harvesting the smaller ones
13:15 Peas for shoots
13:38 Broad beans for seed
13:54 Two plantings of asparagus - from seed and from crowns, comparison
14:53 Flowers - lupins and alliums
15:44 Rye plants, for making rye sourdough
17:01 Courgettes, kohlrabi and cauliflower
17:41 No dig potatoes
18:15 Squash and sweetcorn growing though black plastic mulch
18:52 The meadow (weedy pasture!), hawthorne in the hedgerow, and wildflowers
20:19 New pond, holding water with liner, with stones from a quarry around the edge, and wildflowers
22:09 Wormery
22:23 Woodchip
22:49 More intercropping of asparagus with spring onion, and spinach
23:35 Newly composted bed, leeks just cleared, and reason for pressing it down by walking on it - firming not compacting!
24:58 Peas, Tall Sugar variety
25:33 Kuri squash, following turnips
25:48 Intersow of parsnips between spring onions
26:15 Early courgettes
26:33 Interplant of leeks between carrots
27:00 Fennel
27:19 Watering
27:47 The dig/no dig trial beds - soil comparison
29:40 Sowings I recommend to make now for succession/follow on plantings
30:38 Interplant of cucumber between fennel and spinach
Filmed 26th May 2023 in Somerset, UK by Nicola Smith.
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#mulching #propagation #growyourownfood - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
There is nothing in the world more delightful than a well-kept organic vegetable garden - like this one!
That's nice thanks :)
I love the interaction with the cat. I've had the best success this year with no dig in a challenging new garden. Thanks for all the amazing encouragement to help me keep growing as a gardener despite the challenges. All the best from zone 8b in Canada! Cheers.
Great to hear! Makes me happy 💚
You are a real inspiration to millions❤
Aw Thank you 🙂
U got thiss
He is a blessing to us all.
So are you
Home acres is looking wonderful and a pleasure to be shown round all the healthy looking veg and flowers by you. Your garden is a brilliant example of how beautiful a veg garden can be. Your a tonic for us all, thank you
Cheers Scott :)
It’s Heather from west of Ireland
Ah Heather!!!!! Sorry and thanks
did enjoy the tour, thank u
rotfl.... love how he walks on his soil such a rebel..cat determined to get in vid
wanna try copper wire ether conductor this year, js
Thank you for your kind words 🙂
Everything just got even better when the cat entered the video! :D She really loves you and gardening too. Lovely to watch!
Thank you! 😊
Charles, I do love your videos and the enthusiasm you show. It’s like you are as proud of your veggies as you would be about your children…..it is lovely to see. Have a successful season . Thanks
Thanks Claire
Thank you 🙂 and you also
All looking good Charles. Hope your back is all OK now. Such a pain (quite literally) to us gardeners.
Ah thanks.
Really helped by cranial osteopathy
@@CharlesDowding1nodig Alternative to conventional is my way also. Cranial Sacral is another one. Best wishes.
@@CharlesDowding1nodig Great it helped Charles.
No knead to dig, just go no dig ❤
the cat playing in the dig bed and maybe damaging plants is actually a good part of the trial i think. shes lying on the dig bed because the space is not filled up by plants. the nodig bed protects itself from that by filling up space quickly.
thanks for the wonderful tour Charles. I really enjoyed it :-)
💚 !
I would Love, Love, Love to just walk around your gardens and talk to you. How beautiful your beds are and how soothing your voice is when you talk about your plants just melts away my anxiety. Thank you so much. You have no idea how much you help me mentally and emotionally (and my gardens physically lol) Thank you for sharing your time and knowledge with us that need and cherish it the most. God bless 🫶🏽💚🫶🏽💚
That's so nice Chandall and I'm so happy to be able to help you 💚
This is so beautiful 🥰🥰
Thank you 💚
Another great tour of homeacres. Thanks Charles. Also excellent filming from Nicola - well done very professional.
Cheers Martin she likes that!
On the more unusual plant front, I came across Skirret (very popular in the Roman and Medieval Europe, until the 17th century when the potato became common) and got some seeds from Hungary. It's in now and I'm keen to see whether it grows well
Yes it's mentioned in Shakespeare.
I grew it 2013-15, nice harvest, fiddly to clean
Thank you for your wonderful videos. I came across your videos in December 2020 and I’ve been no dig ever since - I’m certainly seeing a great improvement in my soil quality at the allotment and I’m loving the less weeding. Your videos are so informative.. and relaxing to watch too - I particularly enjoyed Minty’s cameo appearance - what a cuddlesome cat!
