TLDR:Your videos help me to be successful in something that gives me meaning. Being as helpful to my family and loved ones as I can. I’m in a wheelchair 98% of the time. I can’t walk more than 80 feet without assistance. I was born with a neuromuscular disease. My muscles in my extremities atrophy due to a DNA mutation. I’m not one to think of myself as disabled. The pain is the biggest issue, I have found ways around my weaknesses. We built a house. I was the subcontractor. I kept everyone paid and the schedule and crews coordinated. I’ve done so many hard things in life after learning all I could from UA-cam videos. This channel is no different! Thank you for all of this information. I’ve always ALWAYS wanted to be self sufficient to reduce my impact on the planet (due to emotional trauma linked to my disease. I feel like a burden). I have been keeping a compost pile under my breeding rabbits. Im filling raised beds with decomposing old firewood and leaves under compost and amended soil for drainage. This coming spring I get to have my very first planting in my homestead garden. Im giddy from excitement. I cannot wait to be cooking dinners of roast chicken or rabbit with veggies and berry cobbler primarily from the homestead. Your videos help people in situations that you’ll never know about. I hope you feel accomplished ❤ you sure help me to feel that way!
Thank you for sharing your story. It means so much. I do this work and send these videos out into the world, without really knowing what impact they will have, or the kinds of people who will find them valuable. Comments like yours really help to fill in that picture, and to give it all a deeper meaning and purpose. I hope you have a great growing season next year, with wonderful vegetables to share with everyone important in your life.
@@REDGardens I really appreciate the response. I know how busy you are, saving the world and all. If only more of us had a tenth of your dedication the world would be different. I’m glad you get recognition that’s so obviously deserved. Have a great holiday season and best of wishes to you and yours for 2023.
@@BlackJesus8463 yeah I would do 5 days on. Autophagy can’t help the fact my “blueprints” are wrong. It can help clean out and repair cells though. It cleared acne well too
@@justkeepgoing2657 It doesn't just fix DNA it allows the body to express different epigenetic traits, I think through hormones or something. You can literally store data in DNA and it has nothing to do with autophagy. There's also the concept of junk DNA that could play a factor.
I really appreciate the commentary and scientific approach to gardening, this is a discipline full of myths and crazy claims, and it’s great to see someone put them to the test while acknowledging their setup’s limits.
Thanks for the comment. Yeah, there are a lot of claims out there, and probably some validity to most of them. But it is hard to find people who have experienced enough to be able to really compare.
I've done much the same trials, but in series, not in parallel. I started gardening in the southern US, where the deep mulch / Ruth Stout method works great, but then moved to western Oregon 40 years ago and found that it didn't work at all in the wet, cold, slug-filled climate we have here. I've switched all my outdoor beds to the deep compost / wood chip path style and they work very well. In my polytunnels I found that the deep mulch delayed the soil warming and since the polytunnels are for growing hot weather crops like tomatoes, peppers and eggplants that was a failure for me. I now lightly "tilth" the surface of the polytunnel beds to incorporate a few cm of compost, then reapply more in the summer when it's getting hot. It all boils down to climate and purpose, but it's great to see you doing the controlled trials. We could use someone doing similar trials in Spain or Italy (or Texas) for comparison.
That is interesting, thanks for sharing. All that makes sense to me. I think the beds with lost of undecomposed organic material are really going to suffer in comparison, but as you say it is all about context. I’d love to see similar trials in a lot of other places!
The no dig method seems like the best way to go! I love how you experiment with different ways of growing and scientific research to get the best results. Thank you again 💓!
Glad you appreciate the trials we do! No-till defiantly has advantages, and seems to be a good option for a lot of people. But I don’t think it is always the best option, as there can be some serious pest issues, and situations where that amount of organic matter is not viable.
@@BlackJesus8463 And he also seems to be digging in the same amount of compost into the other bed. But also seems to be using compost that is not fully mature, which works well as an annual amendment to the surface of a no-dig bed, but stuff that I would not dig in to the soil because it would likely lock up nitrogen from the soil, which would result in lower yields. His results are interesting, but not definitive in my opinion. If I am going to dig in compost I would want it to be better quality stuff, or at least more mature.
I cannot wait to see the results. I know I have to be patient. But I know you will deliver the results with amazing detail. Thank you love love love your vids.
I'm very interested to see the follow up videos on these trial beds! I love that you are attempting to do a side by side comparison so that the different beds can be a good test run. I think it's overkill to tarp things before planting just based on my own experiences, but if you used a lot of perrennial weeds, you'll be glad you did! I'm keen to see if slugs are a problem, but overall, seems like you should have great beds and great fertility!
I am going to wait until the spring to see how many weeds start growing, and make a decision then. And the slug and other pest issues will be very interesting to observe.
I really love no till. my best source of free huge cardboard pieces i found was a bike shop. they get the frame of the bikes in huge thick less printed packages and they have very litle tape and staples you need to remove. Hope this may help you :)
I grow everything in boxes in compost I make myself it's so simple with excellent results. I so appreciate your meticulous documentation of your experiments. Much appreciated.
Great work mate, don't know how you run a market garden and make the videos! Thanks for all the hard work I look forward to seeing your new videos pop up in my feed 😀
I've been using a no dig version for a few years and it seems to work well. I simply tarp my garden when it's not actively growing. Often this is in the fall. In the spring I remove the tarp and find a weed free flat piece of soil to plant into. I simply dig little holes to put box plants in or use a small 3 inch wide hand cultivator to loosen the soil down a few inches to sow seeds into. It is so much easier than digging or tilling and can be done earlier in the spring.
I am excited to see fruits of your labor. I have been highly interested in no dig methods of gardening and have tried the Ruth Stout method. I really want to do back to Eden.
It's great you have all those materials; for most of us we have to use what we can get/produce. This type of video will help demonstrate what resource we might want to concentrate on getting. I once tried the Straw method which proved to be ideal slug habitat.
It took me a while to get in all this materials, and had to buy a lot of it in, so definitely can be a resource intensive process! I suspect I will have the same slug issues with the straw and hay, but have a few methods that might help to reduce the impact of this pest and make the method more viable.
Thank you so much for all the documented work. Its been the most interesting for sure and definitely helps all of us bring more to home. All the best onwards
You're spoiling us with all these trials Bruce! You must have had a hell of a year managing it all, so thank you very much for all the work you do! Glad to be a patron of your channel :) This year I've started trialling another no-dig/mulch method. Thanks to your channel, I've learnt to look at my context, instead of applying existing methods verbatim. I've got access to an abundance of autumn leaves (non-oak), and my soil is lacking in organic matter (it was a neglected allotment). So I've amended the soil with kelp meal, compost and alfalfa pellets, and then covered them in a thick layer of leaves. Don't know how it will turn out, but last time I checked there were many worms busy breaking it all down. I've had a professional soil test done before I started, and I'm planning to do another one next year (another lesson from your channel).
