5 Beginner No Dig Mistakes to Avoid

this way of growing food has gone from just a few Gardens to being widely adopted by the masses and for good reason no dig and no tail are one of the most popular ways of gardening but if this is your first time starting a Nordic Garden there are some classic mistakes new gardeners make which is why we're talking about how you can avoid them in this video for the past five years I read a no-dick Organic Market Garden and coming into this world with no experience allowed me to make all the mistakes from which some of them can literally set you back several months or even worse ruin your entire growing season so I'm going to cover the mistakes in order of how you would create your growing beds and one of the first mistakes to make is not removing the existing vegetation or making sure to create a barrier that prevents weeds from growing into your beds when I first created the garden I made the mistake of directly putting compost on the ground without first trying to get rid of that layer now admittedly this can be done as long as you do it on a lawn that is regularly mowed several times a year here in this situation plants can't establish themselves fully and every time you mow the lawn a part of the root system also get cut off simply because it doesn't need to support the amount of plant matter that grows above the ground this weakens the plants considerably making it far easier to kill them off by smothering them with a thick layer of compost unfortunately that wasn't the case where we created our first Garden the land we started on hadn't been touched for nearly two decades and was completely overgrown with persistent perennial weeds like bind weeds Gucci grass thistles and multiple other weeds that spread easily through rhizomes and although we did mow the entire block one time before creating the beds that more than enough energy in their root systems to sprout back and start growing in the fresh layer of compost essentially we were creating a very versatile place for the weeds not a great situation to be in considering that we had planted a large number of different vegetables that were now being taken over and although we had a lot of fun and enjoyed growing uh food for the first time a couple of months after creating our first Garden we were back to square one all that time money and energy that we spent in it was not worth the results that we got so we learned from that mistake and the next season we did it differently which gave us great results if you happen to deal with persistent perennial weeds a one-time initial tillage of the land might be helpful to kill or weaken them and then cover them with a layer of cardboard which helps to deprive them from getting any sunlight and then cover this layer of cardboard with a thick layer of compost this made all the difference for us and where initially we were essentially excuse me fertilizing the weeds we now reduce weed pressure by 95 percent and only had a couple of them pop up that were easily manageable by using a trowel to take out their roots the second mistake we made is not using the right compost and although most compost look the same quality varies as they are not all made from the same ingredients or are decomposed to the same level it is critical that when you create your garden beds you use compost that has had enough time to completely decompose that's why I always recommend creating any new garden beds in the Autumn so that the compost has more than enough time to rest and continue to decompose so that it is ready for planting in Spring if you happen to create any new garden beds in Spring which is totally fine and doable you want to have compost that has had at least six months of decomposition going on before using it this will ensure that most of the goodies inside this mix have had enough time to break down and make these nutrients available to your plants in order for the decomposition of compost to happen nutrients are being locked up and taken from their surrounding areas to break down organic matter during this process plants won't have the ability to take up any nutrients in the soil as they're temporarily locked up so often what you will see happen is if you grow in fresh compost is that your plants are stunted and not willing to grow and start to show some discoloration and signs of nutrient deficiencies this weakens the plants a lot making them more susceptible for pests and diseases and your chances of getting a good and healthy yield out of them will be very slim we've had this happen in our Gardens a couple of years ago when we used two months old fresh compost that was created in a municipal composting facility we quickly needed a load of compost and chose to get a delivery as soon as possible from a local supplier that we hadn't used before this mistake said our growing season back for at least the two months where we were not able to get a good yield out of those beds and had to wait for the compost to cool down and decompose more before we started to see normal results again as for the composition and ingredients of the compost and what type you should use really depends on what you have available locally the general rule of thumb when it comes to Quality is the more diverse a mix is the higher the quality of the compost but if you have to ship it in from the other side of the country it doesn't make much sense so use what's available locally and if that happens to be only fresh compost make sure to order it several months before starting to use it so it has enough time to let those microorganisms do their work and make it into a great finished products for your vegetables and just as important it is to use the right compost so is using enough of it which is another mistake that I've made