Ah cool and great to hear
This is great to hear and thank you 🙂 🐈
Thoroughly enjoyed that Charles! Always such an inspiration. I love the way Minty follows you around. I have a few like that lol and they always squash my plants!
Glad you enjoyed it Jenny, and luckily she is light!
In swing as you say the weather has brought on so much growth and dawn chorus is fabulous. Ireland is lush and heady with the scent of May blossom and exuberant growth. Very much looking forward to meeting you on your up coming trip to Cork in July. 👍
That's nice to hear Ginny 💚
thank you and I look forward to meeting you also 🙂
Good morning, Charles, from Windermere, Florida 9b USA 🇺🇸
I always enjoy your tours because your enthusiasm is catchy 👍
I love the pond. It really turned out great. I was concerned about you trying to dig & leave. I figured you were going to near a liner. The rock border is really eye-catching!
Really, it all looks great 👍
❤Peggy❤
thank you 🙂
Good day Charles , we do a foliar spray of home made lactobacilli on all our plants to inoculate them with " probiotics" the same microbes in our gut actually work as endophytes in roots and on plant leaves . They colonize in the tricomes or leaf hairs in this case and help stop mildew and rusts from populating on the leaf . Maybe something to try on your garlic rust . It's also been shown to help process nitrate in the plants into amino acids for stronger cells and protein structure. Great may tour !
Thanks so much and I shall try that
Hello Charles! It's a wonderful time of year, good to see you, thanks for a new video 🌱
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Minty helping you firm the garden bed...too cute! Anyone can be a gardener. And obviously a 'no dig' supporter!
Yes she is kinda cool!
I saw one of your videos about composting with the cages and fabric. That was a good idea about the pallets underneath. One of the strategies I use since I am too cheap to use up good cages and fabric …. Lay down hay on top of the pallets then stack up 8” compost and another layer of hay. Continue the 8” stacks upward until you don’t feel like shoveling that high anymore. The compost will just sit there in a vertical column. Always leave hay sticking out past where the compost is going to lay. I produce my own hay by sharpening up the inside corners of a garden rake with a round file and drag it through the tall grass along the roadside
Unique methods!
Wonderful to see your 'No Digs' Charles!
My no dig is an absolute MARVEL!
The success story over bindweed is Joyful!!!
Still the odd bit popping up but no concern over that.
Like your words of wisdom ......Just keep at it and it will eventually give up🍅
Thank you for your kind words and pleased to hear that you are overcoming the battle with your bindweed.
Gardening godfather.....30 minutes yes please!!
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You have over the years transformed my gardening experience. With your no dig philosophy. So I hope I can pay this a bit forward regarding hard neck garlic growing.
I have been growing hard neck garlic for a very long time -- 15 years-ish. Here, where I live, nobody seems to eat much lettuce, but they like garlic. So for me this is an important crop. Every year I put in more and more hard neck garlic. Last year it was 700 cloves.
So, after that long introduction a few comments to pay forward to help you grow garlic.
5:44 - Rather than bend them off. give them a little bit of a up and down tug. Best if the scape has curled a but. Then the scape will self snap off in the stem and give you a larger harvest.
7:10 - I tried no dig garlic once. It got rust. Garlic likes if feet to not be too wet. An like tomatoes and wine vines, I suspect that rain "bounces" up disease from the soil. I put down a layer of straw around my outdoor tomatoes and their rust issues go away. But I admit I till my outside garlic simply because if I did not,the bulbs would rot. There is a reason that most hard neck garlic is grown in places that are dry... like Spain or Portugal. I do not think that no dig is the issue, rather that rain splashing up fungal spores are a problem and that no dig can hold too much water from outside conditions in the wrong climate. I would not lay down a mulch over my garlic, as again, that can cause soil rot for the same reason, but a simple cover over them during heavy rain to appropriately limit water into the soil during the last 2 months of growth may be a simple solution to rust. Which may be why you see a difference between your inside versus outside garlic. I do not do this, as I simply grow too much garlic to make it cost effective. So I hoe my garlic in the spring. Sad... But I get great garlic doing so.
Hope this helps.
Thanks :) I appreciate that.
Although the roots are not wet here, and most rust this year happened when the rain stopped. And we water quite heavily undercover
I love how Minty is taking part in the garden tour 😅😂😂😂❤❤❤
Thanks Sanne she really likes it here!
Thank you Charles, another inspiring video . Watched this morning and it encouraged me to head straight to my allotment at 7.30 am. Please keep being you !
