Incredibly Productive No Dig Garden (Charles Dowding's 1/4 Acre of Abundance)

in gardening I don't know if you've noticed it but there's no shortage of people out there who like to make it more complicated and that you know I'm always trying to cut through that to encourage people [Music] hello and a very warm welcome back to Houston O'Shea I'm here with Charles darling who's a bit of a pioneer when it comes to growing amazing veg using his no dick style so where in the world are we we're at helices quarter acre Market Garden in southwest England Somerset zone eight the climate and it's where I produce a lot of vegetables and salads for sale locally just four miles away and I also use this Garner's fantastic place for teaching and writing and experimenting now I'm sure a lot of you have seen his YouTube channel and if you haven't yet check it out he's got a whole wealth of books as well to do with no dig and I'm hoping that this video will inspire you and show you a different way of growing veg and maybe you see why you should grow it this way this is my big night digging experiment or trial where to bed side by side exactly the same size I put the same amount of compost in each bed the only difference is this one the solid Doug and I incorporate the compost as I did with the trenches and this one I certainly put the compost on top so same compost Doug no dig and we crops they have exactly the same plantings in each bed the main difference is probably there's not much difference one struggles to see if you didn't know which is which except that here I spent three hours digging and probably an extra half hour at least weeding a lot more weeds grow in the disturbed soil competin loading and everything you can see here is second crops apart from the parsnip so it's very intensively cropped here and already I've had in harvest 58 kilos from the dug bed and 63 from the no dig bed so from this five foot wide 16 foot long bed already this year we've had over 60 kilos and there's another forty to come I would say chicory celery beet roots French beans passionate beyond the pacifist kale cucumbers crappie at the moment nd and carrots at the foreign so everything except passing at second crop so it's another little thing that's been very nice about this trial where I'm laying all the harvest this is given an the incredible potential for productivity with using compost more than anything because obviously that's Doug and that's nobody but the no dig trial over eleven years now is about five percent ahead in terms of yield the great thing about compost for its for feeding soil and this is where a lot of confusion arises because we're so used to hearing about fertilizers to feed plants and unconsciously I think a lot of gardeners have absorbed that as a statement of fact if you like and if you think instead of compost as a soil food that's there for the longer term and the nutrients in compost are not leached by rain so they stay there until the combination of temperature have been correct roots starting to grow looking for food and then them alloying with the funky in the sole among other things like mycorrhizal fungi which if you don't dig are not disturbed so they're they're in much greater force and ready to help plants to grow and if you're not used to no dig this can seem strange I think because you're putting your seeds and plants into soil that seems firm which is fine I'm firm it's not the same as compact by the way that's another story relief but firm soil is good and like mow beds here I'm happy to walk on them if I need to walk to cross over the other side whatever it doesn't compact the soil you know it's all firm anyway so plant seeds roots are going into the phone so and they can explore there's enough channels made by soul life because the soil has been fed and maintained by the surface mulch or compost and growth is very abundant well as you can see from the pictures of my garden here composting here is it's simple because we have a lot of ingredients so it'll be different for you if you don't have so much stuff coming in all the time but if you if you do have a little and often addition to a compost you wish in most domestic gardens would want to be a lot smaller than this because this size here takes all my huge guns waste plus all the coffee grounds and other bits and bobs we manage to from elsewhere including like cardboard and so it's mixing green and brown roughly called proportion so this is clearly a brand and then underneath here is some grass that was just mowed this morning I'm feeling it's already warm so I'm finding with doing this thing and building up layers we're often getting two temperatures over sixty centigrade which is clearly pretty hot that's a hot bath is already 40 so that's hotter than you'd want to put your hand in and it breaks down reasonably fast and we do turn it once only once and that gives this beautiful compost here which is nine months old I found that on average between eight and twelve months will give us a nice compost not perfect homemade compost really is really it's certainly very usable and of all the compost I use interestingly this homemade the growth is as good as anything to convert from digging to no dick and it's very simple all the way I would do or way I have done is just cover the surface with food basically I think in terms of how nature works everything lands on top and also life is adapted to this way of feeding nervous surface it's not used to the idea of you know like compost manure being incorporated the mistaken thought that that way you're getting it into the rooting zone the rooting zone is actually mostly near the surface so converting from dick to nodig just feed your soul at the surface in the British climate compost so you won't be building up the slug population and the soul life will increase the some they're always already and and you also will get healthier and healthy weeds are the tricky part and I think that's what can put people off sometimes with no dig you know it is actually quite simple if you're digger say to turn the sod over and your burial wheezing you've got clean soil but of course what you then have is lots of weeds germinating because you brought up all those weed seeds on the console as a living organism and if you think like the analogy is with people - if we're disturbed we want to recover soil when disturbed needs to recover it does it with wheat so understood soil tends to grow less weeds but you've still got the problem how did you get rid of the initial weed burden particularly if it's a nasty perennial weeds support I said it's a nicely but we took keep regrowing vigorous and this garden here my garden was full of perennial weeds when I arrived four and a half years ago Buttercup dandelion particularly patches like weather greenhouses that was almost solid couch grass it was quite a bit of bindweed field bindery beyond the greenhouse thorough marching initially what year one is key that's the most tricky time of year really it's the one I particularly mentioned in my book how to start a new veg garden because you know I wanted to help you we'll get through that phase for clearing weeds no dick this is a nice example here because 18 months ago this was couch grass bindweed butter got dandelion pasture grasses and all we did was spread three inches seven centimeters of not the best quality compost just any organic matter really at that stage to feed the soul life polythene over the top it was in spring that March April so the thought is moist anyway and in May we planted some Crown Prince squash just five actually in this area here and had a nice harvest to squash in October peel back the polythene always had died even the couch grass it wasn't a huge amount but they're