Soil with few weeds gives you more time to grow
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ต.ค. 2024
- How to save time, effort and money by leaving soil undisturbed. No dig, no weeds - well, almost none!
There is a start out process as I explain in this video:
• No-Dig Gardening for B...
After that it's easy to stay weed free, provided you make the occasional timely interventions which I demonstrate here.
See how we grew an 18m/60ft bed of broad beans over six months, with under 30 minutes of weeding time, including the paths. Don't forget those occasional minutes!!
The weed free soil then makes it quick to plant a follow/succession crop, such as the broccoli you see here. Plus, we spread no new compost for these summer plantings.
Filmed by Edward my son in July 2020, at Homeacres in lockdown summer. We made more videos than I needed to release at the time, and now feels right for this one: good news for difficult times.
I am wearing Muck Boots RHS Muckster, I am not affiliated to them, just the boots are good and people ask.
No dig makes gardening joyful, and you can learn more from my online course, which includes how to make compost and how to clear ground of weeds by mulching: charlesdowding....
You can buy this part separately, it's all about clearing weeds by mulching covering without digging out roots, and staying weed free after that:
charlesdowding...
I wrote a book about all this - No Dig Gardening, From Weeds to Vegetables Easily and Quickly:
charlesdowding...
Learn more about my methods in these extensive video guides you can purchase charlesdowding...
Also from any of my books, as in our webshop for books,
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In November 2021 we published a new online course about Skills for easier and more productive gardening, Sowing, Spacing, Planting, Picking, Watering, Planning, Winter Gardening, Using Covers, Herbs, Perennial Vegetables and more
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CD 60 Module Trays
In the USA you can buy these via allaboutthegar...
In the UK you can buy these via containerwise....
or via www.refillroom...
In Europe you can buy these via thefarmdream.c...
To buy video garden guides with a unique search function charlesdowding...
To buy one of my online courses charlesdowding...
To buy a signed book charlesdowding...
To join an in person Day or Weekend course at Homeacres charlesdowding...
This is the dibber I recommend www.gardenimpo...
To buy t-shirts and hoodies with my exclusive no dig designs, use this link charlesdowding...
My first year of no-dig gardening (sandy central Oklahoma) has been such a success. Last year my tilled garden plants were stressed and dry and underfed. This year with no dig, everything is just working. Thank you so much for making this content available.
P.S. in the spring I commented on here declaring my war on bermudagrass. I had put the garden directly on top of the bermuda lawn in January with cardboard and 6” compost. Just want to say I won that war 🙌. It didn’t take “years” like some people say. As you say, weeds aren’t invincible. Every day or two in Spring and early summer, I cut off the shoots that poked through. By July or August they were done. clean garden. The rhizomes are batteries 🔋, and the leaves are solar panels. It desperately sends up new solar panels trying to charge its depleting battery. You can’t let it.
The only exception to my victory was the edges where I had pumpkins: vines prevented me from pulling baby grass, so it got some foothold, but even then not like before.
One word of advice to anyone trying this with grass like bermuda: if you can put the cardboard + compost down when the grass is still green, it will kill lawn much faster. I sheet mulched the lawn for my main garden in January during a very cold and wet winter; by the time the bermudagrass broke dormancy in May, the cardboard was broken down enough to not make much difference to the grass. I still beat it but it took more daily work. (Tradeoff is that the garden loved the winter-weathered-in beds. Was worth not waiting another season).
Areas I sheet mulched later in spring and summer required much less daily maintenance, because growing grass notices the lack of light and it smothered quickly. Even so, after about 6 weeks, patches came back through to sun. I then redo the cardboard and mulch and after that it’s 99% done. I’ve been slowly doing this to areas around the house where we want flowerbeds or herbs later, or annoying places I’m simply am tired of trimming. Even though I don’t yet know what I’ll plant there, killing the lawn there is something I can do between now and then.
Hope this helps someone- I was devouring all the Bermuda grass advice I could last year, and most commenters would have you give up before you start. But it’s totally doable if you’re willing to do it, and no-dig really works in Oklahoma.
Ed, I love you for posting this because it can help so many people who ask about Bermuda grass. Your analogy of battery and solar panel is cool.
Congratulations!
Bermuda grass is the toughest weed I've ever had to deal with. It's relentless. This was my first year battling it. I had to switch from Charles' nice, big garden bed design back to row crops, so I could keep more soil covered. Denying it sunlight and photosynthesis is the best strategy. It's an opportunist. It will keep coming up around my asparagus, because I can't rotate and keep that area completely covered. It spreads by stolons, rhizomes and seeds. When you think you've got it beat, here it comes again. I tried spreading black plastic on a big patch of it for 6 weeks in July and August when temps were consistently in the mid and lower 90F's. That didn't kill it. It's coming back. Kudos if you beat it, Ed. It's going to take me awhile to beat this down, and I wonder if I'll ever have a garden that looks anything like Charles'.
This is what I'm currently doing, hoping it would work. I'm so glad you commented to say you've had success. It's a lot of effort cutting out those shoots, but it will be worth it. Now I've just got those edges to deal with!
