I believe that "No dig" should not initially mean 'no preparation.' Here in the US PNW, we have really rocky soil (melon sized rocks.) If we don't remove the rocks at first, they become an impedance to the growth of root veggies and shallow rooted veggies. It was a big task at first as about half of the volume of my grow beds was rock! I dug down 12 inches (30cm) and got only 6 inches of soil after the rocks were removed. Clay soils can form a barrier to drainage so there are problems with root rot (and some plants don't like 'wet feet'.) My philosophy is to dig and prep the soil first: remove rock, break up compaction, adjust for drainage, and then go "No Dig!" I believe that worms and biology returned to my soil after the first year. I amend the top with compost and worm casting and mulch with wood chips and grass clippings. Spring is coming!!!
Also in pnw, the clay and the rocks are very difficult to get around especially if you're trying to get root veggies growing. hugelkultur is really successful imo. Technically no dig because it's a stack! Haha
Yeah I'd say "minimal tillage" is the more accurate term. You're not planning on tilling much, but the one time activity is necessary for long time benefits
Sounds like you had a really tough site to start with. We have stones in the soil on this part of the site, but not so much of an issue to disrupt the roots of plants, and even the carrots came out straight (mostly). But I think that your philosophy is a good one, and similar to the approach we used when establishing the new polytunnel on a more degraded site. I also think the soil organisms will return quite quickly, but the benefit of that initial disruption could help improve things for years.
Thank you for yet another honest review, this time of the no-dig method. Your have no agenda, other than simply observing, interpreting, and learning and that is so much appreciated. Please keep these videos coming, I enjoy watching each and every one of them!
The No dig beds will improve from here on out. I have quite a bit of experience with no dig, and can say that both mistakes you made (and I have also made in the past) impacted it greatly: not enough compost initially, and not mature enough compost. It takes about 3-5 years of properly prepared no dig beds before they hit their stride, and then they truly outpace other methods. This is particularly true in clay soils. So you have about 3-5 years from when you began to properly prepare the no dig beds before you really start to see the benefits when compared to other growing methods.
I heard very similar from a friend of mine who is a farmer and has changed his strategy to no-till (or min-till wherever needed) about 10 years ago, and according to my last conversation with him it too the ground at least 4-5 years to fully develop enough so that the benefits from no-till really shine. In this time you have to be able to cope with the net loss you are going to experience. He also uses a full-year vegetational ground cover and tries to develop as many organic matter ontop of the soil as possible.
3 to 5 years is too long to wait , compost is hard to find and takes a long time to make , what do you think about starting with tilling and adding amendments, as soil test recommendations useing available inputs in your area to start the garden, but no more tillage going forward. I have tested wood base compost ,it is low in phosphate .
@@REDGardens This is however on a large industrial farming basis. His reasoning was water conservation. We live in a dry spell, and a particular dry spot in Germany with extrem heavy clay soil. According to him going no-till and having a cover crop all the time to prevent evaporation, as water consumption with cover crops is smaller, and the biomass of extra cover crops are a cherry on top. Theres manure going on top of it every year, extremely thick winter vegetation, straw is left on the fields and he adds extra nitrogen where needed. I do however think that it just takes time for it to settle, even on a small garden scale. Building humus takes very, very long, so my guess is that we just need to keep at it for it to work.
If i am right in the compost you used it is sterilised to minimise weeds but that also knocks all the microbiome back too. We used broadforking to bring more air and soil mingling in as well as boost the microbiology with compost teas. In the end we have returning to sheet mulching with compost teas and we are seeing faster improvements in soil quality.
It would -be fairly sterile to begin with, though I imagine the layer of older compost underneath will be full of life, and would naturally inoculate the new stuff over time. But perhaps adding something more would also help, or speed things up.
I love the no dig method. I’ve got 2 allotment plots and one thrived from the very beginning after going no dig and is going strong 4 years in. The other one was mixed in its first year but I’m going to heavily mulch again this year. I think no dig really saves on time, I couldn’t run 2 plots if I had to dig and weed as much as other plot holders, it wouldn’t be viable. The trick is getting cheap compost/manure. I get enough manure delivered to my plot to cover the whole plot and a little extra for £40 so it’s doable for me, hearing that you spent 900 euros made me wince. I also top up with chicken manure pellets. I think I pay £5 for 5kg and that covers one plot. So I spend £40 on manure (in the first year it’s £40 per plot, then one £40 load covers both plots) and £10 on manure for both plots per year.
Thanks again, Red. We really appreciate your experiments and discussion on the inputs and outcomes. Peace and health for you, your family, and for the soil.
I think the best way to start a garden on un-cultivated soil is to begin with a dig-in method, digging compost into the area you want to make a bed and filtering out the large stones or breaking up the clay, and only growing simple veg in the first year like potatoes, swedes, and carrots. You won't get a great first crop, but that's not the intent, it will break up the spoil more when you harvest, and any manky bits can be dig straight back into the bed to decompose. Then in the second year onwards you switch to a no dig method. It's more work, but if you're not going to get a good crop in the first year anyway, so you may as well write it off and help it set the bed in. I think this would be cheaper in the end.
After watching previous videos from you about making compost I have to say that I am more than a little disheartened. Holy Sh!t, if the amount of compost YOU make isn't enough then how the hell can anyone hope to make enough? You generate an obscene amount of compost and most of us can't even begin to come close to making that much. Thank you for once again sharing the knowledge.
Yeah, we make a lot of compost, but as Felix says, we have a lot of gardens to cover, enough of probably 10 families, so the stuff we make doesn't go far enough.
For me, the attraction of no-dig was only that turning soil is hard for me, and I knew it would take years to produce up to "regular" garden standards and I was okay with waiting. I do find it needs far less watering or weeding, due to the thick mulch. It seems your garden is doing spot-on, and actually better than might be expected due to the quality of compost you've added, compared to merely adding hay mulch or some other low-quality undecomposed carbon. I'd guess that for faster results it makes sense to dig in amendments the first year, to get them deep into root layers, then switch to no-dig later and only add mulch to the top from then on. Your Simple Garden concept comes closest to this, with its reduced tillage happening only during potato years in any section. That's what I see as the ultimate outcome of RED Gardens experiments. I don't expect any one garden to outperform all others all the time, but elements from each method may reveal their utility and become part of a new hybrid method you synthesize for your own gardening context. To me, the Simple Garden is perhaps the beginning of such a synthesis. I'm sure it will continue to evolve as more research and experimentation accumulates.
I do agree that digging is probably lead to faster results, mainly because the compost is more likely to decompose faster, and release the nutrients to the soil and the plants. I also find it interesting to compare the Simple and No-Dig garden approach, as I think there is probably a lot of benefits to having all of the decomposition take place on the surface of the soil. Interestingly the soil sample from the Simple Garden was lightest of the lot, indicating that there is a lot less carbon leftover in the soil. But this is also the youngest soil, and the section I took the sample from (after the potato crop) would only have had sheet composting on it 2 years ago and 5 years ago.
Last year I had bottom end rot on my tomatoes and then realised that I had forgotten to add calcium during the composting process. It made me realise that this is one of the differences between the regular soil in the garden and the compost. After adding the calcium, the tomatoes did not show any sign of bottom end rot for the rest of the season. It should be interesting to see what the soil tests tell us about the composition.
Compsot is a great way to bring missing elements into the soil. in our case, we have calcareous soils, which are already high in calcium, but I suspect other nutrients are low, or locked up.
Bottom end rot is due to calcium deficiency in the plant. Very often there is plenty of calcium in the soil. The cause is often insufficient watering, so the plant cannot transport the calcium to where it is needed
I’ve felt inspired by your trial/ experimental mentality snd for the 75 x 25 ft greenhouse this year I’ve decided to do 9 different beds all the same size with 9 different growing methods. I’ve been learning so much from you and am very grateful for your work. The beds are as follows: Leaf mulch no dig, compost mulch no dig, biochar bed, straw mulched (Ruth stout), lasagna bed, polyculture, trench composting, square foot garden/intensive planting, Syntropic Agroforestry with annuals. Fertilizing with compost on some beds, horse manure on others, fermented teas (comfrey/nettle) for soluble on all, worm tea and castings.
Great video. Very interesting tyty. Your experiences match my own in many ways. Quality of compost really makes a HUGE difference and more than depth IME. I have very fractured growing spaces, so inadvertently did lots of experiments by just doing different things in different places. The spots that did best in the first 2 years all had a really rich layer of home made kitchen compost. The two beds that outperformed all the others (they're ALL no dig except the jeruslaem artichoke and potato beds and I have 30 odd beds of varying sizes) had home made compost with added fish blood and bone and bat guano in a thin layer (1cm or so), then a thick layer of 2 yo horse manure on top. Those two beds were/are VERY healthy and productive. I've only added 1cm to them this year and that feels like enough. I'm yet to put anything in either bed and not have it do brilliantly. The beds which I just covered in 5" of municipal compost and cardboard are still not great 4 years after creating them. I just added this year's kitchen compost to those beds along with fb&b. Feels like Charles has it right. It's all about feeding the life in the soil. That kitchen compost, fb&b and guano is all full of life and rich enough to sustain an underground ecosystem. The municipal stuff I get has been heated to like 80oC and it pretty dead. The composted green manure I use is ok, but as you say, it's not bioavailable for longer, so woody compost needs years longer and can never match the other stuff for variety of minerals etc to feed the soil life. I grow a lot of russian comfrey, so I'm going to make shed load of comfrey tea this year to see if I can't feed and stimulate the life in the soil that way, where I have thick layers of municipal compost that's still not 'alive' enough. Think that might help sort out the remaining weaker beds in the cheapest way possible (just my time). Might also give the 'better plants' seaweed treatment (that I just saw Charles recommend) a go. Bit pricey, but maybe I'll try it on a small area bc let's face it, the 'more compost' option isn't cheap either.
Ive been doing modified no dig on new, poor ground for 3 years. I used very high quality compost protected by a layer of low quality. This really worked. Results so far have been amazing
I do no dig garden i I follow most of the content on you tube conected to the theme This is the most realistic overview of first few years from starting no dig I have ever seen Congratulation
We had success with putting just a small handful of manure pellets in the hole before transplanting, but just for heavy feeders such as brassicas and tomatoes.
Hi,I had same situation,I think the problem is to much input, doing. Time is fundamental for a good outcome,the plants themselves make the miracle. Covering is the best beneficial advice I can get you.
All of my heavily mulched no dig areas in my food forest really hit stride about 3 years in. First year was definitely poor, second was drastically improved, and last year was unbelievable. I have very high hopes for the continued improvement of my soil.
Yeah, it will be interesting to see how the soil has changed over the years. I found the difference between the courgette and the squash to be strange. Very similar plants, in the same part of the garden, but quite different growth responses to the soil.
It certainly seems no dig improves year after year with the soil continually improving and getting easier to work with etc. Enjoyed this video and great brassicas.
Yea mate your right doing a much bigger load would help but I think watching this video I hope you have lot on this subject more information on this subject are needed and this is a excellent learning video for us on what to do if you just don't have huge amounts of resources in the beginning thank you for your time and efforts in helping all of gardeners/farmers and having some real experiments I be sure to look out for more of your videos
Someting you could do, is buy this year next years compost as well, and just leave it in a pile decomposing for next year. This way you could get a head start.
In a way, I think that is what has been happening with this garden, storing the compost on the surface of the bed, and for use in future Yeats. Of course a well managed pile might allow a more decomposition, but spread out on the bed of the garden it could also be feeding the soil biology.
I have deep raised beds that I didn’t place a barrier in. I filled half the beds with fugus infested old firewood and leaves/wood chips. The rest was chicken manure and topsoil from my yard and more wood chips. I planted chitted pantry potatoes just to have a green manure if nothing else. I also add rabbit manure as a top dressing. If I get to harvest potatoes, that’s great. But the other bed has already produced loads of lettuce and spinach. I have squash, zucchini, and eggplants growing after pulling up the lettuce (and digging the scraps back in or feeding to the rabbits). I know there are worms in the beds because I put them there haha. It’s so much fun gardening!
Your progress is coming along. I am starting similar gardens this year on turf areas, but I'll be tilling first and adding perennial flowers and fruit trees so there is live root at all times.
@@BlackJesus8463 It does make some sense to me. We need to get rid of the existing vegetation so that the crops will grow. But it is also good to have roots of thriving plains int he soil as much as possible as many of them apparently exude more sugars/carbon into the soil around them. A way to build soil from the roots outward. I am not sure about trees, as I have had issues with them being very invasive, but perhaps not fruit trees which tend to be on less vigorous rootstock. My tendency to leave soil bare for a lot of the season is probably a wasted opportunity.
Over here in Cape Town, South Africa I have Kikuyu grass that is tough so I have to dig it out. I put in concrete barriers to try and stop it invading my veggie patches, but it finds a way through. I am doing experiments to curb it's growth and eventually I will go no dig when I get rid of this grass. I also try to have a water smart garden as we almost ran out 3 years ago.
I am here to save your day from Hawaii. We have some very fast growing tough grasses here too. I ran an experiment after many years of pondering different ideas. I cut the grass down as low as I could and piled its foliage right on top base, I proceeded to stack leaves, grass cuttings, cardboard, and even some kitchen waste mixed in to break things down faster. I took a 5 gallon bucket and filled it with the fastest growing weeds on my property, filled the bucket with water, then covered the bucket with a piece of ply wood. After 5 weeks of the bucket fermenting the weeds I removed the plywood cover and kicked the bucket over onto the pile covering the grass stumps. After a few months the wild chickens went to town and demolished the pile so my experiment didn't get to run as long as I intended but it didn't matter, the grass was dead and it's biomass was now feeding the soil. The thousands of seeds in the soil didn't sprout, only a few Papaya seeds from my kitchen scraps sprouted. I'll keep using this method and revising it but it's a two fold plan of eliminating the pest grass and it's seeds while also beginning to prepare the soil for a planting area. Good luck.