Love the robin at the end BTW, they're so inquisitive and cheeky. Every time I'm working in the garden, there's a robin keeping me company. They know where the food is 😄
It has been a busy year! But I am glad to finally get this no-till trial started. Thanks for being a Patron! Hope your own no-dig method works well for you!
Excited to see your analysis! I have begun new beds, something between Ruth Stout and lasagna style. Eventually they'll be managed more Dowding style once the initial material decomposes.
Will be watching this one closely. As I've established new no-dig beds over the past few years I have always left the beds covered the first year and planted squash/pumpkin or slow brassicas into the mypex to suppress any weed seeds. Will be interesting to see how you get on planting into it in year 1 in Irish conditions. Thanks for the video as always
Yes, it will be interesting. I was planning to grow a range of larger brassica plants in these beds next year, ones that I can transplant in the early summer.
Like this trial, this is where I have ended up. No purism, just practical elements. I have to remove the huge rocks before I start no-dig and I add a lot of amendments now too. I use really well rotten wood chip for paths bc slugs like it less if it's fine and has fewer big bits for them to hide under. Only thing I'd guess could go wrong here might be slugs under the hay. I'm in Wales and that would worry me here. Perhaps you get enough frosts that your slug problems aren't as bad as ours? Other than, I'd say those beds are going to be amazing. Anything I've done that thick and rich has done really well. Look forward to seeing the results.
Cool, Using soil beneath compost piles is clever, as is placing fertilizer below other layers, so it simply can’t wash away, and organic fertilizer like that doesn’t leach into water tables, so that isn’t an issue.
It will be interesting to see if the soil is a good option in the end, and how it compares to the other options. One thing to be mindful of is organic fertiliser can actually wash away, though perhaps not as fast as the conventional soluble fertilisers. To test this fill a large pot with manure or whatever other organic fertiliser you use, and leave it in the rain for a few weeks (or water it lightly every few days, enough for some of the water to flow through he bottom of the pot). If you collecting the water that flows through the pot, it will most likely be a dark colour and work really well as a liquid feed, because a fair amount of the fertility washed through with the rain.
Can not wait to see the results. Only wish that video was released sooner and that others were invited to try as close as possible similar methods to see how they compare in other places climates.
If you’re having issues with slugs, and I suspect you will, just water everything with rainwater (groundwater will require a much higher dose because of the carbonates) mixed with liquid iron. I dose my polytunnel every year in spring with it to make sure I don’t have slugs eating my seedlings.
Iron should speed up the biological processes in the soil since it’s usually one of the limiting nutrients especially in soils that stay saturated for long periods like in Ireland. Iron phosphate is also what’s in the slug pellets.
@@seanconway1154 That is interesting. The soil tests that I have had done in this area always show plenty of iron, which might be because of this soil is fairly free draining and doesn't stay saturated fro very long.
Soil tests are notoriously flawed for most nutrients. They tell you the entire available nutrient but not the form it’s present in or if it’s tied up. Don’t rely on them. Plants will tell you what they need. Considering the large amount of crops you grow and the large area you use, it might be worth your while to invest in sap analysis to save you wasting money on soil tests and nutrients you probably don’t need.
I tried using bales of straw as mulch. It would have been great except for the wheat seeds that germinated constantly. I love your videos and will be trying many things I've seen here :) Thank you for sharing!
Very nice video, we appreciate the amount of work and time involved here. I was hoping one of the plots involved leaves, mostly because they are an abundant free source most people have access to. Also want everyone to know that your municipal collection sites for leave possibly pay to haul off their leaves like our city does. They bring me dump truck loads of free leaves, and tell me they want to find other people to take leaves because they have to pay the county transfer station if they dump there.
I would have liked to get leaves to try, but that isn’t a resource that is really available around here. There has been some from the Main Street of our little village, from the big trees on the green in front of the church, but there is not a lot and it gets mixed in with a lot of litter and debris from the road. There just aren’t many large trees and parklands around here, and the high winds tend to blow any leaves away. But if you can get leaves like that they can be a great resource for a garden.
Can't wait to see how this turns out. Hope there you don't have issues with graze on being used on your hay. Lots of farmers in the us are complaining about it affecting their yields on no till bed
Hi Bruce, great to see these experiments being done in our damp climate. Look forward to seeing their progress. Two questions for you kind of unrelated to this video. Where did you purchase the broadfork? Did you bury the plastic of the newly established polytunnel and if so why did you opt for this method? Love the content.
Thanks. I think the damp conditions will be the biggest factor. I got the broadfork from Fruit Hill Farm. I bury the tunnels edges as I think it is the strongest method of securing them against the wind.
It's great to see comparative study. In my opinion, much depend on the quality of compost. But perhaps your amendments make the bid difference. Your approach is bery intelligent, all methods will do well. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks! I agree that so much depends on the quality of the compost, and the other materials, but I felt it was important to work with what I could easily get, as most people can only get poor quality compost.
Looking good, we have the lovely Charles Dowding in the U.K. who has been using no dig for several decades. Would be interesting to see in your climate how your crops compares with ours in the south of the U.K. have started using no dig on my own new small allotment plots, so it’s all new to me
It will be interesting to see if the slug problem is there again. I had the slug problem this last growing season. I tried everything, but the slugs won.
I suspect slugs will be there, and might win, which will show how inappropriate some methods might be. Which is a reasonable result of this trial. But we have a few methods to deal with slugs, and if we can use them to keep the slug population down enough for the method to be viable enough to use in this climate, then that would also be a decent result of the trial.
Very, very interesting trial! Since you anticipate possible snail/slug issues; do you already have plans to deal with them should they occur or will you deal with them when they do?
Our slug strategy has changed since the last time I made a video about it all. We have used traps a lot, mainly planks of wood for them to hide under, which we regularly turn over to kill the slugs. Last year we started to use a slug pellets that is apparently suitable for an organic system, which is supposed to be safe for other wildlife. They seem to work well, and that gives me more confidence in trying a mulch trial like this.
As always , a fascinating and educational video which I’ll study at least twice again. Thanks. I wonder why you don’t cover the hay with tarp now rather than later? It would be interesting also to see if a layer of stinging nettles under cardboard and then compost would turn out. I’m trying to use stuff which is plentiful too on my two allotments in north east Scotland . I use no-dig extensively but recognise its limitations. I tried using wood chips as a medium for growing potatoes this year but made the mistake of not giving them enough fertiliser. Have a good Christmas Bruce. You are an inspiration!