Funny, but that part about that batteries, and solar panels is exactly what I said to Jess, at Roots and Refuge, about perennial weeds, when she vlogged about her new no-dig beds, and her Bermuda Grass. I also mentioned Charles, and his new paddock, with the beds he's laid too 😉
@@CharlesDowding1nodig It an analogy I used a few months back in this thread th-cam.com/video/SWYuRy5CDd4/w-d-xo.html to Jess, at Roots and Refuge, in relation to her new No-Dig beds, on to Bermuda Grass, where I also mention you, because Jess, and her youngest son, Ben, are huge fans. I've used it a lot over the years 😉
WE FIGURE BY JUST DISCOVERING THIS CHANNEL, WE HAVE PROBABLY SAVED OURSELVES LIGHT YEARS WORTH OF WORK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Definitely!
Light years is a measure of distance, but I get what you mean :)
@@ximono I know it's four months later, but hey, silly comment time!
Relativity makes your time go slower the faster you're moving. So an hour for someone at 30km/h is slower than an hour for someone at 20km/h. Since light travels at, well, Lightspeed, a light year would be infinitely long :)
Or in other words, the channel has saved us uncountably large amount of time :D
@@juliaf_ That’s an interpretation I can stand behind :)
Every time I start one of your videos my dog gets so excited, jumps up on my lap and watches with me. Your intro music and the birds chirping always gets her going.
Started "no dig" because of you. It's been a transformative experience. A complete shift in the way I think about growing food. I've taken composting far more seriously with 5 bays and scavenged materials enough to cover all my beds this year. Thank you for what you do. It's incredibly valuable.
I'm so glad your dog joins in! Thanks for your feedback Simon, your garden sounds lovely
My allotment is so much better because of your advice, books and online courses Charles. Thank you.
Wonderful!
I'm getting so few weeds now that I'm on my 2nd season of no-dig. It's quite a refreshing change.
🍺
I have just shared your TH-cam site with a new allotmenteer who was feeling overwhelmed with weeds and was advised to keep digging it over! People say they are really impressed by the health of my veg and how tidy my plot is but when I tell them it is due to no dig, they wrinkle their noses and keep on digging!
let them go. they'll be back soon!
Well done for the newbie :) and being a great example, and isn't that strange.
They must be more about "conquering nature" instead of finding how to work with her
Weeds were my nemesis when I had an allotment and followed the advice of the “old boys”, who had had their plots for 30-40 years, and double-dug every year. I could not keep on top of the weeds, especially when I had a young child and was working, and eventually gave up the allotment. Now I have a very productive veg patch in my back garden and thanks to Charles’ advice, there are very few weeds and removing them is actually satisfying, rather than a Sisyphean struggle!
I am happy to read this Terri and well done on breaking the mould! I wonder what those old boys would think if they could see your clean garden now!
That's exactly the problem I had for the first two years of my allotment, I found keeping on top of the weeds absolutely impossible! I tried covering areas with cardboard but then got lots of slugs! Now I'm trying Charles' no dig suggestions and so far so good.
You are so right! I started my first garden this year (from never growing a thing to 15+ kinds of fruit and veg now doing great thanks to you charles 😀) and I haven't had more than a few tiny weeds in my garden yet from this method. For some reason, I placed the garden smack dab in the middle of a tall dry grass field with every weed imaginable growing in it. Weeds surround my garden, yet theres none in it. It's incredible honestly. My bf thinks I'm crazy dragging all this cardboard across the field... 😄
Well done!
Your job, nature, methods , ideas and personality = stunning!!!
🥦 thankyou
This was my first year gardening in my new house and I did a tilled bed and a no-dig bed. The no-dig bed was significantly better than the tilled one in terms of growth, production, and weeds. My neighbor was skeptical of the no-dig bed when he first saw me putting down cardboard and then commented throughout the summer how lush my garden looked.
Ah this is cute and I hope your neighbour gets it now!
Charles, I have learned so much from you. This time last year my garden was just a lawn. Now, it's teaming with vegetables, wildflowers and there are virtually NO weeds! Not to mention the beautiful compost bay I've built. I can't thank you enough for all your knowledge. I get excited each time you upload a new video as I'm always learning something from you and the way you make these videos is just brilliant!
Thanks a million,
Joe from NZ.
Sounds great Joe, thanks for sharing, it's nice to think of you in the springtime garden
Thank you yet again! As an aside cabbage moths are a huge issue in my garden. I need those lovely half hoops!
You are so welcome, and just yesterday I heard from somebody who's set up a website to sell these hoops www.sharanya.co.uk/
Glad to meet you. I am from vietnam. I have learned so much from you to start a no dig garden ❤️. Thank you!!!
Our pleasure! I am impressed
I had to stop at 5:20 and note. Charles, your knowledge amazes, name weeds with 2 leaves on it🤯! Blew my mind.