I had a similar experience with my first no-dig beds in my six year old garden - they seemed to take a long time to really get productive. With subsequent beds I've switched to a "dig a lot, then stop digging" method. The first year I dig 4-6" of compost into the soil in the spring, then top-dress with an inch or two of compost each fall, and mulch with shredded cardboard. I went back and dug in the original un-dug beds just once, and they seem to have improved significantly. I've now got ten good sized beds, and the oldest ones do seem noticeably more healthy and productive. Since all beds have all been treated nearly the same way, though, it's hard to draw any clear conclusions. As always, thanks for sharing, Bruce.
Most of us are fighting hard clay soil. Bringing in finished compost "fluffs" the soil if nothing else gives the plant roots more depth to grow before they hit the hard pan. I have had excellent results with adding sand to my gardens. The soil in the gardens with sand added stay raised above the original undisturbed ground level permanently and never really packs back down. I use the late fall and warm winter days to cover the gardens with manure, leaves, or a mix. Straight manure only on the early spring gardens where the cold weather crops go, leafs take a bit longer to break down, so that is where your melons, peppers, and tomatoes would be planted into.
We started a community garden filling the beds with 50/50 compost and loam. There is no microbiome in that newly delivered truckload of soil. We headed to amend heavily with organic fertilizers through the first season and half way into the second when the microbiome was starting to gel. It's critically important in developing the microbiome quickly was that the soil was never left bare or unplanted. That's a critical component in getting the soil fertile quickly.
I definitely think doing one initial dig with the no-dig bed would make a difference. It gives you an opportunity to incorporate a lot of organic matter and microbes deeper in the soil where the roots actually are growng. This may explain the differences you see with no-dig vs dug beds.
I think I agree with you. Perhaps a better way is to do a mulch for the first period, not necessarily a year, to kill off as much of the existing vegetation as possible, and then to dig, and incorporate all the decomposed mulch. And then revert to no-dig after that.
My first year I dug manure into one bed and layered the same amount of rotted manure onto another bed (about 3-4 inches, ). At the end of the season both cropped as well as each other. However, the no dig bed was so much easier to manage, weeding was so much easier and quicker, especially perennial weeds which you could easily pull the root system out in one piece. This swayed me into no dig. I have had better results in subsequent years adding the same amount of manure each year and very few weeds each year (I weed when the weeds are still small), This is my fourth year no dig and I am now trying out reducing the manure down to about an inch to two inches maximum. My logic was I assumed the allotment that I took on would be impoverished. I wanted to build the fertility up before reducing the amount of manure added. The next thing that I want to find out is what is the minimum amount of manure that I need to add to maintain the fertility.
Sounds like a great system for you. Easy and productive are always things to go for. It will be interesting to see how little is needed to be added each year, once you have front loaded the fertility enough.
If it’s a high carbon to nitrogen ratio that’s your problem inoculate the soil with fungi. You’ll see a huge difference. And when you pull your plants you’ll see what I mean, the roots will be covered in mycelium. Another thing to check is pH. A lot of that municipal compost is very low pH cause of all the leylandii hedging that is used to make it. Low pH inhibits nitrogen fixing bacteria & fungi from breaking down the carbon.
Yes! For woody composts you can go to the forest and gather mushrooms that grow on wood and toss them into your compost piles. For straw use pasture mushrooms. The results are exceptional!
Spot on. I have had all the same issues you mention here, especially not enough compost and not enough good quality compost. I always wondered why Charles Dowding managed to crow such good crops within a year of starting a no-dig garden, and have come to the conclusion that apart from not spreading enough compost, the most important factor seems to be that his compost is just of a much higher quality than mine, which is primarily municipal compost with a bit of my own. He has composted cow and horse manure, brewery grains plus an abundance of his own very good quality garden compost. I have learned much from your videos and appreciate your taking the time to share all your knowledge with us. It was only after your other videos about your experiences with municipal compost that I started getting an idea of why my garden seems to be so underperforming.
Charles Dowding uses tons of manure which is an excellent fertilizer. Calling it just “compost” is misleading imo. For me the biggest advantage of no-dig is that it saves the back breaking job of digging over the beds, which makes it a very substantial benefit for all but the smallest gardens. I have no problems sprinkling some mineral fertilizer to boost production if needed.
I suspect that Charles was starting out with better compost, as you mention, but also had better topsoil. I think Richard Perkins had problems a few years ago.I thank he planned for a layer of good compost spread evenly under a thicker layer of lower quality compost. But the good compost ended up concentrated in some places and not others, and caused a real uneven growth for at least the first year, and added a lot of work with added fertility.
@@REDGardens Charles Dowding did start out with mostly well-rotted cow manure, the crème de la crème of composts. I think he also brings in horse manure from a local stable regularly. He also buys in municipal and mushroom compost for comparisons and trials. If I recall correctly, Perkins' low quality compost was a fresh wood-based one that he bought locally as a last resort. The quality of compost really matters in this method!
I have tried the straw mulch method and in our area it encourages voles. They are harmless to some veggies like tomatoes but wipe out many full rows if they like what is growing there and they do like a lot of crops..
I personally think that the best garden amendment is wood chips or mulch. They break down to amazing soil. Protect from weeds. Slowly feed plants. Provide habitat for worms. Retains moisture. Cover your no dig with wood chips then add wood chips yearly. At planting add a bit of compost to the planting hole or trench. Once the microbiology starts working the wood chips start breaking down super fast.
Great video. One question. You said you added about 17.5 cm of compost to the nog dig garden. But how much compost did you add over the years on for instance the intensive garden? Or was that a different mix?
It was a bit of a different mix, but I added about the same, perhaps a bot more to some of the intensive beds. I was login to talk about that in the video but there was already too much in it, and will probably talk include it in a future video about the Intensive Garden.
My main trouble with 'no dig' is that I can't stop the other residents digging. First year having put in new sides etc to my previous veg garden, I added well rotted cow muck and municipal green waste. Knowing my source of manure, I wanted to cover the imported weed seeds. Thistle down and stinging nettle is blown from surrounding grazing land. I planted sweet corn seedlings and next day, 2 tunnels were started by baby rabbits. They had reached the soil/stone layer and distribited a debris field across my raised beds and the walk ways. I retrieved the seedlings and replanted. Chicken wire across attached to the old farm gates has dissuaded the rabbits' spring spread from the grazing land since then. The next set of diggers are voles which establish a network of tunnels under the compost surface. I believe they are after the worms so are evidence of good soil condition. However they can bring up buried weed seed. The next resident is my new Collie. She can smell the voles and makes big holes to find them. She wreck what promised to be an excellent crop of parsnips, uprooting or burying the seedlings in August! Surviving parsnips are good, but I lost 75%! 😅 No dig is very good for parsnips. No soil prep just sow a lot and you will get sufficient unforked as you haven't formed an interface.
so if the benefit of no dig is connection to fungi, would it make sense to do a "half dig" test? dig a narrow line to better incorporate organic fertilizers, but leave parts of the ground undisturbed near the row. I would think once the roots are 10+ cms long they would be able to benefit from no dig, in the meanwhile having in-furrow / starter fertilizer benefits? The fungi would have an easier time to regrow horizontally to the soil parts that were disturbed for planting/fertilizing.
No dig is better for our backs. Maybe start with soil tests and then make necessary amendments can be the best. Digging kill microorganisms in the soil. Thank you for the video
It will be interesting to see what the tests begin back, I was just packing the samples this evening. Not killing the soil organisms is one of potential benefits of no-dig, but if it si a benefit, then I am still wondering how that benefit would show up in the garden?
Our house was built in a community on an old cow pasture, that was completely fill, and underneath the fill was compacted clay and hard pan. Landscaping had been put in, one plant at a time, and the surrounding soil was the same orange clay that was present in the rest of the yard. A shovel full of earth revealed that the orange clay that did not dislodge from the shovel. Would have been great for making bricks. In order to have a garden, only shrubs and flowers, I had to dig out and replace the junk soil. At first I did it in small patches, but quickly discovered that nothing really thrived. So, then I would just focus on an entire bed, and plan on digging out the whole thing, all around the existing bushes. It was costly to replace with good soil, but doing so every year, and mulching for the beastly southern summers, allowed a good ten to twelve inches of good soil to accumulate on top over time. It ended up looking like raised beds, really, and I held the soil back with small retaining walls, which looked nice against the plants. This process took years, but was worth it. I still add compost to each established plant most years and feed them because of what lies underneath it all. For the past three years I have used cardboard as a weed barrier, cheap and highly efficient, covering it with mulch so it looks ok. I accumulate it over the winter, cutting it up into usable pieces. Weeds are relentless, and this allows no spraying with chemicals.
I have just started no dig so I am very much an armchair critic at this point and would welcome feedback. My understanding is that the lack of preparation is almost a side benefit as the real benefit is to encourage and protect the myccorhizal networks that help liberate the necessary nutrients already present in the soil but just not in a form plant roots can access. Leaving roots systems where possible after harvest and adding an annual mulch is all about creating optimum conditions for these networks to develop. Covering the entire bed with vegetation increases the number of root systems that networks build around and using nitrogen-fixing cover crops would not deplete the fertility of the soil. This also has the benefit of shading the soil preventing it drying out as quickly. Your soil samples you show in this video appear to be lacking the mycorrhizal filaments. If this is the case, would this be a reason for the unexpected lack of benefit?
Good question. You describe what I have understood, and the theory make sense to me. But I haven't seen the potential benefit, and I really don't know the why, but I think there are two broad possible answers. First is that I am doing it wrong. There is something missing in my particular setup or method. It is possible that the compost is just so poor it takes that long to get going, and I am still in the delay period. It could be that I don't keep the ground filled with as many plant roots as I can, but then that is more of a plant root thing, rather than a no-dig thing. Or the biology isn't there yet, and somehow, with all the years I have been managing this garden without tilling, and with all the different types of material I have added, the spores of the mycorrhizal fungi haven't made it into the soil, and I need to inoculate it. Or there could be some other issue that is preventing this benefit. Any of these could be the case, but they all call into question the idea being promoted that all you need to do is not dig and cover with compost and grow plants and everything will be great. Perhaps the story is more complex, or requires a more nuanced and context specific method, and my site is is one of the ones that is more difficult to develop for some reason. The other possible answer is that the benefit is over exaggerated, or is not universally available. I have no doubt that mycorrhizal networks exist and can really help, but perhaps that assistance is much less than promoted. Or they are simply less effective in the context of good quality topsoil that is rich in organic matter, such as what I have. The benefit of mycorrhizal filaments may be greatest in poor and degraded soils, where the benefit to the plants in getting nutrients is greatest, and they are therefore much more willing to provide sugars to the fungi (essentially a fee or commission to an agent for finding something that is scarce). If those nutrients are in relative abundance then the symbiotic relationships with the fungi may be less valuable or necessary (why pay a fee to an agent when you can easily get it yourself?). Apparently, this is the case with nitrogen fixing bacteria. If there is a fair amount of nitrogen in the soil that the plants can get access to, then the nodules of nitrogen fixing bacteria won't form on the roots of the pea and similar plants. Feeding the bacteria sugars is an expensive way for the plant to get nitrogen, if it is already easily available in the soil solution. I think there are things that I could be doing to improve my method, according to the first answer. But I suspect that second answer is more relevant here. Or, I suspect that the benefits are there, if the garden I have managed as no-dig, is compared to a garden that was rototilled several times a year, without any compost added, was left empty for a lot of the season, and relied on soluble fertilisers and various herbicides, pesticides, or fungicides (essentially what we know as conventional farming). I have no doubt there would be a huge difference when compared to that essentially dead soil. But I am comparing this garden to another garden right beside it, which has lots of organic matter, same amount of plant cover, etc. The only difference is that we gently dig over the soil once a season to incorporate the compost. And perhaps, what I am seeing is that the relative benefit is much less compared to this slightly dug version, so any no-dig benefit is much reduced and harder to really see. Apparently (according to several other comments on this video) Dowding has said there is very little difference between his dug and no-dig beds which he has been trialing for quite a few years, and the real benefit of no-dig is not putting in the work to dig. Essentially he seems to be saying 'why dig if you don't have to', rather than talking about the additional benefit of no-dig to the soil biology, and to the crops. If this is the case than I think it reflects the idea the benefit of no-dig to the soil and the plants is relatively small if all other aspects of the soil are good. But if the soil is poor, then digging, and especially destructive tilling, disrupts the essential lifeline that the plants need to thrive. So, long answer (but it did help me to work through some thoughts) to say that perhaps the mycorrhizal networks are not in my soil, because they are not needed, and the cost to the plant of this potentially symbiotic relationship is not worth it.
@@REDGardens all useful thoughts and as a novice gardener I have no personal insights or experience that are likely to help. My sources are are all UA-cam-based so all I can do is consider their input. Dowding had put out a video recently that states he does get more out of his no dig bed by about 20%. I also watched the No Till Growers video on soil health just after yours which seemed pretty helpful. I feel your disappointment though in not reaping the benefits of all that mulching!
@@richardbergson1047 I think there is a lot of benefit from all of that mulch/compost, as it is easier to weed and I think warms up more in the soil. And not digging is easier. I think the issue I have is that there is also a benefit in the other gardens with digging it in, a different benefit, that also grows good crops. I am interested in Dowding's results, and one thing that I suspect may be a factor that he isn't taking into consideration is the quality of the compost used in both. I know that he often uses not fully decomposed compost on the surface of the beds, as he figures it will continue to decompose there, which I agree with. The issue is if he is using that same quality of compost in the trial, and digging it in, there would be a risk of the material locking up some of the nitrogen in the soil, which could explain the reduced yield of the dug bed. The nitrogen would not be locked up in the same way in the no dig part of the trial.
are you using cover crops in the winter? Key in no-dig gardens as it protects soil during winter and is good for soil life. Great way of putting nitrogen back into the soil when you use mustard/Broad beans etc. I use grass clipping as a top mulch in summer to keep soil moist and to break down, not had any issues with slugs.