Thanks! I was considering covering the whole thing with a tarp, but ran out of time, and want to let a fair amount of rain in. Is there a reason you think I should specifically cover the hay? Stinging nettles would be a great addition to the layers if I was building the beds in the spring when they were abundant and nutrient rich.
@@REDGardens No specific reason to cover the hay early Bruce other than to accelerate its decomposition and keep any latent weeds suppressed. I’m not sure though if this would make the slug problem better or worse. I’m planning to use nettles more next year in teas and compost to make good use of it. I’ll watch how you get on with it too. Merry Christmas.
@@REDGardens When I am done with an area in the fall I plant winter rye which keeps a green root in the ground and keeps nasty weeds away, it winters over under the snow and starts growing again in the cold wet spring and hits straw stage in early June and I cut it with a heavy duty weed wacker and rake it up for mulch. We can't plant till around June 1st. In rotation areas that have no crop I use Buckwheat because it grows so fast. In the fall I sow winter rye seed into the buck wheat and then cut the buck wheat down, walk on it/ roll it and leave it as a mulch for the rye to grow up through. Buckwheat breaks down very fast.
I've been mostly no dig gardening for many decades. I want to get the most production I can out of the least effort required. I've trialled a number of methods in the past with varying results but never wrote anything down. So I'm interested in what your comparisons will be like. I'm also interested in what pest pressure you will see as the addition of undigested matter can encourage all those things that like to aid the composting process and live in the material before it becomes waste products that is the compost layer and food for plants. Like slugs for example.
Yes, it will be very interesting to see what kind of pest pressure there will be in the different methods. We have a few ways to deal with slugs, but not sure if it will be enough.
Very interesting Bruce, the Ruth Stout method does seem like a very large, shallow compost heap, I suspect it will not be overly successful, it will be interesting to see the results.
I've also not got out to my veg patch (and new potato patch) early enough :-( We had -7C or so all last week, so I couldn't really do much. At least it should have killed the standing weeds/grass (mix of bugloss, poppies, barley, rape - new and feral, dandelion, chamomile, vetch and whatever else blew in and grew in this ex-agricultural field). I'll stamp them down, cover with cardboard and use whatever I've got to cover. I could make a reasonable quantity of ramiel woodchip if I get my orchards pruned, and I can use the conifer chippings for paths. This conifer chipping worked in my tattie patch last year really well, in fact the plants preferred to grow out into the path under it, which surprised me, as I thought it would be too acid! Perhaps it was just that it stayed moister under there. I've also got the 1-2 yr old part of my compost heap, old barn straw and beech hedge cuttings plus lots of apple/ pear pomace, and my 1 yr old kitchen scraps/cardboard compost. I could probably get used barn straw and/or horse manure from my neighbour (but I'm maybe too shy to ask...)
That is interesting about the potatoes growing out under the mulch. It can be tricky to get enough organic matter to really help boost the fertility and mulch the soil. In some cases it seems easier to dig than to haul in so much mulch!
I think it would be interesting to put a thermometer in each of the beds that records temperatures during day/night to see wich beds cool of fast or insulate the soil good / heat up quickly in the morning sun and how much of a difference there is and link that to the development to the plants that are growing there....but that would go into the "smart gardening" or "gadget-gardening" area equipmentwize....
I was thinking about using a thermometer a few times at different depths to check the temperature differences, but a bunch of sensors with collected data would be great! I should look into that. Thanks for the idea.
Cool trial - I am very interested in this as I'm a Dowding/Perkins devotee, and it works for me in southern Ontario, so I haven't tried anything else. I like the addition of the biologically active compost as well. I understand the idea of waiting to see if there is weed pressure before planting, but is it worthwhile to plant a single row in the spring with a full season crop (or crops) just to see how things work out? You likely know that JM Fortier is a fan of ramial woodchips, but he harvests his in the spring to capture the early flush of nutrients. I wish that I could find spring ramial wood chips here.
I was thinking of sowing something, but decided to wait. I have had issues with getting rid of these kinds of weeds in the past and want to make sure they are really gone before starting things. But I will see how things are going in the spring, as you say it would be interesting to test how a few things will grow at the beginning.
My method starts in the fall. I have a lot of leaves on my property and a leaf shredder. I put down a layer of shredded leaves, A couple of inches of compost. And then I drench it with indigenous micro organisms. Then I cover it with black landscape material For the winter. In the springtime I do another drench and then cover it for 3 weeks to 4 weeks. Then I plant. This will be the 3rd year I'm doing it and my harvest has increased each year. With almost no insect problems at all except for maybe snails. I have a pile of wood chips that has been decomposing for 2 years. I grow winecap mushrooms in them. Now that they have been decomposed and are filled with fungal activity I'll be probably putting that in the soil also. I make any fertilizer I need from weeds and comfrey I have in my yard. I even make my own fish fertilizer. no digging and cheap.
That sounds like a lovely and productive method! I wish I had access to an abundance of leaves like that. I will have to wait a few more years, or decades, for the trees around here to grow a lot more!
exciting experiment! looking forward to the results. The trials are quite close to each other and they might influence each other positively or negatively, what are your thoughts on that? or is it known that soil building is very limited to what is put directly on top of it? Just a thought. Anyhow if you look to add one more trial, I once saw someone apply sheep wool as a mulch, would be interesting to learn more about that as well. Good luck and keep it going!
The plants on either end of the section will be affected by the conditions in the next method, as the roots of a lot of plants grow quite far. This is an issue with most of my trials, especially when plants are at the end of the beds where there is no competition in one side. And in this case I would be relying mor on how the plants are doing in the middle of the bed, rather than focusing on the ones on the edge. It is a factor, and something to keep in mind when evaluating. Sheep’s wool would be interesting.
Plants growing lots of their roots into the soil and fertility of the adjacent method can affect the yield data. If one method is doing poorly, it might not show as much if some of the plants are benefiting from the methods on either side.
@@REDGardens If you really believed that you would be wasting your time. Seems like the plants from the high-performing beds that grow into the low performing beds would offset any concerns and anything without competition on one side would get fewer nutrients by growing beyond the bounds of its own bed since that soil would be low quality. That's why you take the average of the whole bed instead of individual samples from the edge cases.
Are you concerned about the sources of material in the municipal compost? Some use sewage waste termed "biosolids" stated by our plant as "Co-Composted biosolids is waste water treatment plant sludge and yard waste composted over a period of 8 months or longer if necessary. ACl’s process to compost uses thermophilic bacteria." I tried it, because it's reasonably priced, but it bothers me.
woah, another masterpiece 😼! i'm located on north of france and i follow you since a month ago, and you really inspire me, and thanks man for that's. i've 18 for some months and i gardening for my family to be able to ate some freshly vegetables cause of inflation and crisis here and everywhere else in the world we cannot buy thoses high values vegetables. some of your approaches really interest me like using some concentrated fertilisers to get a better harvest. have a good day man, good luck for the next season who happens soon :) and sorry for my wrong english (i wish i will be better one day !)
