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No dig gardens
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 |
No dig gardens
"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message ... The message from "George.com" contains these words: 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. You'll find much discussion in the google archives of newgroup alt.permacultur, including contributors from the antipodes. I've used it for years (in Scotland). A quick easy way to star is to cover weedy undug ground with flattened cardboard cartons. (If you live in a dry climate, do this after a good rainfall). Cut an X and fold back the card where you wish to grow plants, potatoes etc. Cover the cardboard with 6" of compostable degradeable material such as lawn clippings, dead leaves, manure, chopped comfrey, straw, seaweed, bracken, sheep-shearing waste, used animal bedding, and keep topping it up as it disappears. If you haven't got quite enough mulch material to completely cover the newly laid cardboard, use planks or stones to stop it blowing away, keep it in close contact with the earth, and exclude light from weeds. Keep adding more mulch material as you acquire it . Within weeks, whatever mixture you mulched with will be uniformly brown and the whole thing looks neat and tidy. . The cardboard smothers existing weeds and prevent germination of their seeds; by the end of a season worms will have digested all the cardboard and its covering and enriched the soil. The worm population will have multiplied, and birds will spend a lot of time turning over the mulch to find worms, helping to break it down and scarify the soil surface. The following season the soil will be clean enough for direct seedsowing. Keep covering any bare soil with mulches and topping them up as worms take them down. A very few weeds may come through the mulch, tweak them out and lay them on top of it to die. exactly the process I intend to use Janet to make my new vege garden but will be making a raised garden, easier on the back. The chuck anything in and let in break down into soil is a great process. I can see it taking some months to build the soil structure, including some forking and turning, but once it is set onew of the issues of the no dig I am attracted to is the (supposed, and I have not seen evidence to suggest anythign different) self regulating process of the soil and the low maintenance than say a double dug or intensive garden. rob |
No dig gardens
"simy1" wrote in message oups.com... In regard to leaving spent plants in place, it works if the rotation is strict. You leave tomatoes in a patch because you know there will be no tomatoes there next year. can you explain a little more this concept please? rob |
No dig gardens
"Derek Turner" 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 As you've cross-posted to other 'international' (read American) groups this may not help but a visit to Ryton organic gardens in Warwickshire will provide you with all the info and inspiration you need. thanks Derek. I cross posted to try and get a range of views, rather than post in each NG in turn. It is a bit of a walk to Warwickshire from here, being New Zealand. The UK garden NG is quite a good one for me as the weather/environment is quite similar to here. rob |
No dig gardens
"George.com" wrote in message ... 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 perhaps a point of clarification needed here, my original explaination may not have been specific enough. It is not the proces of constructing a no dig garden I am wondering about, through thanks to those who have made usueful suggestions in that area. It is actually in the process of gardening, propogating, rearing plants using a no dig approach, no tillage of the soil, low input, low labour, 'do nothing' process. What got be interested initially was this guys thoughts Masanobu Fukuoka http://larryhaftl.com/ffo/fover.html It sounded like a really good lazy way (and sustainable) of growing veges n herbs. I have only started experimenting. The way my dad and grandad used to do vege gardens of digging in compost and manure every year, digging over weeds, spending hours preparing beds seemed labour intensive. They seemed to need to constantly put back nutrients into the soil as the process of rearing veges stripped the nutrients out. Moreover the more I read the more is suggested that constantly tilling the soil to nay significant depth actually damages the soil structure and its potency. Fukuoka says that leaving the nutrients where they are greatly reduces this robbing of the soils vitality and nature and worms will dig organic matter in to the soil for you. That sounds good in theory, I hope someone has matched it in reality and can report on that. rob |
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. 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 As you've cross-posted to other 'international' (read American) groups this may not help but a visit to Ryton organic gardens in Warwickshire will provide you with all the info and inspiration you need. |
No dig gardens
George.com wrote:
"Derek Turner" 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 As you've cross-posted to other 'international' (read American) groups this may not help but a visit to Ryton organic gardens in Warwickshire will provide you with all the info and inspiration you need. thanks Derek. I cross posted to try and get a range of views, rather than post in each NG in turn. It is a bit of a walk to Warwickshire from here, being New Zealand. The UK garden NG is quite a good one for me as the weather/environment is quite similar to here. rob OK you can always visit online! the Henry Doubleday Research Association (HDRA) own and run Ryton where there is a no-dig demonstration garden. I've tried it: it works (in my case slowly). I used a bulb planter to plant potatoes and then used horticultural paper and lawn-clippings. Everything else went into earth that had been overwintered under porous weed-suppressing membrane then spread with well-rotted cowshit and some home-made compost. I used a rake to loosen the surface. Obviously lifting the potatoes might count as digging to a purist! I found that it took four years (i.e. a whole crop rotation) to get the earth (heavy clay meadow) into something like good heart. Now I get nettles and am soooo proud! hth |