in my garden the general rule of thumb when creating no new no dig garden beds is to use at least 15 centimeters or about six inches of compost and although that might sound a lot which it is it is necessary to ensure that you have a deep enough layer for the plant roots to grow in but also to deprive weeds from getting any sunlight if you're going to use a layer of cardboard there won't be a lot of space for your plant roots to grow in before the cardboard starts to decompose after two to six months depending on your climate and then your plant roots can penetrate deeper into the native soil in the beginning of our Market gardening Journey we were surprised by the amount of compost we needed to create our no dig beds and starting a new Farm the Investments we had to make quickly added up so I thought to be clever and only use half of the recommended depth of compost and do an initial tillage of the soil to remove as much of the existing vegetation as possible and just like we had experienced before new weed seeds started to pop up everywhere and started growing through the thin layer of compost creating a new Gardener's nightmare quickly after that realization we manually removed the most of the newly sprouted weeds with some weeding tools and immediately ordered another load of compost that we spread out on our beds which resulted in having barely any weed problems after that and as soon as you create your beds and apply this compost it is important to actually compact or compress it so that your plants can have enough stability to grow into this loose material and that's another mistake that we learned the hard way when you lay comfort post to create your bets for the first time it is often very loose and fluffy which is not ideal for your plants we all know that compacted soil is very detrimental for your vegetable plants but the same can be said for very loose soil it is very difficult for plants to establish themselves if your soil is too loose definitely in areas with lots of wind or in large rain events during a downpour a lot of the soil where plants start to put their Roots down will be disturbed and this disturbance of the root systems exposes them to harsh conditions which stresses them out and slows down their growth making them much more vulnerable and the same counts for wind if it is very windy outside plants won't have as much stability as their root systems are trying to hold on to loose soil and they can easily be blown sideways now it really must be very windy or rain very hard to actually kill your plants but this will definitely slow their growth down and pretend actually add several weeks to its growing cycle plants like soil to be firm not compacted not loose but firm and that's why when you create new noted garden beds it is important to compress it by either the back of a shovel to temper down a bit gently walking on it like I'm doing right here or using a professional tool like a bed roller that slightly compresses the soil and makes it into a firm growing medium and I recommend you only do this when the compost is moist but not soggy otherwise you will quickly make it too compacted which is surely something that we want to avoid and talking about water it is important that when you create your growing beds that you give it in one time deep initial watering before you start to transplant in it oftentimes compost tend to be quite dry and in some cases even hydrophobic meaning that it repels water rather than absorbing it we've experienced hydrophobic composts on several okay patients in the past where it just seems that it doesn't matter how much water we apply it just doesn't want to get wet and in some cases it's even worse where you water your Gardens and you think it's wet but when you dig down just a couple of centimeters you realize that it's bone dry so whenever you happen to transplant or direct seed in these beds thinking that there is enough moisture in the soil your plants will have difficulties getting established or worse they die out because of a lack of moisture in your soil fortunately it is very easy to recognize hydrophobic compost or soil by its inability to absorb water and it's also quite easy to fix the situation if you water your new beds and you see that water is pulling or easily running off causing the soil beneath it to remain dry you're dealing with hydrophobic soil and you have a couple of solutions to fix this problem if you're fortunate enough to receive a steady or gentle rain over the next couple of days after creating your beds it should already be enough to break off to break up any of the waxy substances that repel water and allow it to be absorbed by the compost if you don't have any rain on the forecast you'll need to use a garden hose to imitate rain and slowly rehydrate the soil by applying water gently in short frequencies making sure to not create any runoff or erosion problems and allowing water to penetrate down into the deepest soil mulch Like Straw wood chips or leaves of trees can also help to break down any of the waxy substances that allow your soil to become hydrated again though be aware that by introducing mulches you might also be introducing potential pest problems in your garden and even if you can avoid all these mistakes it is still very helpful to see the process in action which you can see from the start to finish in this video here I show you the entire process that we use to reclaim an overgrown patch of weeds and convert it into a vegetable garden using cardboard and a thick layer of compost that allows us to start growing immediately

Channel: The Dutch Farmer

Views: 95,694

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Id: YEF9XfauEpI

Length: 11min 54sec (714 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 16 2022