Thanks for the comment. It is great to know what other people are doing in places far away, and what inspires them. Hope you continue to have great crops! (And no worries, your English is better than my french!)
can i ask a question about no till in terms of biology. my current understanding is that no till causes plants and soil life to work together. digging disrupts that. also adding fertiliser does this by laying soil life off the job. is that correct?
Regular digging, especially tilling which aggressively mixes the soil, can cause some big issues with aloe types of soil biology. Ao not tilling will help in ways, but in think so much depends on context. As far as I can tell, adding too much on concentrated fertility, without adding organic matter, can gradually deplete the soil life.
I'm eager to see the results of this trail. Especially the one with the aged wood chips. What Paul Gautschi is unfortunately not very clear about is that the wood chips he uses, previously run through his chicken coup. They are enriched with chicken manure. Many people trying this method were disappointed because they tried it with regular wood chips. Maybe it works better with the aged wood chips.
I the in on some extra nitrogen would really help in a lot of situations. I have heard that some people wait until the first flush of leaves in the spring, to capture the nutrients and nitrogen the trees bring up from the roots. I think this would help a lot.
Check out quillaja / soapbark extract for no till especially on compacted soils, I used it on black clay in my front yard and it made the soil drain so easily really worked so well
@@REDGardens it's something youde have to order online it's kinda pricey but I bought a kilo from China for about 150 us and used it alot last year haven't even made a dent in the bag I bought
You had a little bird merrily hopping around with you there. You have a lot going on with this one, and I suppose you can't decide what to plant until things start to work really, Can you?
That robin is one of our regular companions when working in the gardens! I would prefer to delay planting until things settle down and I get a sense of the weed pressure.
@@REDGardens awww, I have one too and a female blackbird who is so cheeky. She built a nest in the top of my outside light. Yes, I get that. It's very exciting.
I'm concerned that your lasagna bed will be attractive to rodents, not as for food but as shelter. I'm really rooting for your Dowding bed. If you can use good compost to jumpstart the municipal stuff, you'll have scalable solution.
no manures? i think manures are great combos of organic matter and nutrient. with so much cardboard and straw i would add an equal amount of mixed manures. imho
Yeah, manures would have been a great addition to a few of them. But i am hesitant to trust manures around here, as there has been herbicide contamination. And most farmers in the area use slurry pits.
@@REDGardens ahh i see. I have a manure compost pile and that could be an option? I also use spent mushroom compost. It has a range of manures and straws, is balanced and is already composted to some extent. It's probably my favourite of all my soil amendments.
Protect this man at all costs. Great video. Keep up the good work.
Much appreciated
Agreed. Canada's loss is our excellent gain.
Hard agree - such a treasure. We all appreciate the wealth of data, experience, and learning that the RED Gardens grow
TLDR:Your videos help me to be successful in something that gives me meaning. Being as helpful to my family and loved ones as I can.
I’m in a wheelchair 98% of the time. I can’t walk more than 80 feet without assistance. I was born with a neuromuscular disease. My muscles in my extremities atrophy due to a DNA mutation. I’m not one to think of myself as disabled. The pain is the biggest issue, I have found ways around my weaknesses. We built a house. I was the subcontractor. I kept everyone paid and the schedule and crews coordinated. I’ve done so many hard things in life after learning all I could from UA-cam videos. This channel is no different! Thank you for all of this information. I’ve always ALWAYS wanted to be self sufficient to reduce my impact on the planet (due to emotional trauma linked to my disease. I feel like a burden). I have been keeping a compost pile under my breeding rabbits. Im filling raised beds with decomposing old firewood and leaves under compost and amended soil for drainage. This coming spring I get to have my very first planting in my homestead garden. Im giddy from excitement. I cannot wait to be cooking dinners of roast chicken or rabbit with veggies and berry cobbler primarily from the homestead. Your videos help people in situations that you’ll never know about. I hope you feel accomplished ❤ you sure help me to feel that way!
Thank you for sharing your story. It means so much. I do this work and send these videos out into the world, without really knowing what impact they will have, or the kinds of people who will find them valuable. Comments like yours really help to fill in that picture, and to give it all a deeper meaning and purpose. I hope you have a great growing season next year, with wonderful vegetables to share with everyone important in your life.
@@REDGardens I really appreciate the response. I know how busy you are, saving the world and all. If only more of us had a tenth of your dedication the world would be different. I’m glad you get recognition that’s so obviously deserved. Have a great holiday season and best of wishes to you and yours for 2023.
Have you tried fasting? It can allow your body to fix DNA.
@@BlackJesus8463 yeah I would do 5 days on. Autophagy can’t help the fact my “blueprints” are wrong. It can help clean out and repair cells though. It cleared acne well too
@@justkeepgoing2657 It doesn't just fix DNA it allows the body to express different epigenetic traits, I think through hormones or something. You can literally store data in DNA and it has nothing to do with autophagy. There's also the concept of junk DNA that could play a factor.
I really appreciate the commentary and scientific approach to gardening, this is a discipline full of myths and crazy claims, and it’s great to see someone put them to the test while acknowledging their setup’s limits.
Thanks for the comment. Yeah, there are a lot of claims out there, and probably some validity to most of them. But it is hard to find people who have experienced enough to be able to really compare.
I've done much the same trials, but in series, not in parallel. I started gardening in the southern US, where the deep mulch / Ruth Stout method works great, but then moved to western Oregon 40 years ago and found that it didn't work at all in the wet, cold, slug-filled climate we have here. I've switched all my outdoor beds to the deep compost / wood chip path style and they work very well. In my polytunnels I found that the deep mulch delayed the soil warming and since the polytunnels are for growing hot weather crops like tomatoes, peppers and eggplants that was a failure for me. I now lightly "tilth" the surface of the polytunnel beds to incorporate a few cm of compost, then reapply more in the summer when it's getting hot. It all boils down to climate and purpose, but it's great to see you doing the controlled trials. We could use someone doing similar trials in Spain or Italy (or Texas) for comparison.
That is interesting, thanks for sharing. All that makes sense to me. I think the beds with lost of undecomposed organic material are really going to suffer in comparison, but as you say it is all about context. I’d love to see similar trials in a lot of other places!
Your appetite for experimentation is remarkable! To the benefit of all gardeners. Thank you.
🙂 There is so much to explore and learn!
I really enjoy your videos. Your presentation of the subject is among the best learning channels on UA-cam.
