[J_B]

Hi i am planning on turning part of my allotment into no-dig and am looking at ideas for what i can do for a 1st sow and ideas what to follow for 2nd sowing. Ideally 8 different types of vegetables for each round of sowing. Suggestions welcome.  i am looking at getting 2 sowing this year so appreciate your valuable advise

[snowdrops]

Have a look at Charles dowding on YouTube,he has loads of videos on successional planting for no dig.

[Mr Dog]

Have a look at Charles dowding on YouTube,he has loads of videos on successional planting for no dig.

His website's worth a look too.

[greenjay]

I use minimal digging as my back is not great.
I cover the soil in winter with cardboard and compost or fym.
The ground is usually fine for planting come the spring.
for potatoes I dig a small hole with a trowel the hoe up as they grow.
I try to divide the area into 3. every 3rd year it gets a digging when rising the potatoes.
potatoes and the brassicas are the main ones I make sure I rotate the others I feel aren't so important.

[compostqueen]

I’m a no digger Have been since getting my plot coincided with an horrendous back ache and hip

I got to like it so much I never bothered to do anything else.  Making a hole to plant your veg is going to be preferable to start with as you won’t have fine tilth for seed sowing.  Spuds, leeks and particularly celeriac have strong root systems that help break up the soil. My first leeks went into concrete like soil  it were absolutely fine    My husband bought me a long handled bulb planter so I coild drop,the spud or leek into,the hole without bending.  A fellow plotter gave me some sheet mulch, the very good tenaxs stuff which is good for covering over bits of the plot til you get round to it
Have fun 🙂

[J_B]

thanks for the advice...i went to his site and asked him some advise and he kindy pointed out a couple of videos that were a great help

[freefolk]

I have 4 no-dig beds, 2.4m x 1.2m.  I laid cardboard in the bottom, watered it (honest), filled 3 with a mix of manure and top soil, and the 4th with top soil only (for carrots/parsnips).  I have successfully grown purple flowering broccoli, sing cabbage and onion "electric" and "radar" over the winter.  Looking forward to my Spring plantings!

[Blewit]

Depending on what you're using for mulch will have more impact on sowing/planting than it being no dig. I have a 500 square metre no dig lotty, some beds are mulched with compost, others with wood chip. The compost beds can be sown direct, the chipped beds need to be drawn back to bare earth with a hoe before sowing into composted drills. Other than that plants are started off in modules. Regarding what plants to grow, do everything you always have, it might take a season for the soil structure to establish in a new no dig bed but I've never had parsnips, leeks and carrots pull out of the ground so easily.

[J_B]

Very Nice...my initial foray is a 8ft by 8ft bed, have put down cardboard and watered it and am now building up layers of compost, lets see how it goes this year.

For those interested the following are the videos suggested by Charles:
videos on 1st & 2nd plantings: this is the first of the two https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yl8LIs5t2A once you view this the second one is easily available.  good summary.

and the sowing timeline below is also useful:
https://www.charlesdowding.co.uk/learn/sowing-timeline-vegetables/

edit to fix links