Thanks Rene, nice and you can do that after meeting enough weeds 😀
I've been following your no dig gardening and my small allotment hardly gets weeds. When folks come by to visit they exclaim, " where are your weeds?" Or" you don't have any weeds!" I confess my weeds are in the compost heap..thankyou for sharing your gardening tips! Love gardening all year around, row covers are up for my winter veggies now, they'll taste great in Jan & Feb! Blessings.
Lovely to hear that Linda, you are inspiring others too
I’m coming into my third year of nodig (following your videos Charles) and it definitely reduces weeding (still battling binding weed!). I do find that I spend a lot of time making compost, which has made me source material from lots of different people. Surprisingly, I’ve found I enjoy composting as it’s making soil food but overall I don’t think it saved me any time. My allotment was under ‘weed suppressing’ membrane when I took over but it didn’t suppress the weeds, it just prevented any organic material reaching the soil underneath so there were no earthworms in my soil when I started. This year I’ve struggled with slugs and snails damage so 2022 will be the year of the beer trap!
Sorry to hear this John. It sounds like you had some soil repair work to do there and I'm sure things will get easier with each successive year. It's a bit unfair on allotments where sometimes soil is badly damaged and weeds get out of hand, but you are doing positive work. Good luck
I've tried it an it works....but your joy and pleasure at gardening made me give no dig a try!
How lovely, thanks Anne
Compared to when I gardened the old way with no dig I felt like I spent more time just look at and marveling at the growth in my garden. What weeds I did have were so much easier to pull out because they were small and were not well established. Still working on some issues with the edge of the garden but that will come with time I am sure. Can't wait until spring here in Ontario Canada
💚
Спасибо Вам, Чарльз, и за перевод и за науку и за настроение! Просмотрела ролик на одном дыхании! Здоровья Вам и всех благ!
Я так счастлив слышать это и большое спасибо, наслаждайтесь садоводством следующей весной, потому что я думаю, что зима скоро придет для вас
This is ultimate revelation of NO DİG method, saves so much time in gardening! Thank you, Charles
🍺
L I saw your videos a few years back I made the mistake of not subscribing. But I have changed that! I really enjoy your all your informative videos. I’ve been a long life Gardner, 40+ years. You can always learn something new. And a lot of what you do is much easier and a lot easier on the pocketbook. I like how you concentrate on compost great job!
Welcome back Chad, nice to hear!
Yes, I learnt my lesson the hard way with laying landscape fabric around the perimeter of my section to stop grass and weeds coming over from the neighbours. and now I'm digging it out in pieces. Ghastly stuff. And it stopped nothing, just made it impossible to weed. I love the very descriptive phrase - 'just tickling it'. Perfect reminder!! As always a great session in your no dig garden and things learned as always. Thank you
Wow sounds bad and good you are improving matters. Thanks Annie
Beautiful video from the very best NoDig teacher and gardener. Thank you Charles.
Great advice as usual. I also love your orange shirt. Perfect for a grey autumn day
Cheers from NZ 😎
If only I could show everyone the difference in my garden in 1 year! It was nothing but weeds. Even though we still have some weeds, the difference is astounding. Ty Charles.
I am happy to hear this Lisa!
Once you try, you never come back. Thank You Charles for being my inspiration!
Ah cool, thankyou too
Mulch is a life saver and a time saver!
Most of my 'weeds' are seedlings from my Silver Birch, but I don't mind, he's far older than I am, so he's a right to put himself about a bit 🤣Besides, sometimes it's nice to just have something for the mind to zone out with. It kind of weeds out all the nonsense of the world for a time too 🙂
Awesome philosophy Suzanne!
I have the same situation with many sycamore trees that grow in our hedges. I'd rather not have them, but it's unavoidable so I just think of it as more material to feed the compost heaps.
@@jamesf3283 We also get them from a neighbour's 'stump'. It was a huge tree, that the council were concerned over the safety of, so the neighbours had someone cut most of it down. I did tell them that if they didn't finish the job, it would just act as Pollarding, and back bud, which is what it has done, so whilst I had a few years free of them, I am now starting to get some back again. I get more concerned about those, because they have tap roots, and send them down pretty quickly if you miss them. Plus, don't they always seem to hide in the most naughty places too!
good lesson Charles
Watching your videos are so enjoyable to watch! You are so calm! 💙
I'm so glad!
Another great video. Thanks Charles
Very welcome
I am so grateful for your learnings. I literally have no weeds since adopting no dig a couple years ago. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks Charles 🌱
Wonderful, and thanks for the feedback, is good for encouraging other gardeners and potential gardeners :)
@@CharlesDowding1nodig it is only a pleasure and I can't wait for your 2 days in Cape Town next year. Going to be great to convert TH-cam Charles into real world Charles 😂🌱
When I started this process of no-dig, I didn't realize the amount of physical work involved. WOW
Yes at the beginning, then it tails off a lot :)
You were right about the risk of weeds when using uncomposted manure, ive got lots of grass coming through, but tge potatoes are still growing strongly 💪
😀 great
As usually I really appreciate you doing well work
Thank you so much 😀
Thank you, Charles. It seems easy to follow your advice. See you.
