[NickoV]

... We can see there're different ways to go about 'no-dig', they all seem to involve digging to some extent, although mainly not.

I don't see the act of using a tool like a spade to perform some function in the garden as an issue. In fact I enjoy digging, especially with a spade with a 5 foot handle so I don't need to bend over.. .
The main issue for me is about soil management. The act of annually 'turning over'  the soil by digging, I see as fundementally flawed as a sustainable growing practice.
The soil is a 3D ecosystem. An ecosystem which is in balance. An ecosystem which can provide nutrients, prevent desease and pest outbreaks,and store carbon. By digging we destroy a large part of this ecosystem.
In my mind the healthier this ecosystem, the healthier and more resilient the crops.
It works for me, in my garden.

quite probably a daft question, but how does this work with potatoes and parsnips etc, which I imagine need to go deeper than the cardboard layer? Is it rotted down enough by then?

I got a reasonable crop of charlotte pots just from wet newspapers straight over couch, cover pots with another layer of wet newspaper then a bit of soil or manure (I used manure).  My parents do this every year -then you just lift a layer of newspaper and take what you need, covering the plant again.  Dug the whole lot over at the end of the season and the soil there is really good now, dead couch roots came straight out. 

The first time I tried to grow potatoes in a couch infested bed I was harvesting tubers which actually had couch growing right through the middle of them. Admittedly I didn't use any cardboard or paper.

[JayG]

There are few practices in gardening which are 100% right or wrong in all circumstances, and digging isn't one of them.

Dig when you need to, but no more than necessary - your back at least knows it makes sense! 

[goodtogrow]

NickoV, "I don't see the act of using a tool such as a spade to perform some function in the garden as an issue"
appears to be contradicted, to me, in the rest of your post about the disturbance to the eco-system...

Er, in no-dig, using such a tool is an issue.  That's why it's called 'no-dig'.  I'm able to concede that there are instances where we still dig, but I don't think that, of itself, alters 'the issue'.

I want to agree with you, but find that I can do so in part only.  As the inimitable JayG points out, the user benefit of no-dig is itself 'an issue', and an attractive one....

[NickoV]

If 'No-dig' means literally that, then I must be a 'low- digger'. 

[pigguns]

The first time I tried to grow potatoes in a couch infested bed I was harvesting tubers which actually had couch growing right through the middle of them. Admittedly I didn't use any cardboard or paper.

Not in couch. Over the top of 

[superpete]

Here is Charles Dowding - http://www.dovesfarm.co.uk/resources/no-dig-vegetable-growing/ - talking on the Doves Farm site - he mentions the work done by this lady below:

Didn't think it'd hurt for those interested to hear this talk by Elaine Ingham - are you sitting comfortably...

GEtl09VZiSU



As the clip was rather long, I've altered it to a link, rather having it show directly.

[ilan]

Perhaps you need to think why you dig or not ? There is no right or wrong way each plot will be different and at at a different stage depending on method of cultivation . My heavy clay plot was double dug with as much organic material as possible. then 4 ft wide  beds are not walked on and now I use a digging hoe to just turn it over in the winter this puts the organic material into the soil from the multhes and destroyes the slug and snail homes whilst I think the material decays quicker underground . If the soil however is in the form of traditional wide beds with little organic matter added  walked on and using commercial fertilizers then digging is required . Try a bucket test If a bucket of water poured on the bed just soaks in then dont  dig it if it runs of the top soil is compacted and needs digging

[NickoV]

Love the clip.
She is a bit of a hippie though.
I appreciate that she is promoting composting as a way of reintroducing beneficial aerobic life into the soil. Once its there though, not everything needs composting. Look back at her rain forest, its just dead organic matter on the soil surface being consumed by the life in the soil, not composted organic matter.
I have a compost heap, but most organic matter goes straight onto the soil surface as a mulch - scythed grass, weeds, goat bedding - at different times of the year.
Nick

[snowdrops]

Love the clip.
She is a bit of a hippie though.
I appreciate that she is promoting composting as a way of reintroducing beneficial aerobic life into the soil. Once its there though, not everything needs composting. Look back at her rain forest, its just dead organic matter on the soil surface being consumed by the life in the soil, not composted organic matter.
I have a compost heap, but most organic matter goes straight onto the soil surface as a mulch - scythed grass, weeds, goat bedding - at different times of the year.
Nick

Weeds? now there's dangerous & controversial.