quite a bit here the binder weed is still there but not too much and we're now removing it with a trial and then in the autumn we shaped up weds and already have broad beans here in fact this is a second planting mouth for this year of purple sprouting broccoli for next spring so you can see how clean the ground is and it was a mass of weeds including a lot of perennials this small space work seems small to me is just one corner of my greenhouses where I raise plants from 95% of the vegetables I grow in the garden the only ones are so director carrot parsnip and ball beans and to make more of the small amount of space here and make it all quicker I do quite a lot of multi sowing so here for example is turnip Caesar salad tunics for so late July to plant out mid August for cropping in the autumn and there a sweet variety lend themselves very well to growing in little clumps so a clump like that you you've got in this case between three and five turnip plants it could be radish as well very similar and as they grow they swell and push on another apart and it means that in this tray here with 40 cells there could be at least 150 turnips so it's a very economical way to raise a lot of plants in a small area it speeds up the process too because when you're planting you're putting in every time that motion of the hand you're putting in for so rather than one and the other interesting thing I think is that plants really like this way of growing and I think it's because they're more with their friends you know they've got lots of mates there and when you plant them out you're not splitting them up you're putting them all together in the Pali tile here there is fantastic abundance at the moment this is midsummer August but actually the most valuable crop I growing here is not even growing yet it's one that we sow it in a month's time in middle of September in the greenhouse awarded modules plant here in mid-october when these tomatoes cucumbers basil OB jeans everything are finishing so then simply pull them out no need to do any cultivation obviously or any compost mulch or anything cuz it's all there from May we put the compost here on in May and then plant the winter salads and they crop from late November same plants right the way through the winter and not a huge amount of produce in the darkest coldest winter months say from Christmas to Valentine's Day that's probably the leanest period but from if ever it really kicks off again the same plants produce loads during March and April especially when that's really valuable you know that hungry gap time greens at that time of year fresh greens are especially precious and nutritious too at the end of winter we're all feeling a bit low and it's a great health tonic this part of the garden is is some 300 square meters is about the 15th of an acre it's quite a small area amount of food coming off like here at the moment we're cropping lettuce so these lettuce plants we picked four times already and we keep taking the outer leaves we harvest abuse this morning for example and then here I'm running a trial where I've got three strips going up to the apple trees at the far end where one of the strips I fought the beds once a year and grow the same crops next to it on Lobeck and comparing those two and interestingly in three years of doing that the fort soil has not grown as many vegetables as the no dig with the same compost and everything you can see there from the cabbages down again is second crop so the cabbages are after broad beans for example and then the beans here these are runner beans and Pilates and we don't pick them in the summer so they're getting bigger and fatter all the time here is an unfortunate thing that something I've had to do recently got mash over leeks didn't used to be the case but in our part of the world we have leap moth and that just for another couple of weeks now until the end of August I'll keep this cover on the leaf so that the pests can't get in there and then this part of the gun we're coming to now is mostly perennials so asparagus for example no dig asparagus works really well no need to dig this all in the beginning simply you need to make a hole for sure to put your crown in and I planted crowns here four and a half years ago and we've been picking for two Springs already and then I have some perennial some fruit bushes and an interesting plant they're further along is the perennial kale so that's a variety called tonnes and beam and those plants are two years old and if I as long as I can keep pigeons off them in the winter and he will keep on producing and just at the end of this strip it's a beautiful raspberry called Joan J which I've been growing here this is its second summer planted last February and it's a really nice raspberry because it's a primocane so you cut it to the ground in the winter everything is fruiting on new growth this spring no support given as you can see sound makes it easier the Canes do not have thorns and the fruit are particularly large and luscious something I love to encourage in gardeners is a bit of a sense of adventure and not feeling that that you have to do everything by the rulebook for sure there are paradigm so that there are scenarios that you need to follow I hesitate to call them wolves as other than what the alternative work would be but you know there are certain parameters you've got a respect but beyond that there's a massive room for everybody to do things slightly differently and and do feel that you can have a go in my work I'm always encouraging readers and viewers to understand the principles of what they're doing so that when they are gardening themselves when you're guarding your wonderful thing about ghani's things happen yeah weather is probably the number one you never know from one season what it's going to do and you've got to be ready to adapt a bit so you can't always saw how it's not like working in a factory and you just know what's going to have the machine is going to go kind of thing and you have got to understand a bit how you might react if things happen different methods of watering or mulching or feeding plants with compost or whatever it might be so in my work there there is a lot of information on that but and a lot of it is about getting to know these basics and then taking it from there yourself and have a bit of fun you know because when you're gardening if you're too much sort of thing I've got to do this I've got do that you know it's got to be you engaging strongly with your plants and and that will give you a lot of feedback as well and yeah it's a really enjoyable process one of my videos I'd love to mention is gardening myths how they waste our time and that is I brought this when I brought this book out gardening miss it was it hasn't been that well-received to be honest you know it's like that I think the horticultural establishment find it a bit challenging but gardeners who read it seem to love it and check out the video that will just give you some ideas because because there's many tips in there about things that you thought you might have to do actually you don't and you can save a lot of time by just cutting through a lot of that know do I think it as a gardening method is in a very exciting place at the moment it's suddenly I think it's passing a tipping point where there's enough people out there now practicing and getting good results and it's a strong multiplier effect they then tell their friends and allotment neighbors people see it with their own eyes II marvel at the ease and simplicity and the great results now what not delight really so I see it as a very positive method that's going to help a lot more people grow great food healthy food with less less effort and less problem [Music] you

