Charles Dowding - Charles Dowdings Veg Journal: Expert No-Dig Advice, Month by Month

My own situation is unusual in spanning the gap between domestic and market gardening. Although I produce a lot of vegetables, I do not feel at home with machinery and have managed to scale upwards from a few raised beds, doing everything by hand as though still in a small garden.

Key to success has been a no-dig approach, saving the time of digging and also of much weeding, because many fewer weeds grow on undisturbed soil. Fellow growers and all gardeners who continually battle to keep on top of weeds are intrigued by my soils cleanliness. Having fewer weeds means I can manage a larger garden and look after the soil more carefully.

Searching for a combination of economic viability and high quality of food has led me to try many ways of enhancing soil fertility. I find that growth and quality are improved by simply covering my beds with 2.55cm (12in) of compost over their surface, which means two-thirds of the total area each year (paths and beds sloping sides make up the other third).

Vegetables are hungry plants. Whatever their eventual size, we spend the same amount of time sowing, planting and weeding them, so it makes sense to maintain soil at a highly productive level.

This book is distilled from my experience of thirty bountiful years during which I have tried out many ways of maintaining soil, sowing seed, controlling weeds, watering plants and harvesting produce. It is a concentrated summary of all my successes and failures. Mistakes have been a particularly useful, if painful, help in establishing the possibilities for achieving more abundant harvests.

Keeping track of my many summer sowings.

JANUARY can be even more wintry than December, but there are often a few fine days to do jobs, even if they are not urgent. Winter is a time for getting ahead, and for generating plans and ideas for the season in situ, among your beds and plants as you do some gardening.

My advice is simple: disturb your soil as little as possible.

The usual recommendation is to dig or even double dig the soil for growing vegetables. Because this is repeated so many times, most gardeners accept the task without wondering if it is really necessary. In fact there is no need to dig at all, and my comparisons of growth on dug and undug soil in adjacent beds have revealed to me the temporary harm done by soil cultivation. Undug beds grow more abundantly in spring, while the dug soil is recovering from being dug, before it catches up in autumn. The dug beds have more weeds and are less easy to water because their clay surface tends to smear and cap. So my advice is simple: disturb your soil as little as possible, though sometimes you may have to, as when digging parsnips, planting trees and removing some large weeds. Initial clearance of weedy and grassy ground can mostly be achieved with mulches such as cardboard and compost, and some digging out of woody plants. Thereafter, keep the surface clean by looking for weeds, and pulling or hoeing them at all times a regular task that becomes easy once soil settles down to an undisturbed life.

Year-old compost is soft, crumbly and alive.

Friends in the soil

Soil is alive with helpful bacteria, fungi, worms, beetles etc., which appreciate being fed with composted organic matter on a regular basis. I spread 2.55cm (12in) on the surface of my beds every year, mostly as I clear plants in the late autumn. Surface compost weathers to a soft mulch over winter and can be directly sown or planted into.

Making and sourcing enough compost to spread on all beds every year is a worthwhile aim, because it increases harvests and also the ease of gardening. Think of it as feeding the soil, rather than feeding plants. The insoluble nutrients in organic matter on top of undug soil become accessible to plants through a proliferation of mycorrhizal fungi, and the compost mulch conserves moisture.