[mumofstig]

as long as they have no seed heads on - it's fine to leave them where they land when hoed off

I sometimes grow a row of spinach just to hoe it off, and leave as a mulch - in the way Gertrude Franck advises in her book on Companion Planting. I never tried the companion planting but sheet/in situ composting does work.

[Totty]

When we first got our allotment, the neighbouring plot had the no dig bug. She insisted it was the way to go, so I have had one 16x5ft bed strictly for no dig over the past five seasons. The only crops that seem to benefit is lettuces, and other shallow rooted, quick maturing crops. They really do flourish, but they do everywhere else as well.
Long term crops, such as sprouts, leeks, parsnips etc etc always get off to a decent start, then slow down a fair bit in comparison with the other beds. To be honest, the no dig bed has probably had more organic matter added over the years than the dug beds, but still don't out perform them.

I have visited a garden charles dowding helped set up and mentor, and to be honest, although it's always nice to see veg growing, however it's being grown, it didn't strike me that anything was really growing super well.
Charles himself states on his site that the cropping differences between his dug and undug beds is negligible, so I always find it funny, when people who have been trying it out for a season or two, state the massive rise in crops they now get and the perfect way in which everything grows, as opposed to when they grew veg more traditionally.

Of course everyone has there own ways of doing things, I NEVER dig between November and march, real damage is always done to the soil during work at this time of year no matter how hard you try to be careful. Thick mulches of smashed up leaves, then well rotted farmyard manure is spread thickly over the soil during winter, thus protecting the soil surface from winter erosion. It's then turned roughly in, about early march time, so that all these ingredients are where the roots can get at them over a whole season.

This rough turning of the soil also opens the ground up so the birds can get at any unwanted soil Bourne pests.

I now earn my living by growing top quality veg for a busy hotel, and there is no way I could consider No Dig to do it. In the past five years, my experience is that well prepared soil, treated specifically for the crop that is to follow, will outperform any other methods I have had experience with. I'm not saying all this to put anyone off doing things one way or another, just to put a realistic spin, on a usually unrealistic thread....

Totty

[Madame Cholet]

I hate digging so even if it grows slightly less yeald I'm happy and if its good for the environment too i'm even more happy.

I think its going to be difficult for me tocompare yeald as i've only been growing for 2 seasons and a lot of what i'm doing is guesswork. it does seem more natural to me as leaves ect would fall on the soil and rot down.

[Growster...]

Reading through all these comments, and watching the various videos, I'm not impressed so far. I was seriously considering trying to leave some of the beds as an experiment.

The best carrots I ever saw were from a chap on our plots who never ever used manure, and just popped a few chicken pellets into his plot when he was digging, which he did on a regular basis, and properly.

I like the idea of mulching, manuring and even card-boarding, and provide this often, but having seen the state of our soil after rotovating back in the early summer, then cropping and finally pulling the perennial and annual weeds out effortlessly after that short time, convinces me that I won't be trying no-dig for a while, if ever.

We are covering each bed with about 4" of really old manure, and that will get turned in down to about 10" next year, so I suppose, as Totty says, it will have a holiday, but then on in, digging has to commence in earnest!

(By the way, I have a bad back, and use a Terrex spade and fork, if anyone needs to know..;0)

[Madame Cholet]

And for those of us that haven't  be put off would like to try it for our selves more hints and tips and practical advise please.

[goodtogrow]

Chere Madame,
Please don't associate low yield with no digging.  Associate low yield with the soil not being in sufficient 'good heart' for the crops we're asking it to support, which involves more than just an open structure.


Which brings us to the application rates of organic matter.  You can't no-dig by drissling the contents of a dalek over a 10-rod plot.  Heavy drissling is part and parcel of no-dig, and then with quality material.

I still think you're on the right track from what you say.  The sunlit uplands of happiness await you...

Best wishes

Tom

ps:  'drissle' is usually spelt 'drizzle' but not on the South Coast of England