Charles I love your method last year I grow 3-pound tomatoes
🏆
Dear Charles,
I used cardboard on base to clear grass patch , put soil on top (my compost not ready yet) when my plant grown I covered with cardboard cut in shape just around the plant to stop weed and any slugs they will appeared on cardboard. It is 33 c here today so cardboard keep water not evaporated as well I think. Thank you Charles from Thailand.
Hello Tai and well done for your improvisation and adapting to such different conditions 💚
Thank you, Charles, for always being accessible with good common sense! I’ve had such success with my no-dig garden because of you. This year in NZ, the onion weed has been PROLIFIC - just showing up everywhere - and I’m finding it more of a problem than the kikuyu (couch grass). It’s baffling!
Nice to hear Monica, apart from the onion weed! Wish I could help.
Hi Charles, good to see you. Your garden looks great as usual. We got a few things growing in our fall and winter garden. I’ve had to move my mother in with my wife and I. It’s been good for her. Yes has dementia. She’s an old farm girl so she loves the garden. We’re all doing well. Cheers and God bless. Stay well. (Old guy from Arkansas)🇺🇸
Cheers Steve and your mother must be happy. Nice to imagine you all there. Things are good here and we shall be filming today.
Dear Charles, I am trying with no dig. I am using cardboard a lot - not just the "one-off" you recommend. I cannot produce enough homemade compost on my allotment though. I bought in well rotted manure, managed to make some leaf mold and collected alpaca poo. Where I put it has been fab. My produce has been great and weeds have certainly been restrained. I just can't treat the whole plot to the same degree.
Hi Patricia, allotment plots vary in size, and I wonder whether yours is a large one because they go up to 1/16 of an acre. From what I see of how they are often under used, that is too big for those allotmenteers.
I wonder if you could ask someone to share the other part of yours maybe? You are doing great work on at least half of it!
Very fetching jacket Charles!
Thanks, I love it!
Pięknie, ogród robi wrażenie, zadbany,wypielęgnowany, super.Tyle radości daje Panu uprawa, zadowolenie
wypisane na twarzy.Kompost Super. Życzę dużo zbiorów, pozdrawiam serdecznie.
Jak pięknie, dziękuję za komentarz i życzę również wszystkiego dobrego!
I always love going along with you in your gardens. Such a beautiful and peaceful place which also produces amazing looking food
So nice Rob 🥕
That's an epic shirt, Mr. D.
🌈
I like weeding. Very relaxing, but being retired I'm not short of time. Weeding gets you close to the soil and you often find seedlings of plants you want to keep.
Yes so right
Thank you again for the video! Perfect timing and reminder to get off my butt and start weeding before it gets a mess. As with other things in life, the earlier and more regularly we stem the problems and keep them in check, the better it will be. As you wisely put: “catching them small”
Yes, true for life too!!
Sus vídeos siempre son un gran aporte. Gracias y saludos desde Romeral 🇨🇱💚
🥤!
Thank you for the Russian subtitles. Very useful information. I don't dig my land either, and I mulch it with grass. But after that, a lot of slugs appeared, and I don't like it at all. I will try to mulch in your way, driving all the mown grass through the compost. God grant you good health 😀
I wish you success with that, and thankyou
Bu günde çok güzel şeyler öğrettiğin için çok teşekkürler charles 💚
Memnuniyetle 💚
Grazie Maestro 👍💪
Wise words as ever Charles, thank you.
We have had the dandelion invasion as well this season. The wee field to the south of the gardens was ablaze with the yellow flowers before the hay got big. It was absolutely crawling with bumble bees too so it's a small price to pay.
Before we stopped keeping cattle all the grass was intensively managed so there were next to no insects amongst it. Thankfully things are recovering well now and life is flourishing in many forms.
Thanks again, good luck!
Thanks for sharing this, sounds amazing now
khu vườn đẹp quá ạ
Thankyou Selina
Hi Charles and everyone else
I think your videos are really informative and like your laid back presentation style. I took over a small garden at the end of March last year (2020). which was full of weeds - nettles, thistles and all kinds of nasties plus shrubs which I didn't want. There was quite a lot of work to do which involved digging out the shrubs (a right pain), levelling soil and digging out the weeds.
I had too much soil so built seven raised beds to get rid of it but the soil was of poor quality and full of bricks and some glass. I sieved every bit of it with a 1/4" sieve removing all of the rubbish. As I filled the raised beds I added organic matter grass clippings, ripped up cardboard and paper, kitchen scraps, etc, then more soil and so on, I thought it was worth the effort as the soil will be there for a long time and never ever will be dug!
One thing I should add is that I put down weed barrier on about a third of the garden last year and it has worked wonderfully well.
Probably too long a post but thank you for all the excellent work you put into making these videos.
Hello Wayne.
I am impressed by that amount of work you have invested in your garden and congratulate you on the effort. I would not have worried to do the sieving, and I hope you have not filled your beds completely with soil because it does not sink, and you need 6 inches/15 cm above the soil for regular additions of compost.
