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#16
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No dig gardens
simy1 wrote: There are certain plants that catch diseases. I leave all greens and all root crops and all bulbs in place, because they never catch anything, but tomatoes, cucurbita, beans and cabbage, if I know I am not going to rotate next year, I prefer to remove. Most of my tomatoes are healthy, but there is one particular heirloom that is hit or miss. And the cukes get the wilt. Just curious, where do you write from simy1? |
#17
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No dig gardens
southeast michigan.
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#18
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No dig gardens
southeast michigan.
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#19
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No dig gardens
g'day rob,
yes i use them all the time very successful for me come vsit my web site and see how we do it: http://www.users.bigpond.com/gardenlen1/ len snipped |
#20
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No dig gardens
George.com wrote:
Has anyone experimented with, made use of, no dig gardening? I'm interested in your experiences and opinions, how you got started, successes or failures etc. I tried planting butternut and acorn squash in a thickly mulched plot last year and had mixed results. The acorn squash plants all turned yellow and died. The weeds still grew, just a bit more slowly. The butternut produced modestly. What else has to be done and how much attention has to be given to soil testing? Thanks. |
#21
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No dig gardens
Dave wrote:
George.com wrote: Has anyone experimented with, made use of, no dig gardening? I'm interested in your experiences and opinions, how you got started, successes or failures etc. I tried planting butternut and acorn squash in a thickly mulched plot last year and had mixed results. The acorn squash plants all turned yellow and died. The weeds still grew, just a bit more slowly. The butternut produced modestly. What else has to be done and how much attention has to be given to soil testing? Thanks. I don't know about acorn, but I did grow butternut once, before I was told it was impossible! It was a heat-wave year, and they did rather well. Others here will tell you not to bother, as (unless they've produced a variety suitable for the British climate) they want a long hot summer. If you don't get many replies, a Google Groups search of the group archive will bring up a lot of stuff from the past couple of years. I don't think soil testing is worth the expense for most amateurs: if your garden grows stuff, and you do the usual feeding routine, it's OK. -- Mike. |
#22
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No dig gardens
Mike Lyle wrote:
Dave wrote: George.com wrote: Has anyone experimented with, made use of, no dig gardening? I'm interested in your experiences and opinions, how you got started, successes or failures etc. I tried planting butternut and acorn squash in a thickly mulched plot last year and had mixed results. The acorn squash plants all turned yellow and died. The weeds still grew, just a bit more slowly. The butternut produced modestly. What else has to be done and how much attention has to be given to soil testing? Thanks. I don't know about acorn, but I did grow butternut once, before I was told it was impossible! It was a heat-wave year, and they did rather well. Others here will tell you not to bother, as (unless they've produced a variety suitable for the British climate) they want a long hot summer. If you don't get many replies, a Google Groups search of the group archive will bring up a lot of stuff from the past couple of years. I don't think soil testing is worth the expense for most amateurs: if your garden grows stuff, and you do the usual feeding routine, it's OK. Oh, this thread is being cross-posted across three groups. I'm located in the midwest US. The Summer here can be quite hot and dry. In fact it was rather difficult to judge when the mulched plot needed water. UK weather is probably similar to the northwest US. Dave |
#23
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No dig gardens
Hi All,
I have grown butternut squash [ Butternut Sprinter ] with success in most years. Hope this helps you. Richard M. Watkin. "Mike Lyle" wrote in message ... Dave wrote: George.com wrote: Has anyone experimented with, made use of, no dig gardening? I'm interested in your experiences and opinions, how you got started, successes or failures etc. I tried planting butternut and acorn squash in a thickly mulched plot last year and had mixed results. The acorn squash plants all turned yellow and died. The weeds still grew, just a bit more slowly. The butternut produced modestly. What else has to be done and how much attention has to be given to soil testing? Thanks. I don't know about acorn, but I did grow butternut once, before I was told it was impossible! It was a heat-wave year, and they did rather well. Others here will tell you not to bother, as (unless they've produced a variety suitable for the British climate) they want a long hot summer. If you don't get many replies, a Google Groups search of the group archive will bring up a lot of stuff from the past couple of years. I don't think soil testing is worth the expense for most amateurs: if your garden grows stuff, and you do the usual feeding routine, it's OK. -- Mike. |