AFAIK, Charles Dowding rarely uses cover crops, so it's not required at least. He adds a new layer of compost in autumn/winter, and he does grow some overwintering crops, but not a lot.
Over the years I've been growing food (both for myself and professionally) I've found that all claims of "This method of gardening is The Best!" are a case of "yes... but..." No-dig is good... but it does require an initial investment in inputs and time that makes it quite expensive. And in a wetter climate it can become a slug heaven. The cost is somewhat mitigated by the reduction in labour needed. The intensive method is also good... but it requires an initial investment of heavy digging that is either expensive or backbreaking, depending on if you DIY or hire out. This is offset by not needing to buy so much compost initially. The Ruth Stout method (and other deep mulch methods) is good... but when they get hit with slugs or perennial weeds they can be a pain (couch grass don't give a fudge about your mulch...). There is also a definite need to quality control the mulch material because most of them can be contaminated by pesticides and weed-killers. Hay and straw are especially bad, while chipped branches are the safest. No method is a silver bullet for all situations.
Well said. I use all of the methods but in different areas of my property. Some smaller patches and some bigger, so that I can grow plants according to which method they are happiest in.
I find myself saying something similar to "yes ... but" quite often, usually to highlight possible differences in context, as your examples illustrate.
Thanks for a a very helpful and thought provoking video Bruce. I use the No-dig method extensively on both my allotments in north east Scotland and have three large one cubic metre bins to supply my compost. I’m beginning to rethink using wood chips in making compost after watching your video as it slows down the release of nutrients and also robs the soil of nitrogen. I had planned to sprinkle chicken poop pellets but will now increase the amount slightly.
I have heard mixed things about woodchip in compost. I think if compost that is high in woodchip is added to the surface, then it should be fine, so long as there is plenty of fertility underneath to keep the garden growing strong until the next batch has time to decompose a lot more.
@@martincrabtree6704 I think it doesn't rob nitrogen if placed on the surface, but if it is dug in, then there can be more competition for available nitrogen.
@@michaelmcclafferty3346 I can get plenty of locally sourced manure, so mix that in with a bit of woodchip, everything else from the household waste and straw too. I think the variation in ingredients and ratio of them is the key to good compost. I have a feeling that compost rich in woodchip might be good for carrots too. You need to keep your eye on the PH levels too, but that's easy.
900 euro? That hurts. My county in South Carolina, US has certified organic compost for $11 USD per ton. I bought 7 tons for 16 raised beds, 6 inches deep. But if I was in your situation, I would’ve paid for it too lol. Gotta do what you gotta do.
@smart viewer whoa! That’s horrible. But I know that happens ALOT so I did research so I wouldn’t get trash with it. Hope you sourced better compost since!
Great info as usual. I noticed you haven’t tried or mention compost teas into your arsenal of techniques. Verimiheavy compost tea will do wonders to low quality compost and also help break down any woody material quicker. I’m sure you have large water containers, just need to purchase a high quality pump (areomixer) and skip the air stones.
You could try run some experiments about the health of the plants that grow in your various mediums by sprouting/planting in some pots. In that way you eliminate some of the variables you deal with, such as polyculture vs monoculture vs plant density. Plus, not all plants like each other, so, that's a big ??? Also, if you think you're low on nitrogen and don't think your nitrogen fixers are doing a good enough job, you could go to your nearest coffee shop and ask them for the spent coffee grounds. I spread mine on top of the wood chips layer I spread 2 years ago - the first rain will work those in. Works like a charm.
I use to get all the grounds from the local coffee shop (the only one in the area) but then the owner was inspired by my videos to start growing their own food, and now that option is not available. But there are plenty of options for getting nitrogen.
Vital to add a dampening of water between layers to speed up the process if you have it or layer after a rain if possible. Looked like you were pouring that compost over dry soil.
I noticed the same thing with my bought in compost. It seemded like it's just some black ground that realy doesn't do anything. After 2 years the layer is still around the same depth as when I put it there. But when I use homemade compost it disepears like snow before the sun. (But I also get a lot of weeds then) 😅
If you are going to keep bringing in the lower quality compost then one cheaper way to amend the soil further is to plant a nitrogen fixing cover crop in the fall and then cover with cardboard + compost in the spring to kill the crop and release the nitrogen over the season. If you want a little bit faster of a boost you can mow and then cover with cardboard.
I wonder how much nitrogen can be fixed by an overwintering crop like that. I suspect that most of the nitrogen is fixed during the really active growth of the spring and summer, but I haven't been able to get any info about how much, if any, is fixed by the biological process when the soil is cool. Apparently N fixation increases when soil temperatures increase, and the whole process is fed by sunlight, which we eat very little of in the winter. No doubt there is some extra nitrogen supplied, but I suspect it is very little.
@@REDGardens Yes and no. If you are waiting for your squash to die back late in the season before sowing the cover crop then your production will be poor, but there are opportunities to sow much earlier. Perpetual harvest crops like kale tend to leave open soil for sowing months before frost when the soil is warm, the same with well pruned tomatoes, and warm season transplants (squash) will leave growing time before you need to put them in. Another option is to alternate rows of crops with early producers pulled and seeded to cover in between heavy feeders (nodulation is semi-proportional to nitrogen deficiency so you actually stimulate more fixation this way). Alternatively if you seed clover in with kale in August, and then plant your latest crop in the spring into that bed you can get 6-8 months with the clover in the ground and 2-3 months of strong growing conditions. Clover has been shown to fix ~ 8-10 grams of N per sqm in a season which is as much as you amended with over several years and Austrian winter pea at 15-16 g/sqm. There are other, more labor intensive, options as well, which include slowly smothering the cover crops as your larger plants (squash) expand, which maximizes your photosynthesis while the squash plants are still young and builds a natural gradient of N release.
@@baconbits9 Definitely want to try growing more cover crops and nitrogen fixers. It owed be really interesting to compare the different possibilities, and additional benefits of these undersown cover crops to the use of purchased amendments. I just bought a bag of organic, plant based nitrogen source (processed from waste of another industry), and enough to add 10g/m2 for the whole 100m2 garden would be about €10. If I went to the local farm supply, that amount of nitrogen would be less than €2. There are issues with both of these of course, but it highlights how cheap nitrogen can be to get.
@@REDGardens True for just the price of nitrogen, but cover crops will also be mulching your soil and keeping it moist, building carbon, feeding the soil biology and providing habitat for beneficial insects.
I think the biggest factor, when starting a no dig garden on let's say a pasture ... is the quality of that pasture to begin with. If it's great pasture, then you're going to take a hit in the first season, when you're killing off the grass, but, after that, a no dig garden should start firing on all cylinders, with minimal compost on top. After all, the fertility is there, in the soil, already. If it's poor pasture, and you don't have massive amounts of compost (to basically grow IN COMPOST while the soil is slowly improving), well, then you have to build it up. That takes a long time. Starting no dig is probably not worth it, it's probably better to till it, add fertilizer to be able to grow things from year one, and then transition to no dig over time. An alternative way to add fertility is cover crops. In this case, the price you're paying is time, rather than money spent on compost.
Well, some farmers are switching to it now, with good results. Tilling on that scale is causing a loss of topsoil to erosion on a scale that's hard to even comprehend. We're losing millions of tons to arable soil per year.
That is a good question. I think at a small scale its is possible to convert that kind of heavy grass cover to a vegetable garden with a no-dig system. But it doesn't make sense at a large scale lie the prairies are, at least not for initially establishing the ground.
Oh, we cannot forget the devastating "Dust Bowl" that plow caused in the 1930s. Western Nebraska and formerly meters deep deep bison manure top soils are now eroded stone and called the " badlands".
You're doing great my friend 👍 Your suspicion on the municipal compost is correct due to it only going through 1st stage of decomposition without the natural process of worms working the matter throughout break down process itself. Furthermore I'd like to add that using the no-dig system keep in mind the vital thing required is to get mycorrhizal network established, this is extremely important because it transmits communication between plants and also acts as a neuro network enabling proper gene expression within the plants themselves. A good way to get the mycorrhizal network going is to use a base foundation of only spent hay and manure top dressing , leaving it to establish naturally and also a great environment that worms themselves shall thrive in too. Prior to any planting gently turn once and check ammonia content, if ammonia is still present throw a cover crop of any sprouts and beans etc to get nitrogen in as another additive that brings the whole lot to a very stable compound mix, don't stake anything just let it grow cover wild, next cover the cover crop its with a few inches of soil that is of good quality and start planting out whatever you desire. Each step in sequence is vital and does take time and most importantly throughout the process focus on retaining the worms as they do most of the heavy lifting we would say to balance everything correctly! Other than that you've done exceptionally well getting the biomass to come to life non chemically adding,that which in itself only overdoses and puts the balance out of kilter! I hope you read this and take a few gems I've put in for you out and thrive my dear friend thrive👍❤️
I'm just using shredded leaves and grass clippings for mulch. I started with tilled up soil first year as it was hard clay. After tilling I spread 50 lbs of alfalfa pellets then a layer of cardboard. Next I added what little compost I was able to make. I added a layer of decomposed wood from the forest behind my house also about a half inch thick. I then added a thin layer of leaf mold and topped off with leaves and grass clippings. I have acquired a whole lot more leaf mold over the winter from the forest. Come spring I'm gonna add a good later of it and the compost I have finishing over winter. After my plants are established well I'm gonna add another layer of shredded leaves and grass clippings. I don't think I'm gonna compost any this year except for kitchen scraps. I'm just going to add all my organic matter straight to the gardens. My girlfriend asked me the other day how mu mulch and stuff I needed for the gardens and I told her always more. Never enough. I'm also saving urine to dilute for soluble fertilizer. This will only be my second year gardening but I'm throwing everything in there and hoping for good results. I figure if I just keep adding organic matter nature will take care of the rest. I have unlimited leaf mold behind my house. You can gather as much as you want if you're willing to put in the effort. Ok. Just realized I'd written a novel.
I'm not convinced with the whole dig method yet. Ive tried it on my own veg patched with little to no benefits, last year i dug the bed and got greater yield than the year before mainly i think because the compost was better mixed in to the ground and relieved the compaction that i was getting. I think what you're getting with no dig is effectively what you get with a raised bed and filling it with compost or planting something in a pot.
Thank you. I have often wondered how far down the benefits of the compost travels over time. I have deep birdie-raised beds, so it was basically all compost, however, I wonder how you feel about composts such as 6X for an annual boost? Or maybe just for a mulch around plants or in plant holes. It would mean a lot of buying for your garden, but I wonder what you think about the product in general as mine is a relatively new growing space where the soil was pretty poor in 2020. Thanks again!
If you import compost, make sure there are no fungicides and such from the producer. This will inhibit your fungal to plant symbiotic relationship and result in poor nutrient transfer between species such as nitrogen fixers and heavy feeders.
Have you tried a water infiltration test on the different beds? I would love to know if the capacity for absorbing pulses of rain (and avoiding runoff) varies significantly in the family scale plots.
I have to say, that Municipal Compost issue has been troublesome for some time now. I wonder, is it worth it to most $ to rent, and source it some distance away if needed, and rent a truck and drive to go get it? Sure it's a challenge, more time consuming, etc, but, maybe it's time to find a nice strong intern, and teach the value of proper shovel technique? (Kidding... or am I?) Still, finding a better compost source seems like a big priority?
If Municipal Compost is at a good price then yes, bring it in but not as an amendment, use it as a compost material for next years amendment and you will see much better results from it.
@@charlespalmer3595 I texted back a while ago, about the same concept... if you can afford to find a way to get compost started in bulk, a year in advance. It's a tall task tho, as RED Gardens tends to need so much compost yearly. Maybe using the muni compost, but heavily amending it as a starter
To be honest, No-Dig seems to be a fad similar to biochar and I'm sceptical to whether it actually has any benefits or if it's placebo for the grower. You seem to be the only one checking to see if it's actually beneficial with data and I'm looking forward to see more of these videos. Thanks!
Yeah, it does seem to be a very popular method, with a lot of enthusiastic supporters, and that does cause me to be a bit more sceptical. I do think there are define benefits to the method, especially with the reduction in annual weed seeds, but only if you can get enough good quality compost. I did expect to see a greater difference in the no-dig garden, compared to the dug garden beside it, but haven’t observed that yet.
@@REDGardens may I ask if you have a background in a field like engineering, medicine, statistics or similar where doing controlled trials was part of it? I really appreciate your videos!
@@kvikende I was educated as an architect, then worked doing digital Architectural visualisations, and then worked in environmental/social policy development, so nothing with controlled experiments. But I have come to better understand science and controlled testing through my explorations in the gardens.
¿Qué tal si agregas a no dig, las técnicas biológicas de KNF y JADAM, antes de comenzar una nueva entrega? En lugar de comenzar ya una nueva parcela con el método de lasaña, plante algún cultivo anual, como maíz, guisantes o alguna otra planta que tenga raíces muy fuertes y profundas, de modo que produzca materia orgánica por encima y por debajo del suelo. Pero antes de que las raíces rompan la compactación del suelo, ya habrías comenzado con los preparados JADAM, como JMS, que tiene la función de dejar el suelo blando.
I think i saw some drip spikes on one of your videos that appeared to be hollow with the water coming out of the bottom, If so, what make are these and where can I source them? Thanks
I've been using green waste compost from the local council for 6 or 7 years now and never seem to get the results I hope for in my no dig veg beds . it is however free to collect. I used it thinking that it would be weed and disease free. now I am trying to produce all my compost from within my own garden. roughly one third is used for growing vegetables and the remaining two thirds flower beds lawn rough areas and hedges along with kitchen waste provide material for the compost heaps all of which are put on the no dig veg beds. For me it makes economic sense to use a smaller growing area and make all my own compost rather than buying in increasingly expensive compost. .