May your harvests be good :)
@@CharlesDowding1nodig Hi
I sieved to get rid of nasties like glass and plastic and there were no end of broken bits of house bricks and pebbles. I used the pebbles as walkways between the beds and then covered them with woodchips. I now need a skip to get rid of all the bricks I've carried around to the front garden. A by-product of doing all the work is that I'm much fitter now (I'm 69) and was a bit of a couch potato!
The beds did sink a few inches because of the amount of organic material I put in them. I have left about 6" for adding compost as you say. This year had lots of tasty runner beans, peas, and green beans. Outdoor tomatoes not too good mainly because I didn't know how to prune them correctly but still got a fair few, I actually thought I'd bought small bush tomatoes but I hadn't!
Many thanks for your videos, they are always an inspiration.
@@wayneclark2823 Ah cool and congrats!!
I have just enough sunlight in my front yard for vegetables and I made elevated raised beds so I can garden standing up. They are no dig and I’m seeing wonderful results this fall. Just wish I didn’t have so many leaf eaters in Alabama. My collards and kale are ragged but bacillus helps a lot. Most of my weeding is the basil that I let go to seed.
That is awesome Phyllis
Oh dear Charles! Lost focus this Autumn and you would be ashamed if I claimed to be a devotee. On the bright side I am now loving the late salad leaves you recommend. I have never before had such bounty in November! What a revolution. I didn’t know these leaves existed.👌
You can get it back June! Fuelled by salad leaves :)
I immediately noticed a decrease in needing to weed my raised beds after starting no-dig. And yet there are still people that insist you have to till or double-dig. But they're also the ones that complain that gardening takes up too much of their time, always needing to keep on top of the weeds.
Funny eh?!!
I don't have mulch so I use cardboard with grow tubes placed in holes cut into the cardboard. The grow tubes (cut from old soda bottles) are where I plant my veggies or seeds and I only water inside the grow tubes so I pull out the weeds when they are tiny. Rain soaks right through the card board and I gently lift the cardboard to weed at the edges where the weeds pop out. As I expand the garden it will become more of a problem.
I’m glad you addressed the membrane issue.
We had this exact experience when we took over our farm. Years of organic matter had piled up on top of plastic mulch. We simply could not leave it in place but ripping it out felt like excavating. We kept it strictly no dig everywhere else of course :)
Thanks, glad you got it out!
Great to see a new video, I found your channel last week and I'm hooked! I'm making my way through your No Dig Course 1 book it's such a useful resource thank you! Looking forward to my no dig journey 😀
Have fun Louise and I'm happy the book is useful
Getting in the christmas mood with that jacket LOL. Great videos as always.
Thank You for all the lovely videos. Really liked you with the beard :D
Thank you Jakub! 😃
Grazie sempre utili le sue nozioni
After finding you some years ago on here I actually enjoyed weeding the year I went no dig. The few weeds over the course of summer was a welcome treat, I'm in the garden every day and keeping up was really easy. I have a bigger problem with the squirrels planting pecans, plus a Locust tree spreading it's babies everywhere.
Rock on Wende. Even the problems are interesting!
Sad to see those of us across the pond are unable to take part in your online classes. I hope that will change in the future. I have to wait until May before I can get my no dig garden going here in North eastern Massachusetts USA
Hi Dan, did I miss something, not sure what you mean about the online classes? They are available to purchase, and half price from Green Friday with #nodigforlife coupon
Lamium and Scarlet Pimpernel keep popping up in my borders, I like them and let them grow. Dandelion is the real menace, but I like it in the grass. I've really seen the benefits of NODIG, as I double dug a new border adjacent to an undisturbed border. Planted the same hydrangea in both this last spring, the undisturbed bed's hydrangea has grown much better, putting up a lot of new branches, whereas the other hasn't really changed height at all. Plus all the plants in the disturbed bed tend to flop more, hopefully next spring it will have recovered somewhat after all the damage I've wrought upon it.
My strawberry runners sure took over on the top of membrane
I think this is one of Charles' most important videos. Ignore his advice and you'll soon be in trouble. Do it right, and you'll see the great benefits of this method.
Thanks so much
@@CharlesDowding1nodig Thank you for being so generous in sharing your knowledge. I’m forever grateful for all that I’ve learned from your channel!
Спасибо за честный рассказ.
💚
I inherited an allotment that had been turned over for me before I received it, From what I understand it was not tended for a while.. I decided to really hydrated it and let the weed population sprout, then remove the weeds. put compost on top then plant.. it worked some what in that my veggies are way ahead of the seasonally activated Oxalis bulbs that are sprouting now.. at least they are edible ! and add a nice tang to my bitter greens of kales, escarole, spinach, chard, mustards, radicchio, radish, tatsoi... :)
Sounds good Valeria. Oxalis is difficult!
The strawberry patch full of couch grass has been taken up now, I don't have any spare compost so I removed as much of the grass roots as I could and just been giving a quick hoeing once a week to kill any regrowth of the couch grass, it seems to be working upto now but will definitely apply compost once I can get hold of it. (The shops seem to stop stocking it around this time of year despite this being the time I need it most :/). I might turn the strawberry bed into a winter veg bed as it gets the most sunlight in autumn, winter and spring.