😂 wonderful, and thanks
i notice that Mr Dowding says "we" did about 5 hours work..... I would love to have all of his crew work 5 hours on my 60 x 115 ft garden (plus more with currants, apples, honeyberries and pears). Just one person cannot achieve Mr Dowding's many beds. I applaud his work---but it would be best to show his entire crew, not sure why only Mr Dowding is shown, I appreciate his efforts but let's include his entire crew, Thank you for listening. Best of luck with your new plot and the bindweed battle!
We includes everyone in this context.
You write as though I'm pretending that I do it all and clearly that's not the case. In other videos I mention my helpers, Adam who does 40 hours a week (salaried, has paid holidays) and two part-time people who do 16 hours weekly each, and sometimes a volunteer is helping for a day a week. Much time is on picking and currently we sell over £900 weekly
Lol! When he was walking on the bed and the cat happened by and was like “are you alright, mate?”. Brilliant
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I think the variety of peas is called alderman tall telephone peas. The company is ed Hume seed company. 😊I love these seeds. 💚
Thanks and I do grow Alderman which is different to these. Alderman is a podding pea, these are snap peas, mangetout. Thanks for details
You got me started on no till 10 yrs ago i think . Regenerative ag and market gardens like yours are changing everything brother. Thanks ,Big thanks! and much love to you dear Charles.
So good to hear Bruce and thanks for your feedback
Hi Charles, love your videos, as always. Just a small tip on the new pond: you might mound some stones up against one of the edges so that newts and other amphibians climb out. The newts will be emerging from their breeding ponds soon, and will surely find your one fairly soon!
Hi Yes we need to change it
Epic! And love the cat too!
😀 🐈
The cat! 😄.
Top dressing with home made compost in Spring keeps the resident robin happy. 🪱🪱🪱 😃 Mine (generation no dig) has no idea what a fork or spade means. But a wheelbarrow? Well… he’s worse than the paparazzi! 😂
😂
Why not create a new dig / no dig area in the ‘new’ ground to teach us the differences from the outset. You can also then reclaim the 11 year old dug bed and make that another comparison to the no dig bed to see how quickly it recovers. It would be interesting to know. Thanks for all you do Charles, I’ve learnt so much from you
Thanks for interesting ideas, shall see, nice to hear
Looking great. I pick up a new tidbit every time I watch one of your videos! Thanks for doing what you do, Charles.
Ah cool and thanks
Always amazed and impressed with your new developments. Also jealous at how far ahead your crops are in May compared with mine (Vermont, USA- Zone 4a). Lucky bugger. Thanks for all the valuable insights.
Thanks and yes we are fortunate weatherwise. I hope summer goes well for you
You certainly put things in perspective. I have only one end of my plot with bindweed. No need for me to get in a lather when I see what you have achieved in eradicating this invader. Very enjoyable tour Charles thank you.
That is nice thanks Lil
I always let some onions go to flower. (1) it helps pollinators, (2) you can use scissors to cut the florets and sprinkle in salads for a sweet, mild, onion flavor, no chopping needed.
Wow, the difference between the dig and no-dig gardens this season is stark! Thanks for sharing all that you're doing at Home Acres! Take it easy with you're back. I've been gardening with severe back issues for the last several years and it can be a struggle. Take care❤
Thanks, was sorted by a cranial osteopath, see if you can find one :)
@@CharlesDowding1nodig will do. I’m trying anything I can to avoid surgery.😬
Always enjoy visiting Homeacres and seeing what you are doing and taking in the knowledge you share. Special treat today was having Minty participate. She is darling.
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So much appreciate you taking the time to tour us around your garden when you’re so busy! Everything looks great & is a wonderful learning opportunity. Enjoy your summer Charles!
Thanks Jennifer
Türkiye'den selamlar. Şu toprak kazma işine insanlar çok emek ve çok masraf ediyorlar toprağı kazmadanda bu işin hemde daha iyi olacağını düşünmüyorlar. Umarım sizin bilgilerinizden yeterince faydalanırlar. Umarım verimli bir yaz geçerşrsiniz.
Bunu duymak çok güzel ve lütfen altyazıları sağladığımız için bu bilgiyi Türkiye'de paylaşın.
Here in mid-Wales, the garden is like concrete. The heat is making many seeds cook in the ground. Tomatoes and cucumbers are wilting even when hydrated twice a day. They need potting on again before they are anywhere near large enough to plant in the growhouse. The garlic rotted in the winter rain.
Brassicas and beans are doing fine and the shallots are almost ready to harvest. These didn't have to be directly sown but the directly sown seeds are not responding.
I can't wait for some rain 1200l of rainwater was used in ten days and now using mains water.
Oh no, it is indeed becoming stressful, we are using a lot of mains water here.
It sounds like you need more organic matter on the soil though if the tomatoes can't hold moisture for a day.
