No-Dig Gardening (Why I DON'T Do It)
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- Опубліковано 16 чер 2024
- No-dig gardening is a popular and potentially effective way to garden, but it's not best for every gardener. Good soil created by earthworms and soil organisms are important aspects of no-dig gardening. Without adequate soil life, there can be better garden options than no-dig gardening. (Video #219)
"Organic Gardening: The Natural No-Dig Way" by Charles Dowding:
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Hello Scott, nice to see this, a friend sent me here to ask what I thought!
Your points are good, that every situation of climate and soil is different. It looks like your rainfall may be just 20in/year or so? while mine is high thirties, and the air is humid here.
My first book appeared when no dig was so new that nobody was especially interested in it, and the main point of that book was to share information about growing great food. Since then, soil has become a hot topic, and my latest book concentrates on all aspects of no dig in great detail, to answer the growing desire for information about it.
When you dug in the hard soil with your trowel in this video, it looked just hard to me, rather than compacted. Indeed my soil is hard when dry, but still with air channels for roots. And even after a lot of rain, I can walk on beds. I like my beds to be firm.
Yes the six inches of compost for starting out is a lot. My experience is that this one-off application gives fertility for several years, and results in more food. Therefore per pound of food produced and in a smaller area, it's not an extravagant amount.
Then every year, to existing beds, I add just over an inch of new compost. We do this once a year before winter, often for two crops in the following year. This quantity of compost is economical, in relation to amounts harvested. I use no other amendments, although am trialling some basalt rock dust, still not sure how necessary it is.
We all have lots to learn all the time, soil is fascinating, keep up your fine work!
Charles, thank you for viewing and taking the time to comment. You touch on important differences in our climates. Officially my region gets about 18 inches of precipitation in a year, but this year we've only had nine. I recognize the importance of compost to not only enrich soil life, but to aid in moisture retention. At 7500 ft elevation our growing season is short and with single-digit humidity in summer we have to blend many different gardening methods to find success. As I build out this new garden I am developing it by growing and experimenting, much like you describe in your first book. You are an icon to gardeners around the world and you have been an inspiration to me. My goal is to reach a point where I can practice no-dig methods like you in the challenging gardening environment like mine. Thank you for providing a knowledgeable and humble approach to gardening for all of us.
@@GardenerScott Thanks for your reply Scott, and that is challenging weather! It looks dry in the video.
I love You Tube for the chance to swap notes like this and wish you every success.
@@CharlesDowding1nodig Gentlemen you are Great! Some fair play. Different situations cannot be dialed in the same way. I garden in the tropics (Thailand). Compost availability is rare here. No Dig is beautiful and the principles are really important. What do you think of growing mulches (grasses, leguminous trees and bananas) and use them instead of compost? Like the pioneering job that are doing synthropic farmers?
@@davideforesti7556 Thanks David and that is an excellent plan. Every situation is different. I would look to make compost too!
@Virginia In Maine It’s ok! You can download for free from russian servers.. ;-)
In Illinois, my soil has life, but it's thick prairie soil. John Deere had to invent an entirely new plow just to cut it (polished steel). I wanted to do no dig and tried it, but the soil was so compacted that root crops were all but impossible. I tilled around 10 inches down, loosened with a fork below, and then covered in a no- dig fashion. In months the worms, soil fungus and bacteria were there en masse, and the garden thrived. I don't have to dig again, but I had to for the first round.
Southern Illinois?
Have you read the book Dirt to Soil by Gabe brown?
That is a no dig technique, digging to prep and then not having to do it again , just bc you initially dug doesn't mean it's not no dig
I don't think dig once is at odds with the no dig method. I started with a clay rich soil so I made a lot of compost, spread it around and went back and forth with a rotavator to get it in the top 6 inches. Then I grew my first crop and never dug again. As I develop more areas there is a very big difference between the more mature areas and the new ones as the older bits are developing a dark colour and some structure indicated by the fact it doesn't really get muddy and of course the yield is better. I now concentrate on making better compost by adding some variation to the stable waste I started with. So as the song says when you got nothing you got nothing to lose, just start smart.
This is 3 yr old but I’ll share my “ no dig experience.