Despite the strawberry bed just being soil there seemed to be allot of fungal activity around the roots of the strawberries
Sounds promising Michael
You may find that you can buy compost made from the green waste that the council collects. Our local tip (or "recycling centre", I think it's called these days) used to sell it, though now it has to be bought from the company that actually does the composting. I had nowhere near enough to enable me to convert to no dig last winter so I ended up getting them to deliver six tonnes and bought the same again earlier this year. I was told they have it available all year. The only real problem I found is that it still needs to sit for a while before use as it hasn't really finished composting.
Some of the large DIY sheds also sell the same stuff in "dumpy bags", though despite the much larger volume it didn't look any significantly cheaper than buying it in small bags from a garden centre. Of course it does mean there's considerably less waste plastic.
very interesting and correct, finding all your vids very instructive and moreish
Thanks, and I'm glad to hear it!
I am probably abnormal, bit I quite like pulling up Mare's Tails which are endemic on our allotments. I grab a cup of coffee at half time, each time I go and then weed as long as the cup lasts, perhaps 10 minutes. No digging out the 'roots' etc. With no dig, this is easy and keeps it under control.
Cool. I agree that pulling weeds is satisfying! Well done on the marestail
Great advice just wish hubby would take a bucket on his wanders he’s not the gardener buck keeps an eye on a white pebble garden path.
Great useful advice, and a beautiful garden
Many thanks Anna
My biggest weeds this year were pepper and tomato seedlings from my top dress of compost. I cold compost so some of the produce seeds added to the bins survive. luckily pepper and tomato seedling are very easy to pull out and very recognizable too.
Excellent!
I love your garden Charles, and your advice! I am still gardening through the fall here in Maryland, U.S., and preparing for winter sowing and building beds with compost. Anxiously awaiting seed catalogs and dreaming my gardens to be half as nice as yours! Grateful for you. :) 🎃🌻🧤
Thankyou Kay! I wish you as nice!! 🥕
I slacked off this last summer, it got hot and I had no want to weed, now I got a huge CrabGrass issue, knee high.... grew into and through 6-8" hardwood mulch. madness...
Oh dear Mike, and you are not the first to write this! Good luck with cardboard…
My allotment is fairly weed free. My only problem is I still get dock as the fields around are full of them, but I do try to get them out as soon as I see them! I don't mind a bit of weeding though, I sort out all my troubles when I'm pulling them up! Life gets sorted out on my allotment. Thanks for all your advice Charles.
Such a nice way of doing two things at once Jenny!! 🌺
Grazie per i sottotitoli in italiano
No till is important because you don't want to destroy the worms' homes. The worm babies especially need the roots. Sacramento, California
💚 so true
This man speaks the truth
I do raised beds but I never disturb the soil after initial putting in the soil. I also mulch with buckwheat shells. People cannot believe my weedless garden is natural and not the product of my constant weeding ☺ Next spring I'm starting no dig garden on my in-laws land. It is heavy clay that was covered in wild grass for years. In-laws insist on diging it first, but let me fail my 'no dig game'. We'll see who will be right at the end :)
Cool. The dig myth has deep roots! My money is with you :)
Winter is getting ready to set in here and i will be starting to set down a bunch of wood mulch on top of cardboard to enlarge my garden for next year. I wont be doing anything to the grass other than covering with the cardboard and as much mulch material and leaves as i can get my hands on. I am going to have to purchase mulch and go around everywhere i can to get folks bagged leaves. I know under my grass is all clay so that is why i wont be digging or topping off grass and physical issues. I did think about renting a machine that cuts top level of grass and flipping it but again physical issues. So wish me luck. Lol. At least it should make starting the new area easier next year if nothing else.
Bravo and I wish you success, your soil will surprise you with strong plant growth
I like your green and stay healthy 💪! My country Singapore got nothing. Only condominium 😔😔
Ah wow and yes we are fortunate, plus I am happy to be able to show you the green 🥦🥬
Charles, I am hoping that my next year's garden 2022 (the second season for my raised garden beds) will be better for control of weeds ... by the way I love that hoe that you use which is basically a swivel blade that does not disturb the soil so much but gets rid of the weeds.
Hi Joe, I reckon it should be better then!
sabes me has provocado correr descalza por todo ese cesped😆!wuiiiiiìi
Hooray
Imagine being able to grow physalis outdoors. 😄👍
I’m finding loads of weed membrane under the weeds, I have 3 buckets one for weeds that I compost one for rubbish, plastic, fabric glass etc and one for brambles that I either take to the tip or home for my green bin, the parts I have done properly as no dig have hardly any weeds at all. The bit I didn’t use enough compost on has loads of couch grass so I’ll redo that and use manure and compost to a deeper level. X
Sounds a challenge Lucy!
Thank you, great video as always! Hugs
When I grow up I want to be Charles Dowding. 5:58 holy moly what a great looking place!
Cheers Ted :)
I love hoeing. I could hoe all day. I’m no dig so not many weeds but I love using my little onion hoe that cost £2 second hand, years ago. It’s so relaxing just gently hoeing between plants and veggies.