Your 1200 L figure puts rain harvesting in perspective!!
What an amazing May garden! Thank you Sir Charles! And I love the meadows and of course your cat messing up your trial 😂 Love the No Dig sign too! Nice to know who created it
Ah thanks Jules 💚 I'm proud of him
Love the garden updates Charles. So fun to take notes and compare it to my garden here in New Hampshire. The cat was very funny!
Ah wonderful!
Hi Charles loved every minute 👏👏👏👏 thank you lv Irene 😘 xx
Thank you Irene 🙂
amazing goldfinch sound at 11:43🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦
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Last Sunday was such a joy. Thank you.
Btw, I love your new assistant - Minty.
Ah thanks, glad you enjoyed the day
It's always a pleasure to see you in home acres. Have you ever try to make compost directly on the cultivated ground? Put small amount of green waste slightly interrated. I'm trying an experiment in a small portion of my garden, we'll see
Interesting :)
So beautiful. Youve taught me so much Charles! Thanks a bunch (of flowers).
Thank you 🙂
Hello Charles, this is Catherine from North Carolina! It's been raining a few days, now; everything's coming up green! Good day to you!
Oooh that's nice, please send some rain!
Great to see a 30 minute video, they are usually too short!
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I always learn from you I didn’t know about lettuce not cross pollinate I leave some for seed also that info is super helpful
I also found that interesting 😁
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Very interesting , thanks for sharing!!!!!
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Interplanting is a game changer! Thank you for teaching!
I agree 😊
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Please take care of yourself so you don’t get sick or burned out. Love love your videos! 🥰
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Let’s all be honest - Minty was the star of the show
😂 She has studied movie timing!
I absolutely love your videos and your natural, calming approach. It’s a real treat to watch and a fabulous way to learn, all of my early showings got ruined by wind taking the greenhouse and temperature changes, but I’ve tried again and hopefully with your helpful videos I’ll get to eat something! Thank you so much 🙏🏻.
Thank you for your kind words and I am sorry to hear this about your early sowings.
What an incredible garden you have, it was really lovely to see it all. Thank you and your team for bringing us these fantastic videos, they are very helpful and you make things so easy to understand. Much appreciated. I'm off now to sow some Beetroot, Carrots & Lettuce...🌺
Thank you for your kind words 🙂
Hi Charles, thank you for your incredible videos these past few years. You've inspired myself, my partner and my friends to start no dig gardens and we get constant compliments and praise for our allotment which we have modelled heavily on your garden at Homeacres. If you saw it you'd probably immediately spot the influence 😊 I hope to visit one day and let you know in person how much I owe my success to you. Much love, Kane
Thanks Kane, that's wonderful to hear and I'm so pleased that my methods are replicable!
great video
Cheers Steven
So nice to see an animal with you.
😀
Oh I love your videos so much! Every time I get new inspiration on interplanting/sowing. And yes, this is a very busy time of the year. I just finished planting my outdoor peppers! Thanks so much Sir Charles 😊
Ah cool and wow, outdoor peppers. I dared to plant one :)
Thanks Charles, really love your garden tours, it's good for a gardener's soul.
My Swiss Chard is really looking the best they've ever been, thanks to your encouragement and God's grace.
Respect from Africa 🇿🇦
So pleased and thank you 🙂
As always, it's a joy to see your garden. It's really good to see you growing things around your asparagus. I'd love some asparagus in my garden, but haven't really got the space to have a bed that's just asparagus. If I can grow radish, peas and beans alongside them, then I could grow them.
Yes, when the plants are less than about three years old, it's feasible for vegetables which finish around mid summer. Then, with older beds, you can cut asparagus stems to the ground in about mid October, to plant overwintering spinach, salad onions, and salad plants if your climate is mild enough in winter.
Oh those purple lupins and allium are gorgeous!!!! Everything bursting with wellbeing
thank you 🙂
Great tour, thank you. No rust on garlic this year for me. Very strange, but maybe the wetter early spring helped?
That's so interesting Allan and we also had the early wet spring and there was very little rust then, it's still a mystery to me
Fantastic and inspiring !
It is an ongoing learning watching your videos, and I love it try to do it in the same way with more or less sucess but and a lot of fun and different things to eat. I havent worked out how you manage to get all these flowers and vegetables ready at the certain time.
Great job!
1:50 Nicola - "now he tells me theres shit all over that berry I just ate" LOL
Charles, your lovely garden is a joy to behold!
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I noticed rust happens to those long time growing plants (including house plants ) at the time when they do need decent good air and sunlight and temp, yet they dont get it, so they had to fight vs sudden change of temp moisture etc.