Wondering if modern common foodcrops are just way too nitrogen hungry than what most natural soils can accomodate for, and if by going with more heirloom vegetable varieties you reduce your need to supplement N in the soil
No-till relies on growing plants in basically compost. Add a 6-8 inch layer of compost, plant into it, the plants almost never need to go beyond that into the native soil. And if they do, the top 3-4 inches of native soil will be improved as well via bugs carrying carbon deeper down. So you have 9-12 inches of good quality soil that there's really no reason to disturb. The catch is , you have to keep topping it off, or that 6-8 inch layer of compost will slowly shrink down, and you're back to growing in native soil. Cost-wise , it doesn't make a lot of sense to me, unless you can produce your own compost.
I would think keeping a crop in the ground at all times should mitigate the CO2 released to the air by decomposition, and planting starts in pockets of good compost should help balance the nutrients available to the plants even in less well broken down compost material, as the organisms present in the high quality compost need more things to eat if they are to continue to do their jobs.
You could have put more compost in just part of the garden, a test bed. There is so much data you are collecting, so not sure if more complexity is feasible though..
Please allow me to tell my story. I'm certainly not going to suggest you that it's the best and at the end I will tell you about the drawbacks. I have lived on this land for a very very long time and it's about the time of my life when I Shall Perish. So over all those many years I have to huge Corrales one I will refer to as the bullpen which is about 400 ft long and about 150 ft wide. The one on top is called the pigpen and it is about 150 ft wide and 150 ft long. In the bullpen is where I grow my garden and I till it up every year I believe no-dig is really the way to go but this is how I've always done. So in the winter for the Bulls get fed in there obviously and they have straw for bedding and hay that gets spread around and their manure. It gets worked in in the spring. Then the garden is growing and harvested then the pigs are let in from the pigpen to clean up all the everything from the plants. Leaving their manure behind as well now I get very good Gardens and very good crops out of this and I have a good amount of earthworms and other little creatures so I have a diversity of Life under there but I'm sure it would be much better if it was no till which I have tried up in the pigpen at times and had the pigs in a different area but I found it very labor-intensive especially if you have physical problems such as I do. Since I am growing for myself and my family I don't have to worry about a lot of production but this seems to work very well I use my manure from the barn and the chicken coop to supplement under my fruit trees and my berry bushes. Oh my garden does not get any of this good decomposed organic matter. Throughout the year I grow fall Rye in between the rows and then I work that in as well so that adds organic matter to the soil. Now here's the part you don't want to hear sometimes I will get scabby potatoes and Harry carrots and let us not forget the constant and never-ending fight with weeds. But since this is a family operation and not a commercial one I can get by with these things but maybe people that live in very hard Rock Island or in very hard Rocky clay might like to try this it has worked for me. In any case enjoy your life and keep gardening because I adds to the enjoyment of your life
Thank you for sharing your story. It is always interesting to hear what other people do to grow food, and the cycles they develop that make sense in their context. Lovely.
Hm... when I watch Charles show of his garden, he always shows the two beds where he compares dig to no dig. And the dug bed is always pretty identical to the no dig bed. As far as I understood, no dig has the benefit of not needing to dig, but otherwise I wouldn't expect better results if dug begs are kept to the same fertility etc.
There are a lot of people who mention the benefit to the soil organisms as being a key reason for not digging, and that this will benefit the plants. And I am trying to explore that possibility.
What plant can you grow that is tall .?that has deep roots like Maize? Grow what ever that is to add roots deep organic material. Or fall plant dakion radish.
I've been wondering how large amounts of mushroom compost might work for starting no dig. It's imperfect, but it's far cheaper, and probably would do better initially than municipal waste which still has some decomposing to do. Perhaps with additions such as pellets and seaweed it might be a less expensive option for setup.
I think it would work. I got my hands on a bot of mushroom compost for the grow bag trials last year and I was reasonably impressed at the results from it, but I did ad some general purpose fertility.
Something I can’t get my head around is how organic matter and carbon content creates soil structure and desirable black soil, but at the same time locks up nitrogen? How do you build soil if having too much organic matter locks up nitrogen? Likewise, doesn’t having excess nitrogen deplete top soil? When organic matter has fully decayed does that mean there is no carbon left, and only nitrogen and other nutrients? If that’s the case then how do you build topsoil without locking up nitrogen? There must be some kind of balance where both are able to accumulate.
Good questions. I have similar queries. The way I am beginning to think about it is that carbon is never by itself in the soil, always combined with many of the different elements. With Nitrogen, there seems to be a pairing that naturally pulls towards a Carbon to nitrogen ratio of about 10:1, 10 parts carbon for every 1 part of nitrogen, which seems to be the proportion of a lot of living things, including soil organisms, and many parts of the vegetable plants we grow. If there is too much carbon, including if we dig woodchip into the soil, then additional nitrogen will be puled out of the soil solution, where it will be used until the material has decomposed to closer to that 10:1 ration. This basically means more nitrogen and/or more time for the excess carbon to be consumed and off gassed. If we add too much nitrogen to the soil, it seems that a different process happens, where the excess nitrogen can be used by other organisms to deplete the carbon, or 'burn it off'. And as you say, when the carbon is fully consumed, then all the other nutrients that it was combined with is will be released into the soil to be absorbed by plants, soil organisms, or lost to leaching. It seems that you cannot build soil this way, without also locking up nitrogen, and the other nutrients. And it does seem that the balance you mention is key.
Looking at Charles Dowding's website. After 10 years (2013-2022) There is only about a 15% difference in total harvest. And he has a nice bar chart that to my eye doesn't show any significant break out in performance until 2017, year 5. And even then, in 2021 it wasn't so far apart. So maybe you are close to transitioning, assuming your old methods didnt contribute much before changing styles. Still In his last video I saw on the topic. He says the yields arn't that different, but it's the labor saving that really makes it worth it. I also wonder if he's only using his "high quality compost" for the trial bed. That 15% is also diluted by the early years, it's more like 25% in the latest year. Still, this isn't the first time i've heard, or expressed, that it takes 5 years for soil microbiology to recover from disturbances. At 4:40, the no dig bed is much darker as you say, and while it may just be my screen, the Intensive and Polyculture look most dark of the others, Extensive next and Simple last. That does seem to follow a pattern of more plants = more soil. There are so many other differences in management, but it's what i see.
I have also been following Charles' side by side trials with interest. There seems to be a bit of a benefit to the no-dig, but not much, and I wonder if he is digging in the usual compost that he applies. I think he makes it with a lot of woody material, and if that is being dug in without being fully composted, I can imagine some of the nitrogen in the soil would be locked up, which could explain the slightly lower yields. Or there could be something else. If the main or primary benefit of using a no-dig method is the labour saving, that is fine. But why do so many people (including other growers) talk about how it is better for the soil biology, which will then be better for the plants? It makes sense that there should be a benefit to the actual cropping, apart from the labour issue, but if Charles' hasn't seen a significant difference, and I haven't seen much that I can point to as evidence of this benefit, I wonder what is going on. Yes, the soil samples of the Extensive and Simple gardens are significantly lighter, but I suspect it is mainly because a lot less compost or organic matter is added to those gardens, so the soil organic matter doesn't build up in the same way.
@@REDGardens I think part of it comes down to each persons definition of "significant." 10-20% more yield matters, but it's not a doubling some people may hope for. Strangely enough he just did an interview on "Mitch Grows" channel that was posted yesterday and pushed to my feed. He reiterates the 10% number. But when they go to the beds late in the video and talk about it, he says 20%. he says the two beds were planted with "the same plants" now that probably means species, but what it got into my mind was a question of density. You can try and force more growth onto an equal number of plants, but you can also support more plants maybe? I think his compost is fairly woody, as he buys in green waste compost much like you that has a fair bit of decompositioning to do. He digs it in using a trench method. So it should be binding like you say. He mentioned that a researcher is doing soil test and found that his carbon levels are higher in the no dig bed. Since he adds the same, and harvests a little more, the other bed must be loosing a lot as CO2 to the air. Seems like there is an incorporation issue where disturbed soil off gasses. Another thought, and looking at his chart seems to hold. Is that the no dig is more consistent year after year. He says "Two noticeable relative failures on the dig bed were onions and peas." And this just all brings to mind something, somebody said about heirloom seeds. those selected for your area were selected for taste and yield and the usual, But also consistency. In a subsistence farming situation, crop failure maters more than 1% better yield. your life literally depends on it. Others have talked about how good soil life reduces desires and pest issues, so that all seems to be in play. In the interview he also says something about Kale and even though the plants produce the same leaves, and they dont look bigger, they weigh more. If memory serves me correct, you made a similar observation about one of the (squash?) harvest, producing a lot per sqft but not per plant. I guess it would be weight per squash. Anyways, sorry for the long response.
@@REDGardensWhen making comparisons to your other gardens, I think it's worth remembering they are all effectively a form of high yield gardening. Except for the simple garden. So just keeping up with them is noteworthy
Municipal compost here is made up of mostly branches and leaf matter and has very little nitrogen. I've switched to conventional fertilizers for my potatoes
What about adding a green manure into the equation? I've started to use Facelia which seems to be beneficial "above and under" the soil thanks to its dense roots and nutritious green mass.
This spring will be my 6th year at no till. Except for thoughroully going through the soil to get at my sweet potatoes, it has not been mechanically disturbed. It has been progressively better each year, except this last fall. I tried the Ruth Stout method of deep cover using fresh hay and then pulling back the hay just enough to plant into the soil beneath. My fall crop was almost non existent. I know the hay producer, and there's not herbicide used at his farm, so I think it must be the decomposing fresh hay robbing nitrogen from my soil. Seems like what you do to the surface of the soil, can really effect the whole soil profile. Have you determined the same?
Afaik Fresh hay in deep layer can start fermentation and produce heat and toxic gas/substances (by toxic I mean that can’t be used by plants without further decay/ organic processes). Never heard of fresh hay. Sounds a fad. I have seen straw used as mulch for strawberries, but straw is spread when dry, not fresh, and it’s for protecting berries from being soiled.
Merci pour vos vidéos. Peut être miser plus sur l'argile qui retiens bien mieux l'eau et les nutriments ? Par de l'argile en poudre ou de la terre végétale ?
That first season if you're converting a weedy meadow or a monocrop like lawn or grain there isn't any vegetable garden friendly microbiome to speak of to preserve. At this point it's entirely appropriate to dig things up, to pull out all the rhizomial weeds and remove rocks and pull up anything else that you wouldn't want in a vegetable bed. There is video of Charles Dowding doing just that when he established a new bed. Yes, you are aerating and disturbing the soil and will activate weed seeds that perhaps wouldn't have germinated before. But only those in the first two inches are likely to germinate. And you're putting down layers of cardboard to warm and germinate those seeds while blocking the light so the resulting plant will die. It's important the cardboard be completely saturated with water and remain so in order to decompose into the soil. Otherwise it will become a barrier for air and water transfer, defeating the purpose of layering cardboard and compost. The idea of putting cheap less decomposed compost on top of the good stuff is brilliant. Any mulch that helps hold in the moisture is a good thing but if it's light colored in the spring you want to take it off so the soil will warm up sooner. That first season the deeper layer of compost you can put on top is better. That compost has to do a lot of work to transform the soil beneath. After that Charles Dowding puts on two and a half centimeters, about an inch, each fall to overwinter. That's it!
Yeah, I think there can be a real benefit from digging frost, and your points about the existing microbiome not being so friendly to vegetables is an interesting one.
I believe that "No dig" should not initially mean 'no preparation.' Here in the US PNW, we have really rocky soil (melon sized rocks.) If we don't remove the rocks at first, they become an impedance to the growth of root veggies and shallow rooted veggies. It was a big task at first as about half of the volume of my grow beds was rock! I dug down 12 inches (30cm) and got only 6 inches of soil after the rocks were removed. Clay soils can form a barrier to drainage so there are problems with root rot (and some plants don't like 'wet feet'.) My philosophy is to dig and prep the soil first: remove rock, break up compaction, adjust for drainage, and then go "No Dig!" I believe that worms and biology returned to my soil after the first year. I amend the top with compost and worm casting and mulch with wood chips and grass clippings. Spring is coming!!!
Also in pnw, the clay and the rocks are very difficult to get around especially if you're trying to get root veggies growing. hugelkultur is really successful imo. Technically no dig because it's a stack! Haha
Preparation, hmmm...Seems similar to all the work he did at the beginning, wiht his "lasagna method" of layering in the cardboard/compost, etc.
Yeah I'd say "minimal tillage" is the more accurate term. You're not planning on tilling much, but the one time activity is necessary for long time benefits
@@ardenthebibliophile I totally agree.
Sounds like you had a really tough site to start with. We have stones in the soil on this part of the site, but not so much of an issue to disrupt the roots of plants, and even the carrots came out straight (mostly). But I think that your philosophy is a good one, and similar to the approach we used when establishing the new polytunnel on a more degraded site. I also think the soil organisms will return quite quickly, but the benefit of that initial disruption could help improve things for years.
I love this channel so much. Especially for the candid, no-hype *real numbers* you provide.
Glad you like them!
Thank you for yet another honest review, this time of the no-dig method. Your have no agenda, other than simply observing, interpreting, and learning and that is so much appreciated. Please keep these videos coming, I enjoy watching each and every one of them!
Compost can be like firewood. Sometimes you need to get it two years ahead to let it cure.
Interesting analogy.
Seasoned compost
your persistence and consistency is admirably and a benefit for all of us interesting in serious productive gardening
Thanks!
I would be interested in seeing a nutrient test the produce produced in the no-dig beds compared to your normal plots.
That would be interesting. I would love to have the ability to fund something like that.
Are you a Seychellois?
The No dig beds will improve from here on out. I have quite a bit of experience with no dig, and can say that both mistakes you made (and I have also made in the past) impacted it greatly: not enough compost initially, and not mature enough compost.
It takes about 3-5 years of properly prepared no dig beds before they hit their stride, and then they truly outpace other methods. This is particularly true in clay soils. So you have about 3-5 years from when you began to properly prepare the no dig beds before you really start to see the benefits when compared to other growing methods.
I heard very similar from a friend of mine who is a farmer and has changed his strategy to no-till (or min-till wherever needed) about 10 years ago, and according to my last conversation with him it too the ground at least 4-5 years to fully develop enough so that the benefits from no-till really shine. In this time you have to be able to cope with the net loss you are going to experience.