No dig gardens
"George.com" wrote in message ... 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 Interesting concept !! Never looked into it before, but you've started me off :~) Seems to be a big thing in Australia, in fact there are courses a stones throws away from you: http://www.waverley.nsw.gov.au/counc...odiggarden.asp More info and how to: http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/pu...rth/garden.htm Even the RHS has info on it: http://www.rhs.org.uk/publications/p..._garden_0299_d ig.asp and of course Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_dig_gardening Do keep us posted on your efforts. Pictures would be good ......... Jenny |
No dig gardens
JennyC wrote: Interesting concept !! Never looked into it before, but you've started me off :~) Really?! Where have you been?! ;o) This is my second year - kept all the legumes (broad beans, peas, beans) bed as it is but clean up a bit by just taking out the wires, mesh and poles. Kept all the plants there and they have all decomposed on top, giving the top surface a smooth dark tilth, which I just raked lightly, for my cucurbitas this year. The potatoes this year will be covered with straw and grass and on the new plot (given to me recently by the committee ouuerr...) I'll use one bed for spuds using the traditional method to see which one is best. Where the potatoes where last year I have just kept as it is, won't touch anything beside raking a bit to level. My legumes will go in there. My neighbour has started this process 3 years ago - she uses chicken pooh and tonnes of grass clipings. Her veg patch received an award last week end for the previous summer. Our tribe got praised for the creation of Edward Twigorhands, a very elaborate (and realistic) scarecrow and an award for my wild flower patch blush |
No dig gardens
The Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book
How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back by Ruth Stout Lasagna Gardening : A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens: No Digging, No Tilling, No Weeding, No Kidding! by Patricia Lanza My step father knew Ruth and Rex Stout. He took my mother for a visit and she became a Ruth Stout convert. my mother did have a bad back already. \ Ingrid ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ List Manager: Puregold Goldfish List at http://weloveteaching.com/puregold/ sign up: http://groups.google.com/groups/dir?...s=Group+lookup www.drsolo.com Solve the problem, dont waste energy finding who's to blame ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I receive no compensation for running the Puregold list or Puregold website. I do not run nor receive any money from the ads at the old Puregold site. |
No dig gardens
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No dig gardens
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No dig gardens
"George.com" wrote in message ... 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 We operate a no dig policy for the whole garden, started as a way of avoiding disturbing the subsoil which is very high in arsenic but we quickly found things grew better and we had less weeds (and a lot less slug and snail damage - except underground with potatoes) We use a shredder and everything goes back on green i.e. uncomposted. Been doing it 20+ years with no problems (but I do have thin poor soil) -- Charlie, gardening in Cornwall. http://www.roselandhouse.co.uk Holders of National Plant Collection of Clematis viticella (cvs) |
No dig gardens
oh yeah. mom didnt meet him tho. my stepfather knew him tho. Ingrid
"Mike Lyle" wrote: wrote: The Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back by Ruth Stout Lasagna Gardening : A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens: No Digging, No Tilling, No Weeding, No Kidding! by Patricia Lanza My step father knew Ruth and Rex Stout. He took my mother for a visit and she became a Ruth Stout convert. my mother did have a bad back already. \ Ingrid Rex Stout, as in Nero Wolfe? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ List Manager: Puregold Goldfish List at http://weloveteaching.com/puregold/ sign up: http://groups.google.com/groups/dir?...s=Group+lookup www.drsolo.com Solve the problem, dont waste energy finding who's to blame ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I receive no compensation for running the Puregold list or Puregold website. I do not run nor receive any money from the ads at the old Puregold site. |
No dig gardens
sure, in fact it is the only form of gardening I practice. details
below. 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 You have to rake clean those parts of the garden where you expect to broadcast seeds directly. leaving spent plants in place to degrade in the garden, add nutrients to the soil or self seed I allow mache, arugula, and miner lettuce (plus purslane, a weed) to self-seed. They are cold weather small greens that can grow uncospicuously when nothing else grows, or in the shade of bigger plants. using surface mulches to suppress weeds and add nutrients that slowly leach in to the soil of course. I even try to plan two years ahead. If I know there will be big plants for two years in a bed, I tend to use wood chips, which will decompose slowly. If I want the bed clean next year, I use leaves that disappear in a year using green mulches like legumes or clover to add nitrogen to the soil no. I have plenty of the real manure. crop rotation to protect the integrity of the soil, for instance following leafy plants with root crops etc yes, but typically only two years rotation. Thanks in advance for your contribution rob |
