Charles Dowding - No Dig: Nurture Your Soil to Grow Better Veg with Less Effort

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INTRODUCTION

Simple is best, and taking easier approaches that work well is clever rather than lazy. For four decades, my gardening has not followed many of the rules that have been taught at horticultural colleges and recommended generally. I always search for a reason before doing something, and there are remarkably few good reasons to invest time and effort in digging and many other labor-intensive gardening jobs. I wrote this book to show you that no dig is a highly practical, effective, achievable, and economical alternative to gardening methods involving soil cultivation.

In the 1980s, when I started gardening, almost everybody was digging and experiencing sticky soil, masses of weeds, and time wasted on more soil preparation, with no extra reward for these difficulties. I started to discover both organic and no dig methods in 1981, after becoming vegetarian in college, which got me interested in nutrition. Having grown up on a farm, I was aware of the tillage and synthetic fertilizers used to grow vegetables at that time. Wondering what synthetic chemicals were in the food we ate and in the wider environment led me to embrace organic methods. I became a market gardener in late 1982, with 65,000 ft2 (6,000 m2) of beds that I maintained by hand after rotavating the pasture. I erected a large road sign by my garden that said simply: Health from the Land.

I became aware of no dig through writings in the Soil Association magazine and the work of Ruth Stout in the US, who wrote about her no work approach. Stout advocated mulching with hay, and I bought some old hay to cover my beds because I was afraid of weeds growing. The next spring, I lost many plantings to slugs hiding under the hay and quickly came to appreciate the value instead of covering soil with compost that does not harbor slugs, especially in the damp climates found around the UK. Next, I found that no dig and annual mulching with compost quickly resulted in very little weed growth, to the point where many visiting gardeners were simply amazed. This reduced need for weeding is an enormous benefit of no dig and the most significant time-saving aspect of my approach.

My current garden at Homeacres in Somerset, UK, has been created using no dig methods since November 2012, and the cropping area now stands at 14,000 ft2 (1,300 m2). Initially, I spent 40 or more hours each week running the garden, with 40 hours part-time help for harvesting salads in particular. These salad leaves are supplied to local shops and restaurants, I sell boxes of vegetables locally, and a lot of the produce from the garden is also used to provide lunches for people who attend courses at Homeacres. I continue to spend many hours each week working in the garden, but because my drive to promote no dig also pulls me toward teaching, video making, and writing, I now employ a full-time helper.

Word is spreading about the benefits of no dig growing and it is attracting increasing interest, especially with new evidence that it helps retain carbon in soil, and growing awareness of the role that microorganisms nurtured by no dig methods play in soil fertility and plant nutrition. Social media has allowed me to reach a significant and continually expanding audience, and the positive feedback I receive from all over the world motivates me further. Like-minded people are successfully adopting my methods in a huge range of climates, soils, and situationsfrom single beds in urban gardens to community gardens, schools, and market gardens.

No dig saves time and allows gardeners to enjoy themselves more, while a simple annual mulch of compost improves soil fertility and its ability to hold carbon and feeds the soil ecology, for a healthy balance between pests and predators. Best of all, this practical approach promotes robust growth of both vegetables and flowers, enabling you to grow a large harvest of super-healthy food in a beautiful, sustainable garden with few weeds or pests.

At Homeacres, vegetables and flowers thrive year after year in no dig beds, with just an annual mulch of compost. By August, the garden is filled with second plantings made following earlier harvestsno dig makes this succession planting quick and easy.

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CHAPTER 1

It all begins with the soil

It all begins with the soil | Contents

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NO DIG: ACHIEVE SO MUCH MORE BY DOING LESS

No dig methods make it easy to create and maintain a healthy and productive garden on sites of any size or soil type. One application of compost each year, on top of undisturbed soil, results in high yields from a minimal input of time and effort. Leaving soil undisturbed is fundamental to no dig growing, and although planting and harvesting will sometimes cause surface disruption, this can easily be kept to a minimum. There isnt even any need to remove weeds when you begin, and the lack of digging combined with regular mulching significantly reduces the need for subsequent weeding.

Whats the problem with digging?

There is a common misconception that plant roots need soil to be loose and fluffy to grow, but their growth is actually better when the soil structure is firm. Whats more, digging and other types of cultivation break the existing structure of tiny channels within the soil and damage the networks of fungal growth, such as mycorrhizae, which help plant roots access water and nutrients (see ).

Dug soils damaged structure means it soon slumps to a dense state, with little space for air between soil particles, especially after its walked on. Digging also only reaches a certain depth, beneath which the soil is not disturbed, creating two layers of different density. This forms a capillary boundary through which water cannot flow freely from the crumbly surface soil to the denser soil below, resulting in poor drainage.