He also uses a full-year vegetational ground cover and tries to develop as many organic matter ontop of the soil as possible.
I suspect you are right. I wonder what else I could have done to help speed things along.
@@stubbi That is interesting, and would be useful information for people trying out this method to know.
3 to 5 years is too long to wait , compost is hard to find and takes a long time to make , what do you think about starting with tilling and adding amendments, as soil test recommendations useing available inputs in your area to start the garden, but no more tillage going forward. I have tested wood base compost ,it is low in phosphate .
@@REDGardens This is however on a large industrial farming basis. His reasoning was water conservation. We live in a dry spell, and a particular dry spot in Germany with extrem heavy clay soil. According to him going no-till and having a cover crop all the time to prevent evaporation, as water consumption with cover crops is smaller, and the biomass of extra cover crops are a cherry on top. Theres manure going on top of it every year, extremely thick winter vegetation, straw is left on the fields and he adds extra nitrogen where needed.
I do however think that it just takes time for it to settle, even on a small garden scale. Building humus takes very, very long, so my guess is that we just need to keep at it for it to work.
If i am right in the compost you used it is sterilised to minimise weeds but that also knocks all the microbiome back too. We used broadforking to bring more air and soil mingling in as well as boost the microbiology with compost teas. In the end we have returning to sheet mulching with compost teas and we are seeing faster improvements in soil quality.
It would -be fairly sterile to begin with, though I imagine the layer of older compost underneath will be full of life, and would naturally inoculate the new stuff over time. But perhaps adding something more would also help, or speed things up.
I love the no dig method.
I’ve got 2 allotment plots and one thrived from the very beginning after going no dig and is going strong 4 years in.
The other one was mixed in its first year but I’m going to heavily mulch again this year.
I think no dig really saves on time, I couldn’t run 2 plots if I had to dig and weed as much as other plot holders, it wouldn’t be viable.
The trick is getting cheap compost/manure.
I get enough manure delivered to my plot to cover the whole plot and a little extra for £40 so it’s doable for me, hearing that you spent 900 euros made me wince.
I also top up with chicken manure pellets. I think I pay £5 for 5kg and that covers one plot.
So I spend £40 on manure (in the first year it’s £40 per plot, then one £40 load covers both plots) and £10 on manure for both plots per year.
Thanks again, Red. We really appreciate your experiments and discussion on the inputs and outcomes. Peace and health for you, your family, and for the soil.
I think the best way to start a garden on un-cultivated soil is to begin with a dig-in method, digging compost into the area you want to make a bed and filtering out the large stones or breaking up the clay, and only growing simple veg in the first year like potatoes, swedes, and carrots. You won't get a great first crop, but that's not the intent, it will break up the spoil more when you harvest, and any manky bits can be dig straight back into the bed to decompose. Then in the second year onwards you switch to a no dig method. It's more work, but if you're not going to get a good crop in the first year anyway, so you may as well write it off and help it set the bed in. I think this would be cheaper in the end.
I think that is a good technique brother
After watching previous videos from you about making compost I have to say that I am more than a little disheartened. Holy Sh!t, if the amount of compost YOU make isn't enough then how the hell can anyone hope to make enough? You generate an obscene amount of compost and most of us can't even begin to come close to making that much. Thank you for once again sharing the knowledge.
He has a whole market garden to provide compost for, not just this one bed.
Yeah, we make a lot of compost, but as Felix says, we have a lot of gardens to cover, enough of probably 10 families, so the stuff we make doesn't go far enough.
For me, the attraction of no-dig was only that turning soil is hard for me, and I knew it would take years to produce up to "regular" garden standards and I was okay with waiting. I do find it needs far less watering or weeding, due to the thick mulch.
It seems your garden is doing spot-on, and actually better than might be expected due to the quality of compost you've added, compared to merely adding hay mulch or some other low-quality undecomposed carbon.
I'd guess that for faster results it makes sense to dig in amendments the first year, to get them deep into root layers, then switch to no-dig later and only add mulch to the top from then on. Your Simple Garden concept comes closest to this, with its reduced tillage happening only during potato years in any section.
That's what I see as the ultimate outcome of RED Gardens experiments. I don't expect any one garden to outperform all others all the time, but elements from each method may reveal their utility and become part of a new hybrid method you synthesize for your own gardening context. To me, the Simple Garden is perhaps the beginning of such a synthesis. I'm sure it will continue to evolve as more research and experimentation accumulates.
I do agree that digging is probably lead to faster results, mainly because the compost is more likely to decompose faster, and release the nutrients to the soil and the plants. I also find it interesting to compare the Simple and No-Dig garden approach, as I think there is probably a lot of benefits to having all of the decomposition take place on the surface of the soil. Interestingly the soil sample from the Simple Garden was lightest of the lot, indicating that there is a lot less carbon leftover in the soil. But this is also the youngest soil, and the section I took the sample from (after the potato crop) would only have had sheet composting on it 2 years ago and 5 years ago.
Great video. So interesting to do the evolution of the no dig garden
🙂
Did you get a new camera? footage looks really good, or its just a sunny day? cheers!
It is the sun! Not so common around here.
Last year I had bottom end rot on my tomatoes and then realised that I had forgotten to add calcium during the composting process. It made me realise that this is one of the differences between the regular soil in the garden and the compost. After adding the calcium, the tomatoes did not show any sign of bottom end rot for the rest of the season. It should be interesting to see what the soil tests tell us about the composition.
Compsot is a great way to bring missing elements into the soil. in our case, we have calcareous soils, which are already high in calcium, but I suspect other nutrients are low, or locked up.
Bottom end rot is due to calcium deficiency in the plant. Very often there is plenty of calcium in the soil. The cause is often insufficient watering, so the plant cannot transport the calcium to where it is needed
It's blossom end rot.
@@martincrabtree6704 You are quite right
I’ve felt inspired by your trial/ experimental mentality snd for the 75 x 25 ft greenhouse this year I’ve decided to do 9 different beds all the same size with 9 different growing methods. I’ve been learning so much from you and am very grateful for your work. The beds are as follows: Leaf mulch no dig, compost mulch no dig, biochar bed, straw mulched (Ruth stout), lasagna bed, polyculture, trench composting, square foot garden/intensive planting, Syntropic Agroforestry with annuals. Fertilizing with compost on some beds, horse manure on others, fermented teas (comfrey/nettle) for soluble on all, worm tea and castings.
Please share results as a vid or post
reduced labor every year is a significant benefit both in cost and time.
Definitely.
Great video. Very interesting tyty.
Your experiences match my own in many ways.
Quality of compost really makes a HUGE difference and more than depth IME. I have very fractured growing spaces, so inadvertently did lots of experiments by just doing different things in different places. The spots that did best in the first 2 years all had a really rich layer of home made kitchen compost. The two beds that outperformed all the others (they're ALL no dig except the jeruslaem artichoke and potato beds and I have 30 odd beds of varying sizes) had home made compost with added fish blood and bone and bat guano in a thin layer (1cm or so), then a thick layer of 2 yo horse manure on top. Those two beds were/are VERY healthy and productive. I've only added 1cm to them this year and that feels like enough. I'm yet to put anything in either bed and not have it do brilliantly. The beds which I just covered in 5" of municipal compost and cardboard are still not great 4 years after creating them. I just added this year's kitchen compost to those beds along with fb&b. Feels like Charles has it right. It's all about feeding the life in the soil. That kitchen compost, fb&b and guano is all full of life and rich enough to sustain an underground ecosystem. The municipal stuff I get has been heated to like 80oC and it pretty dead. The composted green manure I use is ok, but as you say, it's not bioavailable for longer, so woody compost needs years longer and can never match the other stuff for variety of minerals etc to feed the soil life.
I grow a lot of russian comfrey, so I'm going to make shed load of comfrey tea this year to see if I can't feed and stimulate the life in the soil that way, where I have thick layers of municipal compost that's still not 'alive' enough. Think that might help sort out the remaining weaker beds in the cheapest way possible (just my time). Might also give the 'better plants' seaweed treatment (that I just saw Charles recommend) a go. Bit pricey, but maybe I'll try it on a small area bc let's face it, the 'more compost' option isn't cheap either.
Ive been doing modified no dig on new, poor ground for 3 years. I used very high quality compost protected by a layer of low quality. This really worked. Results so far have been amazing
Good stuff!
I do no dig garden i I follow most of the content on you tube conected to the theme
This is the most realistic overview of first few years from starting no dig I have ever seen
Congratulation
Awesome! Thanks!
We had success with putting just a small handful of manure pellets in the hole before transplanting, but just for heavy feeders such as brassicas and tomatoes.
Hi,I had same situation,I think the problem is to much input, doing. Time is fundamental for a good outcome,the plants themselves make the miracle. Covering is the best beneficial advice I can get you.
All of my heavily mulched no dig areas in my food forest really hit stride about 3 years in. First year was definitely poor, second was drastically improved, and last year was unbelievable. I have very high hopes for the continued improvement of my soil.
That is great! It does seem to take time.
Really looking forward to the results from those soil tests. I'm wondering if they will explain why the courgettes did so well in the no-dig area.
Yeah, it will be interesting to see how the soil has changed over the years. I found the difference between the courgette and the squash to be strange. Very similar plants, in the same part of the garden, but quite different growth responses to the soil.
It certainly seems no dig improves year after year with the soil continually improving and getting easier to work with etc. Enjoyed this video and great brassicas.
It is improving. I could say the same about the other gardens, but I think this No-Dig garden was lat to start.
Yea mate your right doing a much bigger load would help but I think watching this video I hope you have lot on this subject more information on this subject are needed and this is a excellent learning video for us on what to do if you just don't have huge amounts of resources in the beginning thank you for your time and efforts in helping all of gardeners/farmers and having some real experiments I be sure to look out for more of your videos
Someting you could do, is buy this year next years compost as well, and just leave it in a pile decomposing for next year. This way you could get a head start.
In a way, I think that is what has been happening with this garden, storing the compost on the surface of the bed, and for use in future Yeats. Of course a well managed pile might allow a more decomposition, but spread out on the bed of the garden it could also be feeding the soil biology.
I have deep raised beds that I didn’t place a barrier in. I filled half the beds with fugus infested old firewood and leaves/wood chips. The rest was chicken manure and topsoil from my yard and more wood chips. I planted chitted pantry potatoes just to have a green manure if nothing else. I also add rabbit manure as a top dressing. If I get to harvest potatoes, that’s great. But the other bed has already produced loads of lettuce and spinach. I have squash, zucchini, and eggplants growing after pulling up the lettuce (and digging the scraps back in or feeding to the rabbits). I know there are worms in the beds because I put them there haha. It’s so much fun gardening!
Your progress is coming along. I am starting similar gardens this year on turf areas, but I'll be tilling first and adding perennial flowers and fruit trees so there is live root at all times.
That's so weird the way you emphasize live roots at all times like it means anything for healthy soil especially after you kill everything to do it.
Vegetables don’t do so well when there’s competition from trees and perennials.
@@BlackJesus8463 It does make some sense to me. We need to get rid of the existing vegetation so that the crops will grow. But it is also good to have roots of thriving plains int he soil as much as possible as many of them apparently exude more sugars/carbon into the soil around them. A way to build soil from the roots outward. I am not sure about trees, as I have had issues with them being very invasive, but perhaps not fruit trees which tend to be on less vigorous rootstock. My tendency to leave soil bare for a lot of the season is probably a wasted opportunity.
Loving your videos and your style. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks!
Over here in Cape Town, South Africa I have Kikuyu grass that is tough so I have to dig it out. I put in concrete barriers to try and stop it invading my veggie patches, but it finds a way through. I am doing experiments to curb it's growth and eventually I will go no dig when I get rid of this grass. I also try to have a water smart garden as we almost ran out 3 years ago.
I am here to save your day from Hawaii. We have some very fast growing tough grasses here too. I ran an experiment after many years of pondering different ideas. I cut the grass down as low as I could and piled its foliage right on top base, I proceeded to stack leaves, grass cuttings, cardboard, and even some kitchen waste mixed in to break things down faster. I took a 5 gallon bucket and filled it with the fastest growing weeds on my property, filled the bucket with water, then covered the bucket with a piece of ply wood. After 5 weeks of the bucket fermenting the weeds I removed the plywood cover and kicked the bucket over onto the pile covering the grass stumps. After a few months the wild chickens went to town and demolished the pile so my experiment didn't get to run as long as I intended but it didn't matter, the grass was dead and it's biomass was now feeding the soil. The thousands of seeds in the soil didn't sprout, only a few Papaya seeds from my kitchen scraps sprouted. I'll keep using this method and revising it but it's a two fold plan of eliminating the pest grass and it's seeds while also beginning to prepare the soil for a planting area. Good luck.
@@ziggybender9125 Thank you
@@etiennelouw9244 You are welcome, spreading knowledge is a good feeling.
I had a similar experience with my first no-dig beds in my six year old garden - they seemed to take a long time to really get productive. With subsequent beds I've switched to a "dig a lot, then stop digging" method. The first year I dig 4-6" of compost into the soil in the spring, then top-dress with an inch or two of compost each fall, and mulch with shredded cardboard. I went back and dug in the original un-dug beds just once, and they seem to have improved significantly. I've now got ten good sized beds, and the oldest ones do seem noticeably more healthy and productive. Since all beds have all been treated nearly the same way, though, it's hard to draw any clear conclusions. As always, thanks for sharing, Bruce.
I think the 'dig then stop' type of approach could be quite useful in a lot of cases.
Most of us are fighting hard clay soil. Bringing in finished compost "fluffs" the soil if nothing else gives the plant roots more depth to grow before they hit the hard pan. I have had excellent results with adding sand to my gardens. The soil in the gardens with sand added stay raised above the original undisturbed ground level permanently and never really packs back down. I use the late fall and warm winter days to cover the gardens with manure, leaves, or a mix. Straight manure only on the early spring gardens where the cold weather crops go, leafs take a bit longer to break down, so that is where your melons, peppers, and tomatoes would be planted into.