I bought home and property about 20 yrs ago and with it came a compost bins side by side. An elderly German couple who sold me the home had been using it for decades. I too used it for 6 years or so but eventually expanded the landscaping which meant the compost area moved. I did however decide to make that area a flower bed. My whole property soil is basically clay loam sandy mix. Not terrible but could be improved. However, where the compost bins were.. my word, the soil 8-10 deep is as black, rich, loamy, and wormy with every trowel Plants placed in there are spectacular.
I like the idea of a "Dig Once" method: prep it one time, turning & amending... then just adding the thick layer of compost each year. I haven't done this but I want to.😁
This is the way
That is most gardener do. I will do it next year.
I LOVE your commentary here. I do a small amount of no dig / no till in SOME places, but not others. It is not the 100% cure to all things, but works for some small places, for me. There are 1000 ways to garden, and all ideas don't work everywhere!
Roots have a more difficult time ?
Yes, there are no two garden alike my older brother has a good garden and I have a garden but we plant different from teacher other out come is the same it would not be fun or relaxing if we all garden the same !
I’ve never seen as amazing a garden as Charles Dowding’s and all with a fraction of the work… that’s why I follow his example.
..but huge cost in compost, it actually becomes more expensive than buying from the store.
I follow too. But can plant straight away and money spent on compost is what your paying for the time you’re saving
EXCELLENT reminder to only apply gardening techniques that work for your own unique context at that moment and to know your context can change over time.
Loved it!😊
As a novice gardener in Pennsylvania , I too am in the “one dig (hopefully)” school of thought for challenging soil. My soil is quite hard red clay and rocky, seems quite deficient in organic matter. Even my Amish neighbor was noting that our area needs some “building up”. My plan is similar to “jump start” my garden by tilling in manure/compost/peat... Of course followed by “no dig” if done right. Nice to know we are all basically following Mr Dowding’s wisdom, and ultimately Nature’s wisdom.
I follow Charles Dowding and Tony from simplify gardening.
My soil is pretty useless too. I tried various beds, one no dig.
It has out grown all the rest. I dont get on with raised beds. Its spring here ( OZ ) and hitting 30c already. They dry out too quickly.
I have compost going, a worm farm and gather mulch whenever I can.
I have sudan sorgum growing as a cover crop which i will chop n drop, then cover with cardboard then compost.
Buying in compost is expensive but once you start your own it should help.
I guess i am transitioning to wards no dig. But i most certainly have to dig for now.
Nice vid btw..enjoying your channel. 😊
Hi Scott, Love your work. I'm in Australia, my garden is about a quarter acre, slowly spreading as the soil comes alive with this protocol. Soil started very hard, tilled once only, then 6in of compost and on top of that 12 inches of woodchip, parted the would chip down to the compost in long organized strips and planted. Every year I put on 4 inches more semi composted woodchip at this rate compost is created every year beneath by woodchip. Been doing this for 7 years. The garden is alive, hungry, and moist and is no dig, nature is my teacher now and I'm always learning and loving it.
Another timely video !
After just finishing the growing season, in a wet lake district with sandy soil, I went to work while all other community gardeners stopped.
Preparing for next spring, I just spent the last week establishing 13 raised beds in my natural sandy soil. For about 15 years, I have been one of the few " soil farmers" making efforts to improve soil quality in our shared community garden allotment.
With the various accumulated resources available to me, I chose a combination of multiple soil amendments in 3 different levels.
It resembles layers of a sandwich in a raised bed.
Bottom level consists of a mix of rotted and regular sticks and wood, wet paper, cardboard, chopped leaves ( green and brown), cut grass and green garden waste.
Main level is about 10 inches of quality improved garden soil with finer organic amendments (peat moss, vermiculite, beet feed pellets, etc) mixed in.
The top layer is chopped green garden waste with chopped leaves, chopped newspaper, cut grass, a small amount of chopped wood chips and a top layer of wet cardboard that is weighed down by heavy stones.
Yesterday, my immediate garden neighbour complained that the limitations of our native sandy soil has disappointed him greatly, for the past 15 years.
Comparatively, my current garden soil 3 feet away from his unimproved garden plot has has many signs ( great plant growth, many worms, dark friable soil, etc) of abundant happy soil life.
That sounds very impressive, Jay. I'm working to accumulate more organic materials for similar improvement.
Like you Gardener Scott, I've also learnt loads from Charles Dowding, and have used many of his methods with great success. I also live in the UK, Northern Ireland actually, so our climate is different to yours, which I appreciate.