You just told me the long neck don’t get as large. I’m done 6b. I’ll go harvest some scapes now! Thanks for that tip! Love your style!
Ah cool!
Started watching you 3 years ago but just now i finally made an account and subscribed to you, i also finally decided to instead of dreaming about gardening i went and bought a little piece of land, there were some hardships but i am glad i caught the bug and it grew and grew and i feel i need to do it, learned a lot from your videos so
Thank you very much!❤
Thank you, this is great, I look forward to seeing your progress 🙂
I would like to see more of Minty pretty please 🙂
She does not hang around!
Minty 🐈⬛ definitely upstaged you this video 😍
Sigh!! Oscat.
Always an inspiration!
We're approaching 3 or 4 weeks since it last rained in my neck of the woods, so lots of watering.
Hey Charles! Lots of new skills being acquired at Home Acres...1. Filming while eating strawberries 2. Walking backwards while avoiding a cat. 3. Going to see Raymond Blanc for cooking lessons. ;-) I am most excited about No. 3. Cheers!
Always learning Craig! I wish I could share the lovely food with you but on reflection, I'm happy to eat it all.
We hope to share some good images of that amazing place!
I tried eating scapes to my taste buds they had a floral taste couldn’t get used to the perfume in them
It's true they are strong flavoured
Looking great! Really looking forward to the use of magnetic water results. 😊
The anti-tiger rocks look to be working well!
😎
Here's a new thing for me Charles. I planted out a few parsley plants, only to find them beheaded in the morning. I replanted spares in place of them then covered them with a net. Later on I was in the greenhouse when a starling landed, and walked about biting pieces of potato leaves/shaws, and other plants. It looked a bit frantic, whatever it was looking for, but very likely the parsley culprit. I think it's young ones might have been ill or a similar reason, but it's a first for me.
I have had a problem with birds in the past, particularly crows and pigeons eating tops off climbing beans, plus blackbirds digging up squash plants in search of worms.
My solution has been to surround new plants with leafy twigs to disguise them and seems to work.
@@HighWealder Thanks Friend, I'll add that to the arsenal.
Amazing we have crops! Glad you sussed it
👍Giving strawberries another go in a raised bed. Weeds won last time in the rows. Wonder how the strawberries will handle the extra summer heat in the raised bed.
If you can water, they grow :)
Strawberries grow fine in Sydney/San Diego climates in raised beds, containers, and vertical gardens.
I've always had the impression that strawberries love a hot summer.
They will be thirstier.
Great thanks. Made a mistake planting. Strawberries sort of sunk from rain and a few crowns got buried rip. School of hard knocks.
Veg garden: 11/10
Cat: 13/10 😻
😂
(plodding, smiling)
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Shorts and Jesus sandals...and you aren't a postman... it must be summer! Great video as usual, inspirational. Thank you, Charles!
😂 nice humour thanks
Lettuce doesn’t cross pollinate? I have learnt something new.
Waouh, waouh j’aurais voulu avoir un homme comme ça auprès de moi j’ai un jardin et j’adore jardiner. J’ai aussi plein de légumes et je parle à tous mes légumes et mes plantes donc j’adore vous regarder. Merci pour ces merveilleux vidéos. Bonjour depuis la France❤
Ah c'est chouette Angelique 💚
Put some logs around the edge of your pond so things can get in and out , you ain't got a sloped edge for when the water level drops
Bloody brilliant, so inspiring 🙏🙏🙏
Thank you Mark
another amazing video, thank you so much for sharing
thank you 🙂
Fantastic, thanks for the tour!
🙂
Excellent tour. Thank you, Charles!
My pleasure Carl
Regarding the rust on garlic. Its (probably) Puccinia allii. You shouldnt use the infected bulbs for seed. And rotation, rotation... when you got fungi.
Shouldn't, who says! I have used rust affected bulbs for garlics planted in my polytunnel and the result has been rust free growth. Most infection in my experience comes from wet weather in spring, regardless of the cleanliness of one's garden. People are getting this in Uruguay and they've never seen it before.
love the tour thank you!
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beautiful and inspiring thank you 🙏🏼
Thank you 🙂
Great tour thank you Charles !
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Amazing, and thank you!
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So much growing! So much opportunity. After viewing many videos today I appreciate your team. Read many comments, so helpful!!
Your garden looks incredible Charles! Happy summer! 🤗❤️
Thanks Cami, and I wish you the same
You and your videos, always an inspiration.
Thank you 🙂
so inspiring and helpful! thankyou.
🙂
Brilliant, thank you Charles for sharing your absolutely inspiring videos x
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