I would love to have some experience growing in clay. I imagine a lot of what I would do would change quite a bit.
We started a community garden filling the beds with 50/50 compost and loam. There is no microbiome in that newly delivered truckload of soil. We headed to amend heavily with organic fertilizers through the first season and half way into the second when the microbiome was starting to gel. It's critically important in developing the microbiome quickly was that the soil was never left bare or unplanted. That's a critical component in getting the soil fertile quickly.
I definitely think doing one initial dig with the no-dig bed would make a difference. It gives you an opportunity to incorporate a lot of organic matter and microbes deeper in the soil where the roots actually are growng. This may explain the differences you see with no-dig vs dug beds.
I think I agree with you. Perhaps a better way is to do a mulch for the first period, not necessarily a year, to kill off as much of the existing vegetation as possible, and then to dig, and incorporate all the decomposed mulch. And then revert to no-dig after that.
I started fall planting fava beans in US along side root vegetables even though they rarely give me beans before dying in the cold
Is there a benefit as a mulch, or nitrogen fixing?
Thank you Bruce. This was very helpful. I am gardening with no dig method with same issues as you do. Too little compost with too much carbon.
Glad it was helpful!
My first year I dug manure into one bed and layered the same amount of rotted manure onto another bed (about 3-4 inches, ). At the end of the season both cropped as well as each other. However, the no dig bed was so much easier to manage, weeding was so much easier and quicker, especially perennial weeds which you could easily pull the root system out in one piece. This swayed me into no dig. I have had better results in subsequent years adding the same amount of manure each year and very few weeds each year (I weed when the weeds are still small), This is my fourth year no dig and I am now trying out reducing the manure down to about an inch to two inches maximum. My logic was I assumed the allotment that I took on would be impoverished. I wanted to build the fertility up before reducing the amount of manure added. The next thing that I want to find out is what is the minimum amount of manure that I need to add to maintain the fertility.
Sounds like a great system for you. Easy and productive are always things to go for. It will be interesting to see how little is needed to be added each year, once you have front loaded the fertility enough.
love your honest analysis
🙂
Yes!
🙂
If it’s a high carbon to nitrogen ratio that’s your problem inoculate the soil with fungi. You’ll see a huge difference. And when you pull your plants you’ll see what I mean, the roots will be covered in mycelium.
Another thing to check is pH. A lot of that municipal compost is very low pH cause of all the leylandii hedging that is used to make it. Low pH inhibits nitrogen fixing bacteria & fungi from breaking down the carbon.
Yes! For woody composts you can go to the forest and gather mushrooms that grow on wood and toss them into your compost piles. For straw use pasture mushrooms. The results are exceptional!
That owed be good to try!
Spot on. I have had all the same issues you mention here, especially not enough compost and not enough good quality compost. I always wondered why Charles Dowding managed to crow such good crops within a year of starting a no-dig garden, and have come to the conclusion that apart from not spreading enough compost, the most important factor seems to be that his compost is just of a much higher quality than mine, which is primarily municipal compost with a bit of my own. He has composted cow and horse manure, brewery grains plus an abundance of his own very good quality garden compost. I have learned much from your videos and appreciate your taking the time to share all your knowledge with us. It was only after your other videos about your experiences with municipal compost that I started getting an idea of why my garden seems to be so underperforming.
Charles Dowding uses tons of manure which is an excellent fertilizer. Calling it just “compost” is misleading imo.
For me the biggest advantage of no-dig is that it saves the back breaking job of digging over the beds, which makes it a very substantial benefit for all but the smallest gardens. I have no problems sprinkling some mineral fertilizer to boost production if needed.
I suspect that Charles was starting out with better compost, as you mention, but also had better topsoil. I think Richard Perkins had problems a few years ago.I thank he planned for a layer of good compost spread evenly under a thicker layer of lower quality compost. But the good compost ended up concentrated in some places and not others, and caused a real uneven growth for at least the first year, and added a lot of work with added fertility.
@@REDGardens Charles Dowding did start out with mostly well-rotted cow manure, the crème de la crème of composts. I think he also brings in horse manure from a local stable regularly. He also buys in municipal and mushroom compost for comparisons and trials.
If I recall correctly, Perkins' low quality compost was a fresh wood-based one that he bought locally as a last resort. The quality of compost really matters in this method!
I have tried the straw mulch method and in our area it encourages voles. They are harmless to some veggies like tomatoes but wipe out many full rows if they like what is growing there and they do like a lot of crops..
I am glad we don't have to deal with voles!
I personally think that the best garden amendment is wood chips or mulch. They break down to amazing soil. Protect from weeds. Slowly feed plants. Provide habitat for worms. Retains moisture.
Cover your no dig with wood chips then add wood chips yearly. At planting add a bit of compost to the planting hole or trench.
Once the microbiology starts working the wood chips start breaking down super fast.
I am using woodchip in one of the sections of the No-Till trial beds and it will be really interesting to see how it all works out.
Wood chip does take years to fully break down though.
@@FireflyOnTheMoon it depends on many factors. Healthy microbes and microbiology break them down much faster. Rain increases break down speed as well.
@@REDGardens I’m looking forward to see how it pans out.
Great video. One question. You said you added about 17.5 cm of compost to the nog dig garden. But how much compost did you add over the years on for instance the intensive garden? Or was that a different mix?
It was a bit of a different mix, but I added about the same, perhaps a bot more to some of the intensive beds. I was login to talk about that in the video but there was already too much in it, and will probably talk include it in a future video about the Intensive Garden.
My main trouble with 'no dig' is that I can't stop the other residents digging. First year having put in new sides etc to my previous veg garden, I added well rotted cow muck and municipal green waste. Knowing my source of manure, I wanted to cover the imported weed seeds. Thistle down and stinging nettle is blown from surrounding grazing land. I planted sweet corn seedlings and next day, 2 tunnels were started by baby rabbits. They had reached the soil/stone layer and distribited a debris field across my raised beds and the walk ways. I retrieved the seedlings and replanted. Chicken wire across attached to the old farm gates has dissuaded the rabbits' spring spread from the grazing land since then. The next set of diggers are voles which establish a network of tunnels under the compost surface. I believe they are after the worms so are evidence of good soil condition. However they can bring up buried weed seed. The next resident is my new Collie. She can smell the voles and makes big holes to find them. She wreck what promised to be an excellent crop of parsnips, uprooting or burying the seedlings in August! Surviving parsnips are good, but I lost 75%! 😅
No dig is very good for parsnips. No soil prep just sow a lot and you will get sufficient unforked as you haven't formed an interface.
I get a lot of the local birds digging at the compost, but thankfully haven't had to deal with burrowing mammals!
Great experiment, very helpful
🙂
so if the benefit of no dig is connection to fungi, would it make sense to do a "half dig" test? dig a narrow line to better incorporate organic fertilizers, but leave parts of the ground undisturbed near the row. I would think once the roots are 10+ cms long they would be able to benefit from no dig, in the meanwhile having in-furrow / starter fertilizer benefits? The fungi would have an easier time to regrow horizontally to the soil parts that were disturbed for planting/fertilizing.
Sounds like a version of trench composting, and could be interesting.
No dig is better for our backs. Maybe start with soil tests and then make necessary amendments can be the best. Digging kill microorganisms in the soil. Thank you for the video
It will be interesting to see what the tests begin back, I was just packing the samples this evening. Not killing the soil organisms is one of potential benefits of no-dig, but if it si a benefit, then I am still wondering how that benefit would show up in the garden?
Our house was built in a community on an old cow pasture, that was completely fill, and underneath the fill was compacted clay and hard pan. Landscaping had been put in, one plant at a time, and the surrounding soil was the same orange clay that was present in the rest of the yard. A shovel full of earth revealed that the orange clay that did not dislodge from the shovel. Would have been great for making bricks. In order to have a garden, only shrubs and flowers, I had to dig out and replace the junk soil. At first I did it in small patches, but quickly discovered that nothing really thrived. So, then I would just focus on an entire bed, and plan on digging out the whole thing, all around the existing bushes. It was costly to replace with good soil, but doing so every year, and mulching for the beastly southern summers, allowed a good ten to twelve inches of good soil to accumulate on top over time. It ended up looking like raised beds, really, and I held the soil back with small retaining walls, which looked nice against the plants. This process took years, but was worth it. I still add compost to each established plant most years and feed them because of what lies underneath it all. For the past three years I have used cardboard as a weed barrier, cheap and highly efficient, covering it with mulch so it looks ok. I accumulate it over the winter, cutting it up into usable pieces. Weeds are relentless, and this allows no spraying with chemicals.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. Always good to hear about what other people do, especially in such radically different climate and soil type!
I have just started no dig so I am very much an armchair critic at this point and would welcome feedback. My understanding is that the lack of preparation is almost a side benefit as the real benefit is to encourage and protect the myccorhizal networks that help liberate the necessary nutrients already present in the soil but just not in a form plant roots can access. Leaving roots systems where possible after harvest and adding an annual mulch is all about creating optimum conditions for these networks to develop. Covering the entire bed with vegetation increases the number of root systems that networks build around and using nitrogen-fixing cover crops would not deplete the fertility of the soil. This also has the benefit of shading the soil preventing it drying out as quickly. Your soil samples you show in this video appear to be lacking the mycorrhizal filaments. If this is the case, would this be a reason for the unexpected lack of benefit?
Good question. You describe what I have understood, and the theory make sense to me. But I haven't seen the potential benefit, and I really don't know the why, but I think there are two broad possible answers.
First is that I am doing it wrong. There is something missing in my particular setup or method. It is possible that the compost is just so poor it takes that long to get going, and I am still in the delay period. It could be that I don't keep the ground filled with as many plant roots as I can, but then that is more of a plant root thing, rather than a no-dig thing. Or the biology isn't there yet, and somehow, with all the years I have been managing this garden without tilling, and with all the different types of material I have added, the spores of the mycorrhizal fungi haven't made it into the soil, and I need to inoculate it. Or there could be some other issue that is preventing this benefit. Any of these could be the case, but they all call into question the idea being promoted that all you need to do is not dig and cover with compost and grow plants and everything will be great. Perhaps the story is more complex, or requires a more nuanced and context specific method, and my site is is one of the ones that is more difficult to develop for some reason.
The other possible answer is that the benefit is over exaggerated, or is not universally available. I have no doubt that mycorrhizal networks exist and can really help, but perhaps that assistance is much less than promoted. Or they are simply less effective in the context of good quality topsoil that is rich in organic matter, such as what I have. The benefit of mycorrhizal filaments may be greatest in poor and degraded soils, where the benefit to the plants in getting nutrients is greatest, and they are therefore much more willing to provide sugars to the fungi (essentially a fee or commission to an agent for finding something that is scarce). If those nutrients are in relative abundance then the symbiotic relationships with the fungi may be less valuable or necessary (why pay a fee to an agent when you can easily get it yourself?).
Apparently, this is the case with nitrogen fixing bacteria. If there is a fair amount of nitrogen in the soil that the plants can get access to, then the nodules of nitrogen fixing bacteria won't form on the roots of the pea and similar plants. Feeding the bacteria sugars is an expensive way for the plant to get nitrogen, if it is already easily available in the soil solution.
I think there are things that I could be doing to improve my method, according to the first answer. But I suspect that second answer is more relevant here. Or, I suspect that the benefits are there, if the garden I have managed as no-dig, is compared to a garden that was rototilled several times a year, without any compost added, was left empty for a lot of the season, and relied on soluble fertilisers and various herbicides, pesticides, or fungicides (essentially what we know as conventional farming). I have no doubt there would be a huge difference when compared to that essentially dead soil. But I am comparing this garden to another garden right beside it, which has lots of organic matter, same amount of plant cover, etc. The only difference is that we gently dig over the soil once a season to incorporate the compost. And perhaps, what I am seeing is that the relative benefit is much less compared to this slightly dug version, so any no-dig benefit is much reduced and harder to really see.
Apparently (according to several other comments on this video) Dowding has said there is very little difference between his dug and no-dig beds which he has been trialing for quite a few years, and the real benefit of no-dig is not putting in the work to dig. Essentially he seems to be saying 'why dig if you don't have to', rather than talking about the additional benefit of no-dig to the soil biology, and to the crops. If this is the case than I think it reflects the idea the benefit of no-dig to the soil and the plants is relatively small if all other aspects of the soil are good. But if the soil is poor, then digging, and especially destructive tilling, disrupts the essential lifeline that the plants need to thrive.
So, long answer (but it did help me to work through some thoughts) to say that perhaps the mycorrhizal networks are not in my soil, because they are not needed, and the cost to the plant of this potentially symbiotic relationship is not worth it.
@@REDGardens all useful thoughts and as a novice gardener I have no personal insights or experience that are likely to help. My sources are are all UA-cam-based so all I can do is consider their input. Dowding had put out a video recently that states he does get more out of his no dig bed by about 20%. I also watched the No Till Growers video on soil health just after yours which seemed pretty helpful. I feel your disappointment though in not reaping the benefits of all that mulching!
@@richardbergson1047 I think there is a lot of benefit from all of that mulch/compost, as it is easier to weed and I think warms up more in the soil. And not digging is easier. I think the issue I have is that there is also a benefit in the other gardens with digging it in, a different benefit, that also grows good crops.
I am interested in Dowding's results, and one thing that I suspect may be a factor that he isn't taking into consideration is the quality of the compost used in both. I know that he often uses not fully decomposed compost on the surface of the beds, as he figures it will continue to decompose there, which I agree with. The issue is if he is using that same quality of compost in the trial, and digging it in, there would be a risk of the material locking up some of the nitrogen in the soil, which could explain the reduced yield of the dug bed. The nitrogen would not be locked up in the same way in the no dig part of the trial.
are you using cover crops in the winter?
Key in no-dig gardens as it protects soil during winter and is good for soil life. Great way of putting nitrogen back into the soil when you use mustard/Broad beans etc.
