no-dig gardening for idiots

[barefootlinzi]

....ie me!!

i am interested in this method, can some one give me the idiots run down on how to do it? oh, and money is a serious issue (i have none lol) so i would be very grateful for the 'skint idiots guide to no dig gardening'!!

oh, we have 4 beds in our allotment from last year that have not been dug yet, is it too late to start this year?

[pelmetman]

We have just started in the garden, all I have done is start to empty the compost bins onto the veg beds so hopefully the worms will do the business for me
Only doing a bit at the time trying to break my back in gently plus the weather is Oribble.

[seasidegirl]

Well I'm trying this on a section of VERY neglected ground. Full of weeds, bits of tree root and who knows wha else. Like you I'm skint so spending zero money on it. I don't know if this method is going to work but I have been researching a bit and come up with the following plan.

1. Lay cardboard down and water it.

2. Make a 6" layer of organic matter on top. I'm using leaves I collected in the autumn awhich I stored in black sacks. I made some holes for worms to get in. Also just got some free well rotted horse manure and seaweed off the beach. I got the seaweed idea from Countryfile because they showed the Jersey potato farmers spreading it on the soil.

3. Next, when its time to plant potatoes im going to rummage through the yucky stuff, make a hole in the cardboard and plant chitted potatoes.

I think the timing will be important. Going to try and do it when the soil isn't waterlogged,k like now, but before it dries out. Also want it to warm up a bit before covering it (and locking the cold in).

I've got most of the stuff stacked up and ready to spread out at the right time, and before the weeds grow.

Actually it's been quite a task collecting up all this cardboard, manure, seaweed and a couple of times it has occurred to me that it would have been easier to put a spade in the ground like usual. The family think I'm mad so I'm just hoping that the potatoes give us a good crop

I'm sure that the soil will be improved even if the whole venture turns into a potato feast for slugs.

[grahamhobbs]

I've been using the no-dig method for about 30 years on and off over a number of allotments. There is no one correct method, you have to tailor it to suit your conditions and the materials/resources available, but there are some basic principles.

1. You shouldn't walk on the growing area. This means you need a system of beds and paths. The beds are usually about 90cc to 1m wide depending on what you find comfortable, the paths a min.30cm wide (wider if they are to be mown).
The big question is whether you put boards around the bed and what you make the paths of. I'd say only put boards around if your topsoil is very thin and you want to have raised beds so that you can have a greater thickness of topsoil. Boards can be a disadvantage in that they rot, harbour slugs and make mowing, if you have grass paths, difficult.
If you have boards around your beds, then you need to make your paths of something that is not going to allow weeds to grow or slugs to hide eg. paving, gravel or woodchip over Mypek.
If you don't have boards, then you can simply compost over the paths (keeping the paths very narrow), woodchip them, or, as I do, keep them as well mown grass. Charles Dowding a renown veg grower, covers his whole plot, paths an all, in compost which he buys in each year. He is a commercial grower and can, I guess, afford to buy 10ton lorry loads of the stuff. Woodchip paths are not bad, but need renewing each year and that can be quite a bit of work, if you have to wheelbarrow the stuff any distance. Personally I prefer grass paths, keeping them well mown. It sounds like a lot of work, but it isn't if you have a good mower - and it gives you the clippings for the compost.

2. You don't dig the soil (if you can avoid it) but ideally put at least 5cm thickness of compost or rotted manure on the surface each year. This provides a mulch preventing the germination of weeds. By not digging you are also not bringing fresh seeds to the surface. The mulch also keeps the soil moist and the worms take the compost down into the soil feeding the fertility of the soil.
If the soil initially is full of pernicious weeds eg. couch grass and bindweed, you have two choices, to either painfully and carefully dig out the roots or to submerge them with a very thick mulch, at least 10 -15cm of any organic material, cardboard, compost, manure or woodchip. A thick mulch will not completely eliminate the weeds, the strongest will grow through it, but it will be much easier then to dig them out and to repeat the process. The problem with a thick mulch is, where do you get all that material from, and that you can't sow or plant most plants in it, only the bigger ones, potatoes, pumpkins, etc.
It maybe that you do some areas by removing the weeds first, so you have areas for sowing seeds, and other areas with a thick mulch. If you are not intending having boards around your beds, then with the thick mulch, it is best the cover the whole area with the mulch for a couple of years before really establishing your paths.
In London, woodchip is freely available, tree pruners are generally happy to give lorry loads away. Manure can be had from various stables. I tend to collect the manure in autumn, but keep it in bags to rot down until spring, when I then put it on the soil.
It may seem like an enormous amount of work wheelbarrowing all that manure or woodchip, but believe me this is far outweighed by the saving in time in not digging, watering and weeding, as well as the advantage that the humous and fertility in the soil gives to the health of your plants.