Channel: Huw Richards

Views: 1,425,882

Rating: 4.9432683 out of 5

Keywords: no dig, charles dowding, no dig gardening, no dig growing, organic, vegetable gardening, permaculture, productive, productive garden, market garden, vegetable, vegetables, organic gardening, market gardening, compost, vegetable garden, beautiful, abundant, inspirational, urban gardening, small space

Id: XCAAL1saPzM

Length: 17min 7sec (1027 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 25 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Whocket_Pale]

Clicked on a whim, because I like no-till, and ended up really enjoying this video, so thanks for sharing. Would love a garden like this but dunno if I would move to North Carolina to do it :p Virginian here living in Maryland, still haven't decided where I'm gonna become a farmer.

edit: I say North Carolina because Dowding says he's in Zone 8b (UK) and NC is 8b here on the east coast USA

[u/Claggyful]

Charles Dowding is a favourite of mine. His books are great too.

Richard Perkins is apparently going to do a video with him soon. Should be good!

[u/warmfeets]

Did anyone catch how long he leaves the poly on to kill perennial weeds?

[u/imnos]

I'm a little ignorant on harvesting of crops but would like to understand it more. When he says there's still 40kgs to get from the crops this year - is he cutting the leafy veg just above the root for it to continue growing again? How is it done with other types of vegetables like carrots, or broccoli? Do some vegetables give a continuous crop to re-harvest through the year?

Our family used to grow potatoes, which you would plant once and harvest once and that was it for that year.

[u/VeganSuperPowerz]

This guy is pleasant AF

[u/[deleted]]

im yet to really practically get into all this stuff, i guess ive got a sub conscious idea that once im into it its a lot of work so im stalling. but this video gave me the strongest feeling of being able to do this stuff. just layer stuff on top of each other! so easy