No-Dig Gardening (Why I DON'T Do It)

less effort great soil a popular way of gardening who wouldn't want all of that hi i'm gardner scott a master gardener who discusses everything gardening so that you can become a better gardener join me today as i explain why i do not practice no dig gardening i pulled this book from my gardening library it's organic gardening the natural no dig way by charles dowding now charles dowding first published this book back in 2007 and he's recognized as the father of no dig gardening a british gardener he has amazing garden beds and he's been experimenting with the no dig gardening method for decades now and it really does have many benefits and this is a really good book i'll put links to it below there's a lot of information about plants and how to grow but the no dig gardening method is so simple that in this book there's really only about five pages that are dedicated to explaining what no dig gardening is and how to do it and i'll start with that the basics of no dig gardening are in the name there's no digging other than what you need to do to put plants in the ground as explained by doubting a lot of the reasons we think we need to dig in our garden to loosen the soil to incorporate organic matter to dig up weeds none of that is necessary if you follow his method and the method is simply putting that organic matter on top of the soil you don't need to dig it in you just take a few inches of compost put it on top of your bed and then let nature do the rest and as doubting says it's the earthworms and the soil life that does the digging for you i don't dispute any of that it's a wonderful philosophy and in practice it can work but the issue i have is what if you don't have that soil life the premise of no dig gardening comes down to the earthworms and the soil life doing the work for you but if they're not there then who's doing the work well it's not nature and ultimately it comes down to the garden in this space this new garden area that i'm beginning to develop in my new house my soil is terrible it's compacted i can't get a finger in it even with a trowel i have to chop away just to make any progress i've had an analysis done by colorado state university to tell me that this soil is lacking in nutrients and it only has about one and a half percent of organic matter in it and the goal is at least five percent of organic matter i don't see earthworms when i am able to dig this up i don't even see any indication that earthworms have been here so if i begin this garden space by just putting compost on top well how long is it going to take for that soil life to appear i've had this thick layer of wood chip mulch around these young aronia bushes for about a year now and i keep this area watered if i move aside the mulch the soil is moist i can dig into it a little easier but i still get a lot of compaction just a few inches down and i don't see a lot of signs of soil life charles doubting suggestion to a compacted pore soil like mine is to bring in about 15 centimeters of compost that's about six inches to lay on top of the soil and that's the beginnings of a no-dig garden well this is an awful lot of space and it's cost prohibitive for me to bring in six inches or 15 centimeters of compost for this whole area and for a system that's supposed to be less effort imagine how much time how much effort how much labor to bring that much compost into this area colorado state university in my soil report suggested that i use two to three inches of compost that's about five to eight centimeters per year over a period of two to three years and to incorporate it into the soil well that's a lot of time and i don't want to wait that long to get my plants in the ground the key component in both of these suggestions is organic matter for the soil now charles doubting says put it on top colorado state university says incorporate it in both cases that's what's needed to attract those soil organisms to bring in the earthworms now i've put this wood chip mulch in this whole area where i've got my fruit trees to help the soil as it begins to decompose but to also hold some of the moisture in and to keep this soil cooler so that it can entice those earthworms if they venture in from outside this space this will be a welcoming area and then they'll begin to spread and they'll find the rest of my beds where i've incorporated the organic matter using my own method a little bit different than what those other two sources recommend this is my newest bed that i finished just this season and i grew some green beans and some tomatoes and what i did was to take the equivalent of about six inches of organic material i had compost i had peat i had manure i had straw and i dug all of that into the soil sure i could have just put it on top and waited for the organisms to break it down and enrich the soil or i could have done it two inches at a time but i really wanted to jump start this area and there was a lot of effort involved but i used this native soil that i know is poor that i know is deficient in nutrients and i worked in that organic material so that when the earthworms find this space they have plenty of food to eat and just last week i found some earthworms already living in this bed and i did the same thing for this bed i built this bed last year and then i amended it last year i grew in it this year and i've already pulled the plants it's the end of the season and as i showed in a recent video i amended this bed with a great variety of organic material well while i was working in that material to the soil that was in this bed i discovered some earthworms not a lot a few but with all of this increased organic material it's food for all of the soil organisms so they will propagate they will grow within this bed and in the spring when i grow again the soil is going to be filled with life i'm preparing the soil in this bed using a different method i did grow some things in it this year and had a nice straw mulch well when i pulled those plants i put down about a two to three inch layer of compost and in that i planted some winter rye seeds so all that winter rye is starting to grow now it's a cover crop that will cover this area through the winter and in the spring i'll just turn it over to incorporate that fresh winter rye growth into the soil and then it'll be ready for planting it's apparent that my methods for improving my soil involve digging that's why i say i do not practice the no dig gardening method but that's not to say that i disagree with it i really like the idea of less effort just putting compost down once a year and that's all the soil needs i like the idea of working with mother nature and letting nature do all the work i like the balance of nature that's one of my basic gardening philosophies i like the idea of a rich soil with mulch cutting down on the need to weed at all those are all wonderful reasons to practice no dig gardening and i look forward to that opportunity once my new garden and my new soil is ready for it and while i'm a patient gardener i'm not so patient when it comes to soil i don't want to wait the two to three years following either doubtings method or colorado state university's method i want to start building the soil now and i want to start growing now so over the next couple years i'll be digging i'll be improving my soil by incorporating large amounts of organic material so that a few years from now i can sit back and just apply the compost and enjoy all the advantages of no dig gardening if you'd like to learn more about soil and how i view soil in the garden i suggest you watch one of these videos next i'm gardener scott enjoy [Music] gardening [Music] you

Channel: Gardener Scott

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Keywords: gardener scott, gardner scott, no dig, no dig gardening, no till gardening, no dig gardening charles dowding, no-dig gardening method, no-dig gardening disadvantages, no dig gardening method, no dig gardening explained, charles dowding, charles dowding no dig, no dig garden bed

Id: qUFYde7zEGw

Length: 10min 35sec (635 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 10 2020