Wow, thank you!!
The no dig method seems like the best way to go! I love how you experiment with different ways of growing and scientific research to get the best results. Thank you again 💓!
Glad you appreciate the trials we do! No-till defiantly has advantages, and seems to be a good option for a lot of people. But I don’t think it is always the best option, as there can be some serious pest issues, and situations where that amount of organic matter is not viable.
Charles Dowding is always getting more weight from no-dig and he keeps on working that one bed every year just to prove it.
@@BlackJesus8463 And he also seems to be digging in the same amount of compost into the other bed. But also seems to be using compost that is not fully mature, which works well as an annual amendment to the surface of a no-dig bed, but stuff that I would not dig in to the soil because it would likely lock up nitrogen from the soil, which would result in lower yields. His results are interesting, but not definitive in my opinion. If I am going to dig in compost I would want it to be better quality stuff, or at least more mature.
@@REDGardens I'll have to watch out for that.
I cannot wait to see the results. I know I have to be patient. But I know you will deliver the results with amazing detail. Thank you love love love your vids.
Thank you! I am also trying to be really patient!
you might single handedly do more for humanity than most politicians, your work will hopefully be instrumental for building a better future
Wow, thanks!
Exactly what I plan on doing in the future when I get out of the city.
Thank you!😊
Hope you get out of the city soon!
Thank you, I really love how you put a bunch of basic experimentation in your work.
You're very welcome.
Thanx Red Gardens
Showing what doesn't work is really helpful so I know what works best
Yeah, failure or less successful trials can be really educational!
I'm very interested to see the follow up videos on these trial beds! I love that you are attempting to do a side by side comparison so that the different beds can be a good test run. I think it's overkill to tarp things before planting just based on my own experiences, but if you used a lot of perrennial weeds, you'll be glad you did! I'm keen to see if slugs are a problem, but overall, seems like you should have great beds and great fertility!
I am going to wait until the spring to see how many weeds start growing, and make a decision then. And the slug and other pest issues will be very interesting to observe.
@@REDGardens It would warm your soil faster though. It doesn't have to be about the weeds! ✌
I'm excited. Started gardening 15 years ago with the Ruth Stout method. Now I use a hodge podge of methods. It will be great to see these trials.
I am also looking forward to seeing how the Ruth Stout method works. I hear so much about it.
I really love no till.
my best source of free huge cardboard pieces i found was a bike shop. they get the frame of the bikes in huge thick less printed packages and they have very litle tape and staples you need to remove. Hope this may help you :)
I wish we had a bike shop near us!
Outstanding, well designed trial, it will be interesting to see how the different methods improve the soil profile over the years.
Thanks!
I grow everything in boxes in compost I make myself it's so simple with excellent results. I so appreciate your meticulous documentation of your experiments. Much appreciated.
I can imagine you could get a lot out of growing in compost like that.
Great work mate, don't know how you run a market garden and make the videos! Thanks for all the hard work I look forward to seeing your new videos pop up in my feed 😀
Thanks. It is a lot of work!
I love the idea of framing the compost. I'll have to remember that the next time I make a garden with woodchip paths.
I'm thinking of using rocks - there is a big pile locally. Some people add, some take away....
Yeah, I got that idea from another channel (can’t remember which one) and it worked quite well. Or it made a fairly quick job even easier.
I love watching these trials, thank you for doing them!
🙂
Thanks Bruce and Kristina! (And likely many others), very interesting and I am curious as to what will happen to the various fields.
🙂
Looking forward to seeing your ongoing results from this trial. Great work!
🙂
This is so interesting. Thank you for all your hard work and I look forward to your final analysis!
🙂
I've been using a no dig version for a few years and it seems to work well. I simply tarp my garden when it's not actively growing. Often this is in the fall. In the spring I remove the tarp and find a weed free flat piece of soil to plant into. I simply dig little holes to put box plants in or use a small 3 inch wide hand cultivator to loosen the soil down a few inches to sow seeds into. It is so much easier than digging or tilling and can be done earlier in the spring.
Tarping is the absolute best for killing weeds. It's the number one way to start no-dig if you're not in a rush to get produce.
Tarps can defiantly help, I really like how easy my simple garden is to work with when it is covered all winter.
Thise beds look so good covered in ompost. Nice.
I am excited to see fruits of your labor. I have been highly interested in no dig methods of gardening and have tried the Ruth Stout method. I really want to do back to Eden.
I am really looking forward to seeing how they perform as well
😁 thank you. I just started building my no dig about 2 months ago, happy growing.
Happy growing all around! Hope you have a good crop!
It's great you have all those materials; for most of us we have to use what we can get/produce. This type of video will help demonstrate what resource we might want to concentrate on getting.
I once tried the Straw method which proved to be ideal slug habitat.
It took me a while to get in all this materials, and had to buy a lot of it in, so definitely can be a resource intensive process! I suspect I will have the same slug issues with the straw and hay, but have a few methods that might help to reduce the impact of this pest and make the method more viable.
@@REDGardens I really look forward to seeing the results next year.
Thank you so much for all the documented work. Its been the most interesting for sure and definitely helps all of us bring more to home. All the best onwards
Glad you enjoy it
You're spoiling us with all these trials Bruce! You must have had a hell of a year managing it all, so thank you very much for all the work you do! Glad to be a patron of your channel :)
This year I've started trialling another no-dig/mulch method. Thanks to your channel, I've learnt to look at my context, instead of applying existing methods verbatim. I've got access to an abundance of autumn leaves (non-oak), and my soil is lacking in organic matter (it was a neglected allotment). So I've amended the soil with kelp meal, compost and alfalfa pellets, and then covered them in a thick layer of leaves. Don't know how it will turn out, but last time I checked there were many worms busy breaking it all down. I've had a professional soil test done before I started, and I'm planning to do another one next year (another lesson from your channel).
Love the robin at the end BTW, they're so inquisitive and cheeky. Every time I'm working in the garden, there's a robin keeping me company. They know where the food is 😄
It has been a busy year! But I am glad to finally get this no-till trial started. Thanks for being a Patron!
Hope your own no-dig method works well for you!
That robin is one of our regular companions when working in the gardens. It makes everything a little bit more enjoyable!
😊
Excited to see your analysis! I have begun new beds, something between Ruth Stout and lasagna style. Eventually they'll be managed more Dowding style once the initial material decomposes.
I am also looking forward to seeing how it all works out. Hope you have a good season with you version of no-till.
You are a gift.
Thank you for your work.
🌻
Wow, thank you!
Cool experiment! Thank you for walking us through it.