No dig gardens
In regard to leaving spent plants in place, it works if the rotation is
strict. You leave tomatoes in a patch because you know there will be no tomatoes there next year. Not removing the plants certainly saves you a few hours work in the Fall. |
No dig gardens
"George.com" wrote in message
... 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 My experience (in Australia) is that the beds tend to dry out in the searing heat of midsummer and they are then a real devil to moisten again. They work reasonably well if you can keep them moist. My advice would be to use lucerne (aka alfalfa) in slabs as the base, and to put in pockets of potting mix or good compost where you want to plant seeds/seedlings. Prepare the bales of lucerne by leaving them to sit in the garden for a while and "mature". By that I mean to start rotting down. I put them direct on the soil and let them get wet as I turn on the sprinkler then turn them every month or when I remember so that a new surface is then presented to the soil. If you can do this where the no-dig bed is to go then you will start to notice the build up of worms (and the worms will aslo start to colonise the rotting base of the bale) and you'll notice an increased richness of the soil where the bale has been sitting. This makes it a bit easier to get the bed going. Also I never use newspaper on the bottom. I've found it doesn't work for me and stops the microgoobies from starting to work in the bed. |
No dig gardens
"George.com" wrote in message ... "Janet Baraclough" wrote in message ... The message from "George.com" contains these words: Has anyone experimented with, made use of, no dig gardening? I'm interested snip I've used it for years (in Scotland). A quick easy way to star is to cover weedy undug ground with flattened cardboard cartons. (If you live in a dry climate, do this after a good rainfall). Cut an X and fold back the card where you wish to grow plants, potatoes etc. Cover the cardboard with 6" of compostable degradeable material such as lawn clippings, dead leaves, manure, chopped comfrey, straw, seaweed, bracken, sheep-shearing waste, used animal bedding, and keep topping it up as it disappears. If you haven't got quite enough mulch material to completely cover the newly laid cardboard, use planks or stones to stop it blowing away, keep it in close contact with the earth, and exclude light from weeds. Keep adding more mulch material as you acquire it . Within weeks, whatever mixture you mulched with will be uniformly brown and the whole thing looks neat and tidy. . The cardboard smothers existing weeds and prevent germination of their seeds; by the end of a season worms will have digested all the cardboard and its covering and enriched the soil. The worm population will have multiplied, and birds will spend a lot of time turning over the mulch to find worms, helping to break it down and scarify the soil surface. The following season the soil will be clean enough for direct seedsowing. Keep covering any bare soil with mulches and topping them up as worms take them down. A very few weeds may come through the mulch, tweak them out and lay them on top of it to die. exactly the process I intend to use Janet to make my new vege garden but will be making a raised garden, easier on the back. The chuck anything in and let in break down into soil is a great process. I can see it taking some months to build the soil structure, including some forking and turning, but once it is set onew of the issues of the no dig I am attracted to is the (supposed, and I have not seen evidence to suggest anythign different) self regulating process of the soil and the low maintenance than say a double dug or intensive garden. rob You can always torture yourself by doing a *final*double dig and then creating no dig raised beds using all the techniques already suggested. I have seen this done with perennial flower beds and the results are spectacular with deep rooted plants. I suppose it's not really that necessary for veg unless you want to grow 4' carrots :-) |
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 have used a variation on no dig gardening. The city i lived in had free compost from grass clippings and leaves. I brought home a few truckloads and just dumped them on the ground to create my planting bed with no further preparation. I had good success. |
No dig gardens
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. Otherwise it is efficient to harvest the vegetable, clean it on the spot, and drop the remains on the ground. It saves you a trip to the compost pile, and trip back. Other things I have learned: absolutely mulch at the very last minute before planting, and preferrably after last frost. If you mulch in march, because you don't have much else to do, you will have cold soil in May. |
No dig gardens
well, if you get good quality veggies, they will take away a lot of
nutrients. No till eliminates tilling, weeding, and reduces fertilizing and watering, but you can not grow great chard with leaves compost only (though you can with manure). You do need either manure or some chemical fertilizer, at least with some veggies. Or you need to grow a lot of peas and beans. Also, no till eventually becomes very friendly to slugs. Now organic slug bait is available everywhere, so this is no longer a problem. |
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? |
No dig gardens
southeast michigan.