I like the hoe method. I run it over my paths every Sunday afternoon as a habit, and this does an excellent job of eliminating weeds. I planted 71 cloves of garlic today. There were a few weeds but not many. Now with a layer of compost over the planting, everything looks neat and tidy.
I bought your book, "How to Create a New Vegetable Garden", for my sister for Christmas. I'm trying to convince her to go no-dig. She's interested but not completely sold on the idea. I hope the book convinces her.
Thanks again for all you do. I've learned a lot watching your videos.
Lovely to read this, and great idea for your sister, hope she likes it
@@CharlesDowding1nodig, it's a beautiful book. I was flipping through it. I love the layout. She's just getting into more gardening for food, so I'm sure she'll love it.
Yay No Dig!!!
If only those died in the wool gardeners would be willing to try something new!
A MOST pleasant experience!
Yay!
Maybe you could try planting more of the crop you want and use that to choke out the weeds. I have seen that elsewhere and it appears to work really well.
Actually I do not have weeds to choke here! It's not as simple as that, look at onions leeks and garlic which do not smother weeds with their leaves. Plus there is always the question of starting a planting such as carrots, which for two months do not cover the ground and are easily smothered by weeds. The method here is working really well and is very efficient timewise, plus keeps ground clean for new plantings
This only really seems to work if you go out for a couple of hours every day, weeding, and most working people simply don't have that time. My no dig is covered in a crop of weeds 5 days after mulching, and riddled with bindweed, dandelions, couch and others within 2 weeks, and as they grow from underneath, you can't "catch them small". Only way I've managed to stay on top of them is digging and removing deeper roots every year. Tried no-dig 2 years, but seems you have to live on the allotment like Huw and Charles!
He reveals the truth about successful weeding when he says, "WE".
Hi David, in April 2021 I made a bed with cardboard and compost over strong bindweed, grass, dandelions and buttercup. For two months there was no weed growth at all and if you are seeing some after two weeks, your mulch is too thin.
The method works, but the variables and detail is different so fair comment, as long as we understand those parameters. Weedy allotments with damaged soil are indeed difficult, see the pinned comment by Jim Tao.
Catch them small is possible on a weekly basis.
I like weeding because there are few enough to be manageable, except for bindweed in years one and two.
@@CharlesDowding1nodig Thanks so much for taking the team to read and reply, that's really nice.
I have some different parameters, in that in Italy, we have a short growing season (last frost 1st week june, first is 1st week sept), however things grow super fast in the summer.
I took some raised beds that were dug every autumn and again in spring to take out weeds, and after the last weed put on 20cm compost/mulch/manure.
When I came on a daily basis, it would take 2 hours to week them all (7 beds 3m x 1.5m) - which is 14 hours a week. Some weeds were not possible to take out without digging the root out (eg dand/bind).
When attending on a weekend only basis, I am faced with 20cm of complete bed growth each time, which is very hard to get out without weeding by digging, and certainly leaves roots to grow back quickly. I also remember my London allotment that we could only visit at weekends being quite similar.
Finally, most "normal" gardeners don't have access to so much compost (either material or space), I have two compost bins and in the summer they reach 50degC, however for nine months of the year they are dormant and won't break down much.
Watching gardeners like yourself and Huw, it occurs to me they are much larger gardens, with a constant presence, and industrial quantities of material. All my retired neighbours manage to keep impeccable gardens!
So, as much as I enjoy watching your channels for many reasons, and learn many things, perhaps "no-dig" requires a certain lifestyle and set of conditions. I will dig every spring, (it's a light dig, 2/3 spade depth - with a fork), and cover in winter, and apply a top coat to feed the soil etc, however not sure I can call it "no-dig", nor "hardly any weeding" method. The trolls who keep telling me it's your way or the wrong way shall continue to be ignored :-)
Thanks again!
OMG! I made my compost and put Ricinus comunis seeds and leaves. I thought everything had decomposed, but now, they are sprouting in piles. At least they are easy to boot. I'm from Brazil and this species grows like a weed in every place that is hot. We use seed oil to make biodiesel, the dry and crushed seeds as a organic fertilizer. But anyway, the main weeds I face here are Plantago major, and Phyllanthus amarus which are herbal. So I just remove the excess of my beds.
Your weeds are so different to here! Thanks for sharing this. I guess they grow a lot faster as well! At least you can pull them out without too much difficulty 😀
Another great vid charles.....Its been two years since i switched to NoDig and i have experienced 99% of weed species just disappear with one exception Mares tail.....NoDig definitely knocked it back,but as charles suggests, you have to be on it. Mare's tail has a similar battery root storage system like Bermuda and also a clever defensive design, if you just pull the above surface green growth,it will snap of the main and almost woody root(energy storage) at the first node, ready to regrow.ive found that if you actually feel down the stem an inch or two into the surface mulch until you feel a little bump(Node) and pull from here you'll get half the main root out,a few days later new green growth identifies the roots position again, repeat a couple more times and even marestail can been eradicated.