A video discussion with Charles Dowing, like the one with Tony O'Neill, would be an interesting idea.
Sharing views, opinions and the differences in both climates and soil conditions.
Thanks, Stuart. I like Charles' methods, but the climate and soil differences do have an impact. Maybe I'll have a conversation with him one day.
@@GardenerScott I agree with you. One size does not fit all. I also have decomposed granite sand for a base and we average 7 inches of precipitation a year. 5400' elevation. We use a jackhammer to dig post holes here. We get daily 35 mph wind 'gusts'. This year to date we have had 3" of precip.. There IS no life in what we call soil (looks like yours, ) to start with. I have the ability to add unlimited amounts of partially composted alfalfa hay with goat manure as sheet compost to my garden areas. Which I do. I can leave that sitting for 2 years and in most places it will still be sitting on top of the sand after 2 years, with virtually no incorporation of the material into the sand itself. I believe this is because there are no earthworms and minimal soil life in these areas to begin with, and none in the alfalfa mulch (which is from a barn and not on dirt.) In areas where I use fully composted hay/manure which has been on the ground for a few years, I can get earthworms innoculated into the compost to help pulling it into the ground. The substrate and compost/mulch must be damp for this to happen. With no significant natural rainfall for 9-10 months of the year, most of my rough sheet mulch (1 foot deep at least) dries out completely since I can't water it enough to keep it damp. In addition, any fine material will simply blow away over time with the wind we have here, so the potting soil-like stuff is useless unless it is incorporated by digging in to the beds. In my opinion, water is the key here. If you have it and you can keep things damp enough to decompose, no dig will work. If you don't have it, laying compost over the top of dry soil simply won't work. I started reading Organic Gardening and Farming magazine in 1960, including Ruth Stout's articles and books, and was an OSU Master Gardener starting in 1982 and later became a UNR MG as well. Nothing is more clear to me that no method of gardening suits every climate and situation. I am still trying and learning new things every season.... Think of where we'd be now if we'd had UA-cam back then!!
@@Paula_T Thanks, Paula. You articulated our dilemma quite well. By UNR, if you mean Nevada-Reno, I graduated from there in the early 80s after growing up in Reno. I lived in Oklahoma before Colorado. Most of my life has been lived in hot, arid, windy regions with no gardeners in my family. I find success to be more rewarding after the challenge and struggle compared to gardening in places I've lived where it was easy.
@@GardenerScott Yep, about an hour north of Reno. This is the most difficult growing climate I've experienced. I figure if I can grow stuff here, I must be doing OK. Every year is different. Right now we have about a half mile visibility with ash falling on the garden. Yesterday we had 50+ mph wind gusts. Last week it was 100 degrees for a solid week. Our last snow was in June. Gotta love it :)
I thought Ruth Stout was a pioneer in writing about No-dig gardening. I'll have to find her book on my shelves. DH wants to plant cover crops and then run a roller crimper over it all, but that would still take time to build up the soil fertility. Plus, we need to build a roller crimper to fit the tractor.
Here in the Midwest of the US, I have only had CLAY everywhere we've lived. It takes years to finally have enough organic matter so that the soil doesn't crack wide open in July/Aug. Another problem here in the Midwest are pernicious weeds, especially wherever the soil is softened. Cardboard and mulch aren't going to stop most of them. A couple of years ago we bought professional grade ground cover so that I could focus on the plants I am growing instead spending all my energy on weeds. Our garden is located on an old horse pasture which mean heavy weed seed pressure.
Thank you. We have clay as hard as concrete, mixed with rock, not one living creature in 20 sg. ft. turned over. Have been learning about 'no dig' but couldn't see how it could possibly work. Your video clarifies that soil has to be built first.
Lay down lots of cardboard, wet it, then lay a thick layer of well made compost on top. That’s how it works. You can plant immediately and enjoy good gardening while the soil is rapidly transforming under the mulch and compost layers. People have transformed desert into lush garden spaces using this method. It’s exactly how Mother Nature does it if you think about it.
Look up lasagna gardening. You lay down consecutive layers of organic matter, such as cardboard, dry leaves, grass clippings, compost and mulch to create viable soil fir growing right away. If you can, consider adding amendments, such as perlite to the bed.