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No dig gardens
southeast michigan.
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No dig gardens
simy1 wrote: southeast michigan. I got curious because of the tomatoes you described. You describe them the way I grew them in the south of France you see, but not as in England :o) |
No dig gardens
"La Puce" wrote in news:1143132208.069474.43520
@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com: simy1 wrote: southeast michigan. I got curious because of the tomatoes you described. You describe them the way I grew them in the south of France you see, but not as in England :o) Now you see simy1 is an honest to goodness troll, because (s)he lives below the bridge. (It's a Michigan joke. To the humor impaired: Look at a map of Michigan.) |
No dig gardens
On 23 Mar 2006 08:22:02 -0800, "simy1" wrote this
(or the missive included this): southeast michigan. Never mind -- ®óñ© © ² * ¹°°³ |
No dig gardens
In article , Charlie
Pridham writes We use a shredder and everything goes back on green i.e. uncomposted. Been doing it 20+ years with no problems (but I do have thin poor soil) How would you grow seeds then Charlie. Some things can of course be sown in post and planted but I've just checked on three to four inches of shredding and it would seem daft to sow stuff such as spring onions or small seeds in the material Janet -- Janet Tweedy Amersham Gardening Association http://www.amersham-gardening.net |
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 |
No dig gardens
"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message ... The message from "George.com" contains these words: It is actually in the process of gardening, propogating, rearing plants using a no dig approach, no tillage of the soil, low input, low labour, 'do nothing' process. "low input, low labour, "do nothing"...in your dreams :-) comparably speaking The way my dad and grandad used to do vege gardens of digging in compost and manure every year, digging over weeds, spending hours preparing beds seemed labour intensive. They seemed to need to constantly put back nutrients into the soil as the process of rearing veges stripped the nutrients out. When you harvest crops, they were created from that soil they grew in . Unless you replenish what was taken out, the soil fertility will decline year on year and so will crops. The method I described earlier in the thread, doesn't require the labour of double digging, or digging in fertiliser, but there's a considerable amount of labour in harvesting/collecting or fetching and distributing the huge volumes of free mulch I use very year. Fukuoka said "Whatever the means employed, the natural farmer must secure a nearby supply of humus that can serve as a source of soil fertility". Janet. he apparently spread chicken poop and left in on the soil to be worked in slowly so yes, I accept the point that I will have to supplement the soil with pooh or compost or both etc. One of the attractions however is not turning the soil over year on year once you have gotten it functioning correctly. Fukuoka seemed to have a closed cycle system using only what was produced on his farm. I don't have chickens or ducks so the poop will have to come off site. I also can't rely on them to deal to things like slugs so that will need some manual input although my property is low in slug/snail numbers compaitive to others I have lived in given a zero tolerence attitude. It is fun going out in the evenings after some rain to knock of the slugs/snails. Give me an excuse to have a smoke. I also reckon on some time and work to get the soil good from the start, rich in organic matter etc but that is the preperation isn't it, not the ongoing maintenance. rob |
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. |
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. |
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 |
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. |
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