🙂
Will be watching this one closely. As I've established new no-dig beds over the past few years I have always left the beds covered the first year and planted squash/pumpkin or slow brassicas into the mypex to suppress any weed seeds. Will be interesting to see how you get on planting into it in year 1 in Irish conditions. Thanks for the video as always
Yes, it will be interesting. I was planning to grow a range of larger brassica plants in these beds next year, ones that I can transplant in the early summer.
I really like your experimental approach.
🙂
Nice experiment. Can't wait to see how it turns out.
🙂
Thank you for sharing information about agriculture and it can be my motivation and experience in farming
It's my pleasure
These beds are looking very good!!! 👍
Yeah, I am so glad to finally get them done and delighted that they looked so good in the winter sunlight.
Like this trial, this is where I have ended up. No purism, just practical elements. I have to remove the huge rocks before I start no-dig and I add a lot of amendments now too. I use really well rotten wood chip for paths bc slugs like it less if it's fine and has fewer big bits for them to hide under.
Only thing I'd guess could go wrong here might be slugs under the hay. I'm in Wales and that would worry me here. Perhaps you get enough frosts that your slug problems aren't as bad as ours?
Other than, I'd say those beds are going to be amazing. Anything I've done that thick and rich has done really well.
Look forward to seeing the results.
Great start to another hopefully successful experiment 😊
Even if something fails it will still be a ‘successful’ experiment, but I do hope I can get good crops out of all of the methods.
Great trial, looking forward to the results!
So am I!
Very good presentation. I predict each method will have good results.
I hope so, though i think there will be issues with the straw and hay.
Cool, Using soil beneath compost piles is clever, as is placing fertilizer below other layers, so it simply can’t wash away, and organic fertilizer like that doesn’t leach into water tables, so that isn’t an issue.
It will be interesting to see if the soil is a good option in the end, and how it compares to the other options. One thing to be mindful of is organic fertiliser can actually wash away, though perhaps not as fast as the conventional soluble fertilisers. To test this fill a large pot with manure or whatever other organic fertiliser you use, and leave it in the rain for a few weeks (or water it lightly every few days, enough for some of the water to flow through he bottom of the pot). If you collecting the water that flows through the pot, it will most likely be a dark colour and work really well as a liquid feed, because a fair amount of the fertility washed through with the rain.
@@REDGardens true like wood ash washes away in slash and burn…. It also depends what state the organic fertilizer is in, more soluble or insoluble.
Can not wait to see the results. Only wish that video was released sooner and that others were invited to try as close as possible similar methods to see how they compare in other places climates.
Hope that will happen next year.
I'm really looking forward to the results from this trial
🙂
Some interesting comparisons lie ahead. Thanks as always.
Yeah, I am really looking forward to seeing what happens.
If you’re having issues with slugs, and I suspect you will, just water everything with rainwater (groundwater will require a much higher dose because of the carbonates) mixed with liquid iron. I dose my polytunnel every year in spring with it to make sure I don’t have slugs eating my seedlings.
That is interesting. I wonder what impact it would have on the other biological processes that I want to happen in the layers
Iron should speed up the biological processes in the soil since it’s usually one of the limiting nutrients especially in soils that stay saturated for long periods like in Ireland. Iron phosphate is also what’s in the slug pellets.
@@seanconway1154 thanks
@@seanconway1154 That is interesting. The soil tests that I have had done in this area always show plenty of iron, which might be because of this soil is fairly free draining and doesn't stay saturated fro very long.
Soil tests are notoriously flawed for most nutrients. They tell you the entire available nutrient but not the form it’s present in or if it’s tied up. Don’t rely on them. Plants will tell you what they need. Considering the large amount of crops you grow and the large area you use, it might be worth your while to invest in sap analysis to save you wasting money on soil tests and nutrients you probably don’t need.
Thanks for another great video we love your work !!
🙂
I tried using bales of straw as mulch. It would have been great except for the wheat seeds that germinated constantly. I love your videos and will be trying many things I've seen here :) Thank you for sharing!
I am hoping that there isn't too many seeds in this straw, or in the hay.
Very nice video, we appreciate the amount of work and time involved here. I was hoping one of the plots involved leaves, mostly because they are an abundant free source most people have access to. Also want everyone to know that your municipal collection sites for leave possibly pay to haul off their leaves like our city does. They bring me dump truck loads of free leaves, and tell me they want to find other people to take leaves because they have to pay the county transfer station if they dump there.
I would have liked to get leaves to try, but that isn’t a resource that is really available around here. There has been some from the Main Street of our little village, from the big trees on the green in front of the church, but there is not a lot and it gets mixed in with a lot of litter and debris from the road. There just aren’t many large trees and parklands around here, and the high winds tend to blow any leaves away. But if you can get leaves like that they can be a great resource for a garden.
Excellent work.
🙂
Can't wait to see how this turns out. Hope there you don't have issues with graze on being used on your hay. Lots of farmers in the us are complaining about it affecting their yields on no till bed
I had heard fly hay from a few people. I don’t think it is an issue with this hay, or I hope not.
Hi Bruce, great to see these experiments being done in our damp climate. Look forward to seeing their progress. Two questions for you kind of unrelated to this video. Where did you purchase the broadfork? Did you bury the plastic of the newly established polytunnel and if so why did you opt for this method? Love the content.
Thanks. I think the damp conditions will be the biggest factor.
I got the broadfork from Fruit Hill Farm.
I bury the tunnels edges as I think it is the strongest method of securing them against the wind.
Thanks Bruce. Wish I had the room to experiment as well. Looking forward to spring and the garden once all this snow is gone. Merry Christmas
It is so good to have the space to try things like this! Merry Christmas to you too.
If your springs are mild/cool and moist, try growing the determinant tomato variety called Siletz. It was bred in Oregon for that exact purpose.
Thanks for the recommendation.
It's great to see comparative study. In my opinion, much depend on the quality of compost. But perhaps your amendments make the bid difference. Your approach is bery intelligent, all methods will do well.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks! I agree that so much depends on the quality of the compost, and the other materials, but I felt it was important to work with what I could easily get, as most people can only get poor quality compost.
Looking good, we have the lovely Charles Dowding in the U.K. who has been using no dig for several decades. Would be interesting to see in your climate how your crops compares with ours in the south of the U.K. have started using no dig on my own new small allotment plots, so it’s all new to me
I think our climates are a bit different. I think it is not so warm in the summer here and with more rain.
It will be interesting to see if the slug problem is there again. I had the slug problem this last growing season. I tried everything, but the slugs won.
I suspect slugs will be there, and might win, which will show how inappropriate some methods might be. Which is a reasonable result of this trial. But we have a few methods to deal with slugs, and if we can use them to keep the slug population down enough for the method to be viable enough to use in this climate, then that would also be a decent result of the trial.