I use grass clipping as a top mulch in summer to keep soil moist and to break down, not had any issues with slugs.
AFAIK, Charles Dowding rarely uses cover crops, so it's not required at least. He adds a new layer of compost in autumn/winter, and he does grow some overwintering crops, but not a lot.
Over the years I've been growing food (both for myself and professionally) I've found that all claims of "This method of gardening is The Best!" are a case of "yes... but..."
No-dig is good... but it does require an initial investment in inputs and time that makes it quite expensive. And in a wetter climate it can become a slug heaven. The cost is somewhat mitigated by the reduction in labour needed.
The intensive method is also good... but it requires an initial investment of heavy digging that is either expensive or backbreaking, depending on if you DIY or hire out. This is offset by not needing to buy so much compost initially.
The Ruth Stout method (and other deep mulch methods) is good... but when they get hit with slugs or perennial weeds they can be a pain (couch grass don't give a fudge about your mulch...). There is also a definite need to quality control the mulch material because most of them can be contaminated by pesticides and weed-killers. Hay and straw are especially bad, while chipped branches are the safest.
No method is a silver bullet for all situations.
Well said. I use all of the methods but in different areas of my property. Some smaller patches and some bigger, so that I can grow plants according to which method they are happiest in.
I mean it's basically just spreading mulch a couple times a year. We don't all have to adopt specific complexities that make it fail in theory.
I find myself saying something similar to "yes ... but" quite often, usually to highlight possible differences in context, as your examples illustrate.
Excellent video. Lot to learns
Thanks!
Thanks for a a very helpful and thought provoking video Bruce.
I use the No-dig method extensively on both my allotments in north east Scotland and have three large one cubic metre bins to supply my compost.
I’m beginning to rethink using wood chips in making compost after watching your video as it slows down the release of nutrients and also robs the soil of nitrogen. I had planned to sprinkle chicken poop pellets but will now increase the amount slightly.
I have heard mixed things about woodchip in compost. I think if compost that is high in woodchip is added to the surface, then it should be fine, so long as there is plenty of fertility underneath to keep the garden growing strong until the next batch has time to decompose a lot more.
It's down to the amount of wood chip in there, Dowding says it's a myth that it robs the soil of nitrogen.
@@martincrabtree6704 I think it doesn't rob nitrogen if placed on the surface, but if it is dug in, then there can be more competition for available nitrogen.
@@martincrabtree6704 Thanks Martin. That’s interesting. Maybe I’ll just scale back the wood chip although I haven’t used a lot of it.
@@michaelmcclafferty3346 I can get plenty of locally sourced manure, so mix that in with a bit of woodchip, everything else from the household waste and straw too. I think the variation in ingredients and ratio of them is the key to good compost. I have a feeling that compost rich in woodchip might be good for carrots too. You need to keep your eye on the PH levels too, but that's easy.
900 euro? That hurts. My county in South Carolina, US has certified organic compost for $11 USD per ton.
I bought 7 tons for 16 raised beds, 6 inches deep.
But if I was in your situation, I would’ve paid for it too lol. Gotta do what you gotta do.
@smart viewer whoa! That’s horrible. But I know that happens ALOT so I did research so I wouldn’t get trash with it. Hope you sourced better compost since!
Yeah, it is expensive.
Great info as usual. I noticed you haven’t tried or mention compost teas into your arsenal of techniques. Verimiheavy compost tea will do wonders to low quality compost and also help break down any woody material quicker. I’m sure you have large water containers, just need to purchase a high quality pump (areomixer) and skip the air stones.
You could try run some experiments about the health of the plants that grow in your various mediums by sprouting/planting in some pots. In that way you eliminate some of the variables you deal with, such as polyculture vs monoculture vs plant density. Plus, not all plants like each other, so, that's a big ???
Also, if you think you're low on nitrogen and don't think your nitrogen fixers are doing a good enough job, you could go to your nearest coffee shop and ask them for the spent coffee grounds. I spread mine on top of the wood chips layer I spread 2 years ago - the first rain will work those in. Works like a charm.
I use to get all the grounds from the local coffee shop (the only one in the area) but then the owner was inspired by my videos to start growing their own food, and now that option is not available. But there are plenty of options for getting nitrogen.
Vital to add a dampening of water between layers to speed up the process if you have it or layer after a rain if possible. Looked like you were pouring that compost over dry soil.
Good idea, especially in a crier climate.
I noticed the same thing with my bought in compost. It seemded like it's just some black ground that realy doesn't do anything. After 2 years the layer is still around the same depth as when I put it there. But when I use homemade compost it disepears like snow before the sun. (But I also get a lot of weeds then) 😅
It seems that the municipal stuff and the homemade compost are completely different materials, and need to be used very differently.
I really enjoy how you breakdown and explain your gardening methods and comparison beds. Really interesting. Greetings from Australia.🙂🙂🦘🦘Cher
If you are going to keep bringing in the lower quality compost then one cheaper way to amend the soil further is to plant a nitrogen fixing cover crop in the fall and then cover with cardboard + compost in the spring to kill the crop and release the nitrogen over the season. If you want a little bit faster of a boost you can mow and then cover with cardboard.
I wonder how much nitrogen can be fixed by an overwintering crop like that. I suspect that most of the nitrogen is fixed during the really active growth of the spring and summer, but I haven't been able to get any info about how much, if any, is fixed by the biological process when the soil is cool. Apparently N fixation increases when soil temperatures increase, and the whole process is fed by sunlight, which we eat very little of in the winter. No doubt there is some extra nitrogen supplied, but I suspect it is very little.
@@REDGardens Yes and no. If you are waiting for your squash to die back late in the season before sowing the cover crop then your production will be poor, but there are opportunities to sow much earlier. Perpetual harvest crops like kale tend to leave open soil for sowing months before frost when the soil is warm, the same with well pruned tomatoes, and warm season transplants (squash) will leave growing time before you need to put them in. Another option is to alternate rows of crops with early producers pulled and seeded to cover in between heavy feeders (nodulation is semi-proportional to nitrogen deficiency so you actually stimulate more fixation this way). Alternatively if you seed clover in with kale in August, and then plant your latest crop in the spring into that bed you can get 6-8 months with the clover in the ground and 2-3 months of strong growing conditions. Clover has been shown to fix ~ 8-10 grams of N per sqm in a season which is as much as you amended with over several years and Austrian winter pea at 15-16 g/sqm. There are other, more labor intensive, options as well, which include slowly smothering the cover crops as your larger plants (squash) expand, which maximizes your photosynthesis while the squash plants are still young and builds a natural gradient of N release.
@@baconbits9 Definitely want to try growing more cover crops and nitrogen fixers. It owed be really interesting to compare the different possibilities, and additional benefits of these undersown cover crops to the use of purchased amendments. I just bought a bag of organic, plant based nitrogen source (processed from waste of another industry), and enough to add 10g/m2 for the whole 100m2 garden would be about €10. If I went to the local farm supply, that amount of nitrogen would be less than €2. There are issues with both of these of course, but it highlights how cheap nitrogen can be to get.
@@REDGardens True for just the price of nitrogen, but cover crops will also be mulching your soil and keeping it moist, building carbon, feeding the soil biology and providing habitat for beneficial insects.
I think the biggest factor, when starting a no dig garden on let's say a pasture ... is the quality of that pasture to begin with. If it's great pasture, then you're going to take a hit in the first season, when you're killing off the grass, but, after that, a no dig garden should start firing on all cylinders, with minimal compost on top. After all, the fertility is there, in the soil, already.
If it's poor pasture, and you don't have massive amounts of compost (to basically grow IN COMPOST while the soil is slowly improving), well, then you have to build it up. That takes a long time. Starting no dig is probably not worth it, it's probably better to till it, add fertilizer to be able to grow things from year one, and then transition to no dig over time.
An alternative way to add fertility is cover crops. In this case, the price you're paying is time, rather than money spent on compost.
Thanks
🙂
Thanks 👌
So the US grate plains were hard to farm until the right plow was made. Could they have used a no dig technique instead?
Well, some farmers are switching to it now, with good results. Tilling on that scale is causing a loss of topsoil to erosion on a scale that's hard to even comprehend. We're losing millions of tons to arable soil per year.
That is a good question. I think at a small scale its is possible to convert that kind of heavy grass cover to a vegetable garden with a no-dig system. But it doesn't make sense at a large scale lie the prairies are, at least not for initially establishing the ground.
Oh, we cannot forget the devastating "Dust Bowl" that plow caused in the 1930s. Western Nebraska and formerly meters deep deep bison manure top soils are now eroded stone and called the " badlands".
You're doing great my friend 👍
Your suspicion on the municipal compost is correct due to it only going through 1st stage of decomposition without the natural process of worms working the matter throughout break down process itself.
Furthermore I'd like to add that using the no-dig system keep in mind the vital thing required is to get mycorrhizal network established, this is extremely important because it transmits communication between plants and also acts as a neuro network enabling proper gene expression within the plants themselves.
A good way to get the mycorrhizal network going is to use a base foundation of only spent hay and manure top dressing , leaving it to establish naturally and also a great environment that worms themselves shall thrive in too.
Prior to any planting gently turn once and check ammonia content, if ammonia is still present throw a cover crop of any sprouts and beans etc to get nitrogen in as another additive that brings the whole lot to a very stable compound mix, don't stake anything just let it grow cover wild, next cover the cover crop its with a few inches of soil that is of good quality and start planting out whatever you desire. Each step in sequence is vital and does take time and most importantly throughout the process focus on retaining the worms as they do most of the heavy lifting we would say to balance everything correctly!
Other than that you've done exceptionally well getting the biomass to come to life non chemically adding,that which in itself only overdoses and puts the balance out of kilter!
I hope you read this and take a few gems I've put in for you out and thrive my dear friend thrive👍❤️
Thanks for the ideas, lots to think about.
@@REDGardens yw👍
I'm just using shredded leaves and grass clippings for mulch. I started with tilled up soil first year as it was hard clay. After tilling I spread 50 lbs of alfalfa pellets then a layer of cardboard. Next I added what little compost I was able to make. I added a layer of decomposed wood from the forest behind my house also about a half inch thick. I then added a thin layer of leaf mold and topped off with leaves and grass clippings. I have acquired a whole lot more leaf mold over the winter from the forest. Come spring I'm gonna add a good later of it and the compost I have finishing over winter. After my plants are established well I'm gonna add another layer of shredded leaves and grass clippings. I don't think I'm gonna compost any this year except for kitchen scraps. I'm just going to add all my organic matter straight to the gardens. My girlfriend asked me the other day how mu mulch and stuff I needed for the gardens and I told her always more. Never enough. I'm also saving urine to dilute for soluble fertilizer. This will only be my second year gardening but I'm throwing everything in there and hoping for good results. I figure if I just keep adding organic matter nature will take care of the rest. I have unlimited leaf mold behind my house. You can gather as much as you want if you're willing to put in the effort. Ok. Just realized I'd written a novel.
Thanks for sharing your experiences, always cool to know what other people do. Hope you get really good crops out of all of that material.
good use of urine but stop stealing from the forest its not a supermarket
@@smelrose2581 not stealing... REPURPOSING
I'm not convinced with the whole dig method yet. Ive tried it on my own veg patched with little to no benefits, last year i dug the bed and got greater yield than the year before mainly i think because the compost was better mixed in to the ground and relieved the compaction that i was getting. I think what you're getting with no dig is effectively what you get with a raised bed and filling it with compost or planting something in a pot.
Thank you. I have often wondered how far down the benefits of the compost travels over time. I have deep birdie-raised beds, so it was basically all compost, however, I wonder how you feel about composts such as 6X for an annual boost? Or maybe just for a mulch around plants or in plant holes. It would mean a lot of buying for your garden, but I wonder what you think about the product in general as mine is a relatively new growing space where the soil was pretty poor in 2020. Thanks again!
I don't know that type of compost, and I imagine it would be really expensive in this type of use.
If you import compost, make sure there are no fungicides and such from the producer. This will inhibit your fungal to plant symbiotic relationship and result in poor nutrient transfer between species such as nitrogen fixers and heavy feeders.
Have you tried a water infiltration test on the different beds? I would love to know if the capacity for absorbing pulses of rain (and avoiding runoff) varies significantly in the family scale plots.
😊👍
I have to say, that Municipal Compost issue has been troublesome for some time now. I wonder, is it worth it to most $ to rent, and source it some distance away if needed, and rent a truck and drive to go get it? Sure it's a challenge, more time consuming, etc, but, maybe it's time to find a nice strong intern, and teach the value of proper shovel technique? (Kidding... or am I?) Still, finding a better compost source seems like a big priority?
I am really curious about the soil tests across the different gardens. NPK, sure, but also, the micronutrients if they, too are listed
If Municipal Compost is at a good price then yes, bring it in but not as an amendment, use it as a compost material for next years amendment and you will see much better results from it.
@@charlespalmer3595 I texted back a while ago, about the same concept... if you can afford to find a way to get compost started in bulk, a year in advance. It's a tall task tho, as RED Gardens tends to need so much compost yearly. Maybe using the muni compost, but heavily amending it as a starter
@@gregbluefinstudios4658 The tests I get include a range of different macro and trace elements.
@@REDGardens Very nice.
To be honest, No-Dig seems to be a fad similar to biochar and I'm sceptical to whether it actually has any benefits or if it's placebo for the grower. You seem to be the only one checking to see if it's actually beneficial with data and I'm looking forward to see more of these videos. Thanks!
Yeah, it does seem to be a very popular method, with a lot of enthusiastic supporters, and that does cause me to be a bit more sceptical. I do think there are define benefits to the method, especially with the reduction in annual weed seeds, but only if you can get enough good quality compost. I did expect to see a greater difference in the no-dig garden, compared to the dug garden beside it, but haven’t observed that yet.
@@REDGardens may I ask if you have a background in a field like engineering, medicine, statistics or similar where doing controlled trials was part of it? I really appreciate your videos!