#24
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No dig gardens
R M. Watkin wrote:
Hi All, I have grown butternut squash [ Butternut Sprinter ] with success in most years. Hope this helps you. So what plants are thought to be optimal for a no-till plot? My hope was that the weeds would be kept under control for squash -- which are difficult to weed -- but as the season wore on the weeds got pretty thick. Some weeds seem to be effective mulch penetrators. Also I guess I didn't really employ "no-till" but till once in the Spring and then add another layer of mulch on top of that. With that is mind is there anything else should I till in, such as lime? I have a source of horse manure but figure that will be loaded with weed seeds. Thanks. |
#25
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No dig gardens
If you lay down a piece of cardboard, punch a central hole for the
squash plant, and then cover with mulch, brambles might make it through, but most weeds won't. When you ask about which plants are optimal for a no-till plot, I assume you mean "clay plot". A sandy plot will be OK with any plant. Plants that break the soil effectively include radicchio, fava, cardoon, mache, and potato. Anything with a taproot, though the latter two do not have one. Even carrot, parsnip, and beets, if you don't mind the misshapen roots too much. |
#26
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No dig gardens
simy1 wrote:
If you lay down a piece of cardboard, punch a central hole for the squash plant, and then cover with mulch, brambles might make it through, but most weeds won't. When you ask about which plants are optimal for a no-till plot, I assume you mean "clay plot". A sandy plot will be OK with any plant. Plants that break the soil effectively include radicchio, fava, cardoon, mache, and potato. Anything with a taproot, though the latter two do not have one. Even carrot, parsnip, and beets, if you don't mind the misshapen roots too much. Yes, I might try some sort of barrier this year. How about newspaper? I guess my question has more to do with the quality of the mulch soil. The several layers of mulch are still deteriorating so I presume this may favor plants which tolerate acidic low-nitrogen soils??? Thanks. |
#27
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No dig gardens
Newspapers are fine, but if you want to kill brambles and grass,
cardboard is better. But more important than cardboard vs newspapers, The secret to a good kill is to apply the mulch after growth has resumed. That way you push down the shoot, and you have a long time before the paper breaks down and lets perennials through. There are plants that like degrading mulch, most notably tomatoes, garlic, potatoes, squash. Degrading mulch tends to be acidic, but not all the time, and not necessarily low nitrogen unless you use very brown materials. Lettuce, for example, is sensitive to acidity, but it will be very happy if planted directly through six month old leaves mixed with some manure. In practice I always give wood ash to just about anything i grow except potatoes (I have acid soil, and I prefer wood chips, the most acid mulch of all, because I plant most everything in seedling form). Over time the pH of the degrading mulch climbs up to near neutral values as it becomes soil. It will start to look like soil. There are tricks that you can play. First, if you use leaves as mulch, they will be 99% gone by next year, with a decent pH, so you can seed directly in the resulting soil. If you use chunkier mulch, like wood chips, you will have weed protection for two years or more, but you will have to plant through the chips until they are gone. Wood chips start quite low in pH but when they are done their soil is similar to that made of other mulches, if possible with a stronger humus. If you use cardboard covered with leaves or mulch, the cardboard is 99% gone the next year. if your mulch is not quite done, and you want to seed directly there, gently rake it to one side of the bed. Use that side for potatoes or garlic, and the raked part for carrots and beets. The raked part will have more weed seeds than if you had not raked it, but still less than the soil underneath it. |
#28
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No dig gardens