Have to say i was plagued with this for years, prior to adding a surface mulch of compost, it seems the woody root could anchor in the low carbon soil, which unlike compost can compact allowing the node snap system to work indefinitely, i imagine due to the high amounts of humus and the improved biology now present in my soil ,mares tail can no longer anchor it self in the same way, recently checked one of my beds,top 4" is firm and 12" Down is actually completely free of firmness nevermind compaction,very interesting indeed.
Interestingly charles,i think this is evidence supporting your firm but not compacted theory.I work in the private schools sector working in Grousmanship,providing high quantity sports and ornamental turf.My trade has been focusing on mechanical decompaction for decades with the outcome to be so unatural and synthetic, i top dressed my main hockey pitch with sieved compost this year as a new experiment, so far we have seen stability in colour and no fungal desease this fall, but interestingly better moisture and nutrient retention during the summer months,with little effect on perculation rates.We have been aware for years in my trade that humus has microscopic anchor points which hold on to nutrients, many top level sport pitches are 90% silica sand with no humus present but they can't see why they have to feed NPK every two weeks,your work has jumped trades charles, thanks again.
Hello Jim
Great and helpful observations about marestail!
Thank you so much for sharing this and I'm pleased to have been able to help, across trades as you say! That really is fascinating about the sports pitches improving, and it does indeed come back to the central point of there being enough humus, in a firm soil.
Firm, so different to what one often sees advised.
We recently met an arborist who has been helping the advisor for the Queens trees and also for the nation's oldest trees, including some oaks nearly 1000 years old. They were suffering bad compaction at the roots, from too much footfall of thousands of visitors. They had tried air spading, without success. Then they spread some surface compost and after one year noticed huge improvements in the soil, and healthier growth in the trees. Sometimes simple is good!
Plus Jim, have you eliminated marestail 100%?
Your description will be so helpful to gardeners, and I hope to use it if that's ok?
@@CharlesDowding1nodig Thats very interesting information regarding the Queens trees, i have 500 mature trees on mysite here in edinburgh, i can feel more experiments coming on.
Its amazing how quickly nature responds when we get the natural systems in place and its seems to me there's no better example than the forest floor....And if we switch our timelines from human to natures timelines, its easier to understand that mycelium controls everything in that system,over a 200-300 year period, starting with grassland first promoting mammals to increase Nitrogen,then colonising species like birch which help the hardwoods get established, the hardwood canopy eventually blocks out the light, the colonising grass and softwoods die back and so does the Nitrogen levels ,so mother mycelium then introduces honey fungus to the base of hardwoods eventually killing them and releasing all the stored carbon and minerals on the surface promoting grass once more and the mycelium nitrogen cycle restarts,there's obviously alot more going on in this system than i describe,but it confirms how vital mycelium promotion is when considering growing timelines and whats required for trees to stay healthy for long periods and definitely supports your methods of NoDig veggie production.
@@CharlesDowding1nodig more than welcome Charles,
I would say i'm almost 99% free of marestail at the end of year 2 with a NoDig system in place.
Year 1 - I used three layers of cardboard directly on perennial grasses, broad leaf weeds and Marestail,no decompaction.Adding around 10" of top quality compost,firming with a rake and then foot.It took two months before i saw surface growth,although maybe only 30-40% marestail regrowth, at this stage be on it,dont let it store new enenergy,feel down the stem for the woody growth or node point and pull.
Year 2 - Once tempreture rises in may round 2 starts, i observed a drop in regrowth again and a noticing a less strong plant and less vigorous root system.Over the summer the roots become smaller and less woody. By august almost gone.
I feel preNoDig i could never really get the last sections of root out, due to my clay loam subsoil giving it the perfect compacted layer to anchor in,but as you premote soil heath with NoDig you get the by product of soil decompaction,even down in the subsoil,ultimately making it easier to pull more of the root/battery storage.
The remaining 1- 2% is also interesting,i have a few beds with wooden edges and the majority of growth stems from these edges,on removing a board i found the last anchor point,actually multiple very woody stems shooting like crazy.
I have wood chip paths,which although not compact,the wood sections can inter lock somewhat giving a bit of resistance for the root, i used a trowel as i feel for a woody section.
Carrots are hard to grow with marestail about,as you pull marestail you damage the young carrot roots and mycelium connections,resulting in deformed growth.
We can all achieve close to weed free veggie production by following Charles message of NoDig.
@@00jim All makes sense indeed.
I thought you were in the USA!
I am teaching Inverness on 7th & 8th December if you have time, day course at an organic farm & brewery, email office@blackislebrewery.com
I have a constant headache with plantain it just keeps coming back each time with a vengeance thicker and tighter than before 👍🏼🇬🇬
That is odd because here it dies under light excluding mulches, but you do need to remove any regrowth after the first 2 to 3 months, when it might push through decomposing cardboard. Once it's gone, it's gone but it needs persistence in that first year
While my no-dig beds have some weeds, I've noticed they are much fewer. Much easier to take a garden knife to slice roots under the surface, than to try to pull up many small ones. Also my stirrup hoe is helpful to stay on top of things.
😀