@@kvikende I was educated as an architect, then worked doing digital Architectural visualisations, and then worked in environmental/social policy development, so nothing with controlled experiments. But I have come to better understand science and controlled testing through my explorations in the gardens.
¿Qué tal si agregas a no dig, las técnicas biológicas de KNF y JADAM, antes de comenzar una nueva entrega? En lugar de comenzar ya una nueva parcela con el método de lasaña, plante algún cultivo anual, como maíz, guisantes o alguna otra planta que tenga raíces muy fuertes y profundas, de modo que produzca materia orgánica por encima y por debajo del suelo. Pero antes de que las raíces rompan la compactación del suelo, ya habrías comenzado con los preparados JADAM, como JMS, que tiene la función de dejar el suelo blando.
Sounds like an interesting thing to try.
900€ for 100m2??? that is insane! when this will payout in form of more crops?
I think i saw some drip spikes on one of your videos that appeared to be hollow with the water coming out of the bottom, If so, what make are these and where can I source them? Thanks
I've been using green waste compost from the local council for 6 or 7 years now and never seem to get the results I hope for in my no dig veg beds . it is however free to collect. I used it thinking that it would be weed and disease free. now I am trying to produce all my compost from within my own garden. roughly one third is used for growing vegetables and the remaining two thirds flower beds lawn rough areas and hedges along with kitchen waste provide material for the compost heaps all of which are put on the no dig veg beds. For me it makes economic sense to use a smaller growing area and make all my own compost rather than buying in increasingly expensive compost. .
Yeah, that does make sense.
Wondering if modern common foodcrops are just way too nitrogen hungry than what most natural soils can accomodate for, and if by going with more heirloom vegetable varieties you reduce your need to supplement N in the soil
No-till relies on growing plants in basically compost. Add a 6-8 inch layer of compost, plant into it, the plants almost never need to go beyond that into the native soil. And if they do, the top 3-4 inches of native soil will be improved as well via bugs carrying carbon deeper down. So you have 9-12 inches of good quality soil that there's really no reason to disturb. The catch is , you have to keep topping it off, or that 6-8 inch layer of compost will slowly shrink down, and you're back to growing in native soil. Cost-wise , it doesn't make a lot of sense to me, unless you can produce your own compost.
I would think keeping a crop in the ground at all times should mitigate the CO2 released to the air by decomposition, and planting starts in pockets of good compost should help balance the nutrients available to the plants even in less well broken down compost material, as the organisms present in the high quality compost need more things to eat if they are to continue to do their jobs.
Yeah, I need to focus more on keeping plants in the soil.
You could have put more compost in just part of the garden, a test bed. There is so much data you are collecting, so not sure if more complexity is feasible though..
Makes me wonder how those wood chip(back to Eden?) gardens would compare 🤔
I was thinking the same thing, which is why we recently set up a large trial of 5 different no-till approaches, including the wood chip option.
Please allow me to tell my story. I'm certainly not going to suggest you that it's the best and at the end I will tell you about the drawbacks. I have lived on this land for a very very long time and it's about the time of my life when I Shall Perish. So over all those many years I have to huge Corrales one I will refer to as the bullpen which is about 400 ft long and about 150 ft wide. The one on top is called the pigpen and it is about 150 ft wide and 150 ft long. In the bullpen is where I grow my garden and I till it up every year I believe no-dig is really the way to go but this is how I've always done. So in the winter for the Bulls get fed in there obviously and they have straw for bedding and hay that gets spread around and their manure. It gets worked in in the spring. Then the garden is growing and harvested then the pigs are let in from the pigpen to clean up all the everything from the plants. Leaving their manure behind as well now I get very good Gardens and very good crops out of this and I have a good amount of earthworms and other little creatures so I have a diversity of Life under there but I'm sure it would be much better if it was no till which I have tried up in the pigpen at times and had the pigs in a different area but I found it very labor-intensive especially if you have physical problems such as I do. Since I am growing for myself and my family I don't have to worry about a lot of production but this seems to work very well I use my manure from the barn and the chicken coop to supplement under my fruit trees and my berry bushes. Oh my garden does not get any of this good decomposed organic matter. Throughout the year I grow fall Rye in between the rows and then I work that in as well so that adds organic matter to the soil. Now here's the part you don't want to hear sometimes I will get scabby potatoes and Harry carrots and let us not forget the constant and never-ending fight with weeds. But since this is a family operation and not a commercial one I can get by with these things but maybe people that live in very hard Rock Island or in very hard Rocky clay might like to try this it has worked for me. In any case enjoy your life and keep gardening because I adds to the enjoyment of your life
Thank you for sharing your story. It is always interesting to hear what other people do to grow food, and the cycles they develop that make sense in their context. Lovely.
Hm... when I watch Charles show of his garden, he always shows the two beds where he compares dig to no dig. And the dug bed is always pretty identical to the no dig bed. As far as I understood, no dig has the benefit of not needing to dig, but otherwise I wouldn't expect better results if dug begs are kept to the same fertility etc.
There are a lot of people who mention the benefit to the soil organisms as being a key reason for not digging, and that this will benefit the plants. And I am trying to explore that possibility.
What plant can you grow that is tall .?that has deep roots like Maize? Grow what ever that is to add roots deep organic material. Or fall plant dakion radish.
A lot of the vegetable plants that we already grow have deep roots.
I've been wondering how large amounts of mushroom compost might work for starting no dig. It's imperfect, but it's far cheaper, and probably would do better initially than municipal waste which still has some decomposing to do.
Perhaps with additions such as pellets and seaweed it might be a less expensive option for setup.
I think it would work. I got my hands on a bot of mushroom compost for the grow bag trials last year and I was reasonably impressed at the results from it, but I did ad some general purpose fertility.
Something I can’t get my head around is how organic matter and carbon content creates soil structure and desirable black soil, but at the same time locks up nitrogen? How do you build soil if having too much organic matter locks up nitrogen? Likewise, doesn’t having excess nitrogen deplete top soil?
When organic matter has fully decayed does that mean there is no carbon left, and only nitrogen and other nutrients? If that’s the case then how do you build topsoil without locking up nitrogen?
There must be some kind of balance where both are able to accumulate.
Good questions. I have similar queries.
The way I am beginning to think about it is that carbon is never by itself in the soil, always combined with many of the different elements. With Nitrogen, there seems to be a pairing that naturally pulls towards a Carbon to nitrogen ratio of about 10:1, 10 parts carbon for every 1 part of nitrogen, which seems to be the proportion of a lot of living things, including soil organisms, and many parts of the vegetable plants we grow. If there is too much carbon, including if we dig woodchip into the soil, then additional nitrogen will be puled out of the soil solution, where it will be used until the material has decomposed to closer to that 10:1 ration. This basically means more nitrogen and/or more time for the excess carbon to be consumed and off gassed. If we add too much nitrogen to the soil, it seems that a different process happens, where the excess nitrogen can be used by other organisms to deplete the carbon, or 'burn it off'. And as you say, when the carbon is fully consumed, then all the other nutrients that it was combined with is will be released into the soil to be absorbed by plants, soil organisms, or lost to leaching.
It seems that you cannot build soil this way, without also locking up nitrogen, and the other nutrients. And it does seem that the balance you mention is key.
Looking at Charles Dowding's website. After 10 years (2013-2022) There is only about a 15% difference in total harvest. And he has a nice bar chart that to my eye doesn't show any significant break out in performance until 2017, year 5. And even then, in 2021 it wasn't so far apart. So maybe you are close to transitioning, assuming your old methods didnt contribute much before changing styles. Still In his last video I saw on the topic. He says the yields arn't that different, but it's the labor saving that really makes it worth it. I also wonder if he's only using his "high quality compost" for the trial bed. That 15% is also diluted by the early years, it's more like 25% in the latest year. Still, this isn't the first time i've heard, or expressed, that it takes 5 years for soil microbiology to recover from disturbances.
At 4:40, the no dig bed is much darker as you say, and while it may just be my screen, the Intensive and Polyculture look most dark of the others, Extensive next and Simple last. That does seem to follow a pattern of more plants = more soil. There are so many other differences in management, but it's what i see.
I have also been following Charles' side by side trials with interest. There seems to be a bit of a benefit to the no-dig, but not much, and I wonder if he is digging in the usual compost that he applies. I think he makes it with a lot of woody material, and if that is being dug in without being fully composted, I can imagine some of the nitrogen in the soil would be locked up, which could explain the slightly lower yields. Or there could be something else.
If the main or primary benefit of using a no-dig method is the labour saving, that is fine. But why do so many people (including other growers) talk about how it is better for the soil biology, which will then be better for the plants? It makes sense that there should be a benefit to the actual cropping, apart from the labour issue, but if Charles' hasn't seen a significant difference, and I haven't seen much that I can point to as evidence of this benefit, I wonder what is going on.
Yes, the soil samples of the Extensive and Simple gardens are significantly lighter, but I suspect it is mainly because a lot less compost or organic matter is added to those gardens, so the soil organic matter doesn't build up in the same way.
@@REDGardens I think part of it comes down to each persons definition of "significant." 10-20% more yield matters, but it's not a doubling some people may hope for. Strangely enough he just did an interview on "Mitch Grows" channel that was posted yesterday and pushed to my feed. He reiterates the 10% number. But when they go to the beds late in the video and talk about it, he says 20%. he says the two beds were planted with "the same plants" now that probably means species, but what it got into my mind was a question of density. You can try and force more growth onto an equal number of plants, but you can also support more plants maybe?
I think his compost is fairly woody, as he buys in green waste compost much like you that has a fair bit of decompositioning to do. He digs it in using a trench method. So it should be binding like you say. He mentioned that a researcher is doing soil test and found that his carbon levels are higher in the no dig bed. Since he adds the same, and harvests a little more, the other bed must be loosing a lot as CO2 to the air. Seems like there is an incorporation issue where disturbed soil off gasses.
Another thought, and looking at his chart seems to hold. Is that the no dig is more consistent year after year. He says "Two noticeable relative failures on the dig bed were onions and peas." And this just all brings to mind something, somebody said about heirloom seeds. those selected for your area were selected for taste and yield and the usual, But also consistency. In a subsistence farming situation, crop failure maters more than 1% better yield. your life literally depends on it. Others have talked about how good soil life reduces desires and pest issues, so that all seems to be in play.
In the interview he also says something about Kale and even though the plants produce the same leaves, and they dont look bigger, they weigh more. If memory serves me correct, you made a similar observation about one of the (squash?) harvest, producing a lot per sqft but not per plant. I guess it would be weight per squash.
Anyways, sorry for the long response.
@@babybalrog Thanks for that. All very interesting, and lots of stuff to think about!
@@REDGardensWhen making comparisons to your other gardens, I think it's worth remembering they are all effectively a form of high yield gardening. Except for the simple garden. So just keeping up with them is noteworthy
Municipal compost here is made up of mostly branches and leaf matter and has very little nitrogen. I've switched to conventional fertilizers for my potatoes
I think the combination of the two can be useful.
What about adding a green manure into the equation? I've started to use Facelia which seems to be beneficial "above and under" the soil thanks to its dense roots and nutritious green mass.
That would be an interesting thing to try.
This spring will be my 6th year at no till. Except for thoughroully going through the soil to get at my sweet potatoes, it has not been mechanically disturbed. It has been progressively better each year, except this last fall. I tried the Ruth Stout method of deep cover using fresh hay and then pulling back the hay just enough to plant into the soil beneath. My fall crop was almost non existent. I know the hay producer, and there's not herbicide used at his farm, so I think it must be the decomposing fresh hay robbing nitrogen from my soil. Seems like what you do to the surface of the soil, can really effect the whole soil profile. Have you determined the same?
Afaik Fresh hay in deep layer can start fermentation and produce heat and toxic gas/substances (by toxic I mean that can’t be used by plants without further decay/ organic processes). Never heard of fresh hay. Sounds a fad. I have seen straw used as mulch for strawberries, but straw is spread when dry, not fresh, and it’s for protecting berries from being soiled.
I only just started a patch using the Ruth Stout Method, so I don't know how it will work out yet. I suspect the layer I used is too thick.
What you think about mulching? Do it works for better soil?
I think mulching is better in a warmer climate.
Merci pour vos vidéos.
Peut être miser plus sur l'argile qui retiens bien mieux l'eau et les nutriments ?
Par de l'argile en poudre ou de la terre végétale ?
That wood lie an interesting approach. The clay would definitely help hold onto nutrients.
That first season if you're converting a weedy meadow or a monocrop like lawn or grain there isn't any vegetable garden friendly microbiome to speak of to preserve. At this point it's entirely appropriate to dig things up, to pull out all the rhizomial weeds and remove rocks and pull up anything else that you wouldn't want in a vegetable bed. There is video of Charles Dowding doing just that when he established a new bed. Yes, you are aerating and disturbing the soil and will activate weed seeds that perhaps wouldn't have germinated before. But only those in the first two inches are likely to germinate. And you're putting down layers of cardboard to warm and germinate those seeds while blocking the light so the resulting plant will die. It's important the cardboard be completely saturated with water and remain so in order to decompose into the soil. Otherwise it will become a barrier for air and water transfer, defeating the purpose of layering cardboard and compost. The idea of putting cheap less decomposed compost on top of the good stuff is brilliant. Any mulch that helps hold in the moisture is a good thing but if it's light colored in the spring you want to take it off so the soil will warm up sooner. That first season the deeper layer of compost you can put on top is better. That compost has to do a lot of work to transform the soil beneath. After that Charles Dowding puts on two and a half centimeters, about an inch, each fall to overwinter. That's it!
Yeah, I think there can be a real benefit from digging frost, and your points about the existing microbiome not being so friendly to vegetables is an interesting one.
I wish you had a pond!
I think it could be a renewable source of nitrogenous material to supplement the high carbon compost.
did you put the same on the dig plots? if not you cant compare them.
ouch on that compost cost, ours here is free for residents to the county we live in.
Yep. Most of the cost seems to be in distribution and delivery, as there is no county or township based system around here.