"Maryc" wrote in message ... George.com Wrote: Has anyone experimented with, made use of, no dig gardening? I'm interested in your experiences and opinions, how you got started, successes or failures etc. My definition of no dig involves: minimal tillage of the soil, short of scratching the surface to sow seed or harvest root vegetables leaving spent plants in place to degrade in the garden, add nutrients to the soil or self seed using surface mulches to suppress weeds and add nutrients that slowly leach in to the soil using green mulches like legumes or clover to add nitrogen to the soil crop rotation to protect the integrity of the soil, for instance following leafy plants with root crops etc Thanks in advance for your contribution rob I got the Lasagna Gradening book. So we tried it. Here in Arkansas however we have this grass that takes over everything. We tried puting the composted wood chips free from our city on top but the grass just grew all through it. So this winter we have put black plastic over the whole garden hoping to smother it out. I will have to let you know when it is closer to spring, whether it helped or not. shit, that post has resurfaced after a while. My raised/no dig gardens have been in 2 seasons now. They got filled with a combination of everything from soil and compost to horse poop, old hay, coffee grounds and grass clippings. Worms mixed everything together nicely. The beds, of which there are 5, have been planted with a good variety of crops and minimal digging, some initial earthing up of potatos before using straw and a small drill to put seedlings or seeds in. Mulching has occurred across 1/2 the garden over peas and tomatos though still haven't quite figured about mulching around smaller stuff like carrots, lettuces and the like. With the lettuces mind I planted them tightly so they formed a living mulch. Crop resiudes have been left on the garden to rot apart from potatos and tomatos. I have had early blight in the tomatos (crap season for them so far, few I know are getting them ripened outdoors) and some potato issue I haven't identified. I am looking at the Ps & Ts to see how they go and what might be afflicting them. As they can be temporamental my intention at this point is to dry and burn the crop residue and re-apply as ash later on. Whether the residue is ok to leave on the garden may depend what I find through the rest of the season. If I want to be careful all will be removed, dried and burnt. I am still uming and arring about cover crops over winter. I have come up with several refeences that say garlic and mustard are good ways to naturally fumigate/sterilise soil so I am thinking of following tomatoes with garlic in winter and maybe putting mustard across other beds, maybe the potatos. If it works ok I may rotate tomatos around with garlic to follow. I reckon a root crop should be ok to follow a fruit. Not too worried about green mulches as I have several piles of horse and chicken poop aging away, that'll suffice for next springs nutrients. Maybe just leave the straw in place and mustard/garlic over winter. I am coming to the conclusion of rotating tomatos and potatos every season, 4 growing spaces, tomatos followed by a year of somethign else, followed by potatos, followed by a year of something else and then back to tomatos. Every 4th year maybe garlic following on from the tomatos. Not sure whether I really need to rotate other things yet, time will tell. rob |
#29
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No dig gardens
Mulch Mulch Mulch Mulch with Hay and let decompose next year do the
same as in Ruth's Stouts Book Denis On 29 Mar 2006 11:22:09 -0800, "simy1" wrote: Newspapers are fine, but if you want to kill brambles and grass, cardboard is better. But more important than cardboard vs newspapers, The secret to a good kill is to apply the mulch after growth has resumed. That way you push down the shoot, and you have a long time before the paper breaks down and lets perennials through. There are plants that like degrading mulch, most notably tomatoes, garlic, potatoes, squash. Degrading mulch tends to be acidic, but not all the time, and not necessarily low nitrogen unless you use very brown materials. Lettuce, for example, is sensitive to acidity, but it will be very happy if planted directly through six month old leaves mixed with some manure. In practice I always give wood ash to just about anything i grow except potatoes (I have acid soil, and I prefer wood chips, the most acid mulch of all, because I plant most everything in seedling form). Over time the pH of the degrading mulch climbs up to near neutral values as it becomes soil. It will start to look like soil. There are tricks that you can play. First, if you use leaves as mulch, they will be 99% gone by next year, with a decent pH, so you can seed directly in the resulting soil. If you use chunkier mulch, like wood chips, you will have weed protection for two years or more, but you will have to plant through the chips until they are gone. Wood chips start quite low in pH but when they are done their soil is similar to that made of other mulches, if possible with a stronger humus. If you use cardboard covered with leaves or mulch, the cardboard is 99% gone the next year. if your mulch is not quite done, and you want to seed directly there, gently rake it to one side of the bed. Use that side for potatoes or garlic, and the raked part for carrots and beets. The raked part will have more weed seeds than if you had not raked it, but still less than the soil underneath it. |
#30
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