Excellent video. Lot to learn
Glad you liked it.
Very, very interesting trial! Since you anticipate possible snail/slug issues; do you already have plans to deal with them should they occur or will you deal with them when they do?
Bruce has various vids on dealing with slugs. Look them up
Our slug strategy has changed since the last time I made a video about it all. We have used traps a lot, mainly planks of wood for them to hide under, which we regularly turn over to kill the slugs. Last year we started to use a slug pellets that is apparently suitable for an organic system, which is supposed to be safe for other wildlife. They seem to work well, and that gives me more confidence in trying a mulch trial like this.
As always , a fascinating and educational video which I’ll study at least twice again. Thanks.
I wonder why you don’t cover the hay with tarp now rather than later?
It would be interesting also to see if a layer of stinging nettles under cardboard and then compost would turn out. I’m trying to use stuff which is plentiful too on my two allotments in north east Scotland . I use no-dig extensively but recognise its limitations.
I tried using wood chips as a medium for growing potatoes this year but made the mistake of not giving them enough fertiliser.
Have a good Christmas Bruce. You are an inspiration!
Thanks! I was considering covering the whole thing with a tarp, but ran out of time, and want to let a fair amount of rain in. Is there a reason you think I should specifically cover the hay?
Stinging nettles would be a great addition to the layers if I was building the beds in the spring when they were abundant and nutrient rich.
@@REDGardens No specific reason to cover the hay early Bruce other than to accelerate its decomposition and keep any latent weeds suppressed.
I’m not sure though if this would make the slug problem better or worse.
I’m planning to use nettles more next year in teas and compost to make good use of it. I’ll watch how you get on with it too. Merry Christmas.
@@michaelmcclafferty3346 Merry Christmas to you too.
Professional work as always
🙂
Great experiment! Can't wait to see the results.
Us too!!
Very intresting. Merry Christmas from Sweden
Thanks. And merry Christmas from Canada! (I am home visiting family).
That will be really interesting.
I think so too!
Brilliant and concise 👍
Thanks.
cool set of trials. It'd be cool to see a korean natural farming (especially original, but jadam would be cool too) no till bed as well.
That is something a want to explore.
Great video can’t wait to see the progress
You and me both!!
We use cover crops like winter rye and like to sheet mulch. We do have an issue with cold soil in the spring here in USA growing zone 3.
I do want to try using cover crops. How do you kill them, or do they winter kill in your area?
@@REDGardens When I am done with an area in the fall I plant winter rye which keeps a green root in the ground and keeps nasty weeds away, it winters over under the snow and starts growing again in the cold wet spring and hits straw stage in early June and I cut it with a heavy duty weed wacker and rake it up for mulch. We can't plant till around June 1st. In rotation areas that have no crop I use Buckwheat because it grows so fast. In the fall I sow winter rye seed into the buck wheat and then cut the buck wheat down, walk on it/ roll it and leave it as a mulch for the rye to grow up through. Buckwheat breaks down very fast.
Great video, 😁
Thanks! 😁 .
fascinating as always, thanks very much
🙂
Brilliant trial! You rock! Happy holidays to you!
Thanks, and Happy Holidays to you too!
I've been mostly no dig gardening for many decades. I want to get the most production I can out of the least effort required. I've trialled a number of methods in the past with varying results but never wrote anything down. So I'm interested in what your comparisons will be like. I'm also interested in what pest pressure you will see as the addition of undigested matter can encourage all those things that like to aid the composting process and live in the material before it becomes waste products that is the compost layer and food for plants.
Like slugs for example.
Yes, it will be very interesting to see what kind of pest pressure there will be in the different methods. We have a few ways to deal with slugs, but not sure if it will be enough.
👉 Good example of dissemination of practical knowledge to be followed by educational institutions.
Glad you think so!
Very interesting Bruce, the Ruth Stout method does seem like a very large, shallow compost heap, I suspect it will not be overly successful, it will be interesting to see the results.
That is the one method I suspect will be least successful in this context.
Amazing as always 😊
Thanks!
I've also not got out to my veg patch (and new potato patch) early enough :-( We had -7C or so all last week, so I couldn't really do much. At least it should have killed the standing weeds/grass (mix of bugloss, poppies, barley, rape - new and feral, dandelion, chamomile, vetch and whatever else blew in and grew in this ex-agricultural field). I'll stamp them down, cover with cardboard and use whatever I've got to cover. I could make a reasonable quantity of ramiel woodchip if I get my orchards pruned, and I can use the conifer chippings for paths. This conifer chipping worked in my tattie patch last year really well, in fact the plants preferred to grow out into the path under it, which surprised me, as I thought it would be too acid! Perhaps it was just that it stayed moister under there. I've also got the 1-2 yr old part of my compost heap, old barn straw and beech hedge cuttings plus lots of apple/ pear pomace, and my 1 yr old kitchen scraps/cardboard compost. I could probably get used barn straw and/or horse manure from my neighbour (but I'm maybe too shy to ask...)
That is interesting about the potatoes growing out under the mulch. It can be tricky to get enough organic matter to really help boost the fertility and mulch the soil. In some cases it seems easier to dig than to haul in so much mulch!
So good!!! 🎉
🙂
gotta love the curious bird
I love having that robin around!
Keep in Mind that different Methods are good for again different crops
Absolutely. I am going to be growing a different range of crops across the 5 methods, to see how they do.
I think it would be interesting to put a thermometer in each of the beds that records temperatures during day/night to see wich beds cool of fast or insulate the soil good / heat up quickly in the morning sun and how much of a difference there is and link that to the development to the plants that are growing there....but that would go into the "smart gardening" or "gadget-gardening" area equipmentwize....
This is an amazing idea and as a scientist I love it
I was thinking about using a thermometer a few times at different depths to check the temperature differences, but a bunch of sensors with collected data would be great! I should look into that. Thanks for the idea.
Good as usual
Thanks
Cool trial - I am very interested in this as I'm a Dowding/Perkins devotee, and it works for me in southern Ontario, so I haven't tried anything else. I like the addition of the biologically active compost as well. I understand the idea of waiting to see if there is weed pressure before planting, but is it worthwhile to plant a single row in the spring with a full season crop (or crops) just to see how things work out?
You likely know that JM Fortier is a fan of ramial woodchips, but he harvests his in the spring to capture the early flush of nutrients. I wish that I could find spring ramial wood chips here.
I was thinking of sowing something, but decided to wait. I have had issues with getting rid of these kinds of weeds in the past and want to make sure they are really gone before starting things. But I will see how things are going in the spring, as you say it would be interesting to test how a few things will grow at the beginning.
My method starts in the fall. I have a lot of leaves on my property and a leaf shredder. I put down a layer of shredded leaves, A couple of inches of compost. And then I drench it with indigenous micro organisms. Then I cover it with black landscape material For the winter. In the springtime I do another drench and then cover it for 3 weeks to 4 weeks. Then I plant. This will be the 3rd year I'm doing it and my harvest has increased each year. With almost no insect problems at all except for maybe snails. I have a pile of wood chips that has been decomposing for 2 years. I grow winecap mushrooms in them. Now that they have been decomposed and are filled with fungal activity I'll be probably putting that in the soil also. I make any fertilizer I need from weeds and comfrey I have in my yard. I even make my own fish fertilizer. no digging and cheap.
That sounds like a lovely and productive method! I wish I had access to an abundance of leaves like that. I will have to wait a few more years, or decades, for the trees around here to grow a lot more!
Recommend to cover the "Darvin/perkins" beds with some fabric during the winter
I was thinking of covering them all, especially the compost one as something has already started to dig into the beds.
@@REDGardens You are a smart man :)
Was thinking for the followers :)
Cool. I do wonder how the fresh wood chips would perform considering your experience with the municipal woody compost in the potato trial..
Yeah, it would have been good. I suspect it would need a few seasons before it really got going and we were able o for good crops in it.
exciting experiment! looking forward to the results. The trials are quite close to each other and they might influence each other positively or negatively, what are your thoughts on that? or is it known that soil building is very limited to what is put directly on top of it? Just a thought. Anyhow if you look to add one more trial, I once saw someone apply sheep wool as a mulch, would be interesting to learn more about that as well. Good luck and keep it going!
What makes you think the distance has anything to do with the results?
The plants on either end of the section will be affected by the conditions in the next method, as the roots of a lot of plants grow quite far. This is an issue with most of my trials, especially when plants are at the end of the beds where there is no competition in one side. And in this case I would be relying mor on how the plants are doing in the middle of the bed, rather than focusing on the ones on the edge. It is a factor, and something to keep in mind when evaluating. Sheep’s wool would be interesting.
Plants growing lots of their roots into the soil and fertility of the adjacent method can affect the yield data. If one method is doing poorly, it might not show as much if some of the plants are benefiting from the methods on either side.
@@REDGardens If you really believed that you would be wasting your time. Seems like the plants from the high-performing beds that grow into the low performing beds would offset any concerns and anything without competition on one side would get fewer nutrients by growing beyond the bounds of its own bed since that soil would be low quality. That's why you take the average of the whole bed instead of individual samples from the edge cases.
Every time I hear municipal compost, I worry about the plants being stunted.
Yeah, I think a lot of it will need a few years to really start to release fertility to the plants.
Are you concerned about the sources of material in the municipal compost? Some use sewage waste termed "biosolids" stated by our plant as "Co-Composted biosolids is waste water treatment plant sludge and yard waste composted over a period of 8 months or longer if necessary. ACl’s process to compost uses thermophilic bacteria." I tried it, because it's reasonably priced, but it bothers me.
It is definitely something to be aware of. I don’t think there is any bio solids in this compost that I get.
woah, another masterpiece 😼! i'm located on north of france and i follow you since a month ago, and you really inspire me, and thanks man for that's. i've 18 for some months and i gardening for my family to be able to ate some freshly vegetables cause of inflation and crisis here and everywhere else in the world we cannot buy thoses high values vegetables. some of your approaches really interest me like using some concentrated fertilisers to get a better harvest. have a good day man, good luck for the next season who happens soon :) and sorry for my wrong english (i wish i will be better one day !)
Thanks for the comment. It is great to know what other people are doing in places far away, and what inspires them. Hope you continue to have great crops! (And no worries, your English is better than my french!)
great info
🙂
Haven't you ever had problems of soil salinity adding all of that compost?
Not that I am aware of, but we do have a lot of rain, and fairly free draining soil.
can i ask a question about no till in terms of biology.
my current understanding is that no till causes plants and soil life to work together. digging disrupts that. also adding fertiliser does this by laying soil life off the job.
is that correct?
Regular digging, especially tilling which aggressively mixes the soil, can cause some big issues with aloe types of soil biology. Ao not tilling will help in ways, but in think so much depends on context. As far as I can tell, adding too much on concentrated fertility, without adding organic matter, can gradually deplete the soil life.
I'm eager to see the results of this trail. Especially the one with the aged wood chips. What Paul Gautschi is unfortunately not very clear about is that the wood chips he uses, previously run through his chicken coup. They are enriched with chicken manure. Many people trying this method were disappointed because they tried it with regular wood chips. Maybe it works better with the aged wood chips.
I the in on some extra nitrogen would really help in a lot of situations. I have heard that some people wait until the first flush of leaves in the spring, to capture the nutrients and nitrogen the trees bring up from the roots. I think this would help a lot.
Check out quillaja / soapbark extract for no till especially on compacted soils, I used it on black clay in my front yard and it made the soil drain so easily really worked so well
I don’t think that is available at all around here, but will keep an eye out.
@@REDGardens it's something youde have to order online it's kinda pricey but I bought a kilo from China for about 150 us and used it alot last year haven't even made a dent in the bag I bought
You had a little bird merrily hopping around with you there. You have a lot going on with this one, and I suppose you can't decide what to plant until things start to work really, Can you?
That robin is one of our regular companions when working in the gardens! I would prefer to delay planting until things settle down and I get a sense of the weed pressure.
@@REDGardens awww, I have one too and a female blackbird who is so cheeky. She built a nest in the top of my outside light. Yes, I get that. It's very exciting.
Great stuff.
Where did you get this municipal compost. I'm in Roscommon and can't find a source for this anywhere.
I buy it from as suppliers in one of the local towns. It comes from a company called Enrich.
@@REDGardens Thanks for that. Really need a good load of compost to start off a no dig.
I'm concerned that your lasagna bed will be attractive to rodents, not as for food but as shelter.
I'm really rooting for your Dowding bed.
If you can use good compost to jumpstart the municipal stuff, you'll have scalable solution.
Yes, that is a concern.
so, have you added IMO's into your compost so that the plants have an established micro fungal base to develope from??????
No, I haven’t. Something to consider.
no manures? i think manures are great combos of organic matter and nutrient. with so much cardboard and straw i would add an equal amount of mixed manures. imho
Yeah, manures would have been a great addition to a few of them. But i am hesitant to trust manures around here, as there has been herbicide contamination. And most farmers in the area use slurry pits.
@@REDGardens ahh i see. I have a manure compost pile and that could be an option? I also use spent mushroom compost. It has a range of manures and straws, is balanced and is already composted to some extent. It's probably my favourite of all my soil amendments.
@@TobyRobb If you have good manure, definitely use it!