Yep. I have clay and a layer of rocks just a few inches below the soil and nothing could grow through that. My neighbor came over to use his till to help and he couldn’t get too far deep. And even then he still hit rocks constantly. I have to sort through the dirt and remove the rocks. After that, I’m going to add cardboard and organic matter. My hope is that the cardboard and mulch will bring all the earthworms in to help. I have tons of oak trees and neighbors have lots of leaves that they say I can take so lots of work but hopefully my soil will get better over time.
Heavy clay... I have it too or had it... I always start with a heavy layer of composted horse manure, it’s full of life and amazing to loosen up the clay, then I top it with chopped leaves or wood chips. It can be planted immediately and is highly productive the first year. Each year after I top with fall leaves and the life in the soil is amazing. Both are cheap to access and/or free👍
I don't have the option of ground gardens or beds. Window boxes and pots are my "garden" opportunities. Herbs and above ground vegetables do well but root foods are another story.
I enjoy learning from your videos and I love the way that you present your information, straightforward and clear. I pray that you do this for a long time to come.
May God bless you and your efforts. I think must take plenty of effort and preparation to produce these videos. Thank you so much for caring as you do.
I have the very same issues as your soil, Gardener Scott. I live in dry Northern California. I put cardboard and woodchips, right before the rains. One year later the ground is still hard clay. I just prepped my beds for the winter again. This time I filled in compost and planted a cover crop. Also threw in a couple of hundred earthworms from my worm bin to jump start the process of building microbial life. Someday my
garden will ready for no-till. But I certainly do not intend to sit around doing nothing while I wait. Thanks for a great video... And for making me feel better about my gardening impatience!
I am with you on the "I don't have the time to wait thing"". I have waited years to finally have the raised bed garden that I have now. Maybe someday I can just add compost to the top, mulch and be done.
Hi. I live in a small town in the pirenees, and i did exactly what you say in the video. Bringing life and improving the soil, mulch, manure from mules and horses and sheep, cardboard and some digging , compost.... 2021 was our first year and It went quite right.
We grow in 150m2. I find your advices and expertise so interesting. Thanks a lot.
This makes perfect sense. The no-dig fellow is in a wetter climate that helps the process. Front range Colorado is so dry. My elbows would crack and bleed when we lived in Lakewood. 😕
I might be wrong but isn’t your dry climate going to have the same effect weather you dig and till the soil or if you don’t? Just curious how digging the soil is going to stop the effects of your dry climate?
So glad I watched this as I have been hearing so much about no dig gardens. You did a great job explaining about the soil. I am glad I found a Colorado gardener as, since moving here, I have felt that maybe I don't know how to garden anymore. It is so different to my Zone 8 that I gardened in for years. I had almost given up but feeling a bit more hopeful the more I am learning the ins and outs of zone 5 gardening.
Interesting video! It revolves around the cores of permaculture: work smarter not harder and work with nature
A few years ago my aunt and uncle bought a house with a similar yard. The ground was hard with nothing but silt on top. Not even weeds would grow in it.
What I did for them was to bring about 25 gallons of my homemade finished vermicompost to their yard and mix it in with the first 2-3 inches of soil and silt. It didn’t offer perfect coverage, it was patchy and clumpy because I was doing it by hand with just a rake and a shovel. I watered that in.
Then I bought one bag of lawn soil amendment and sprinkled that throughout the yard. Again, it wasn’t a true layer and didn’t offer full coverage of any kind. Then I got a single bag of combination grass seed for full sun and full shade, and I sprinkled that around the yard. After that I watered in the seeds.
The next thing I did was build them a stacking compost tower. I set up the first two trays in the tower with worms from my compost bins & fresh green & brown waste. I set them up on top of the new soil so that any worm tea or adventurous worms from the bin could travel out into the yard over time. I taught my aunt and uncle how to compost using their new composter & asked them to water regularly by hand until they could get a sprinkler system put in.
Within the first few weeks their new grass was growing and they had a decent yard. My uncle was happy to have a lawn he could soon mow. And my aunt started using their new finished compost to create raised beds.
It’s been 2 years or so since then and they’re growing fruit trees, vegetables in their raised beds, growing in containers outside on the patio, growing herbs in their kitchen window and in various pots around the house… all in their homemade compost. It definitely took them time and patience to get there but they’re happy they waited I’m sure. They’re always gushing about how much food they get from what they grow and how they start new planters only when they have enough finished compost to fill them.
I can see how pointless it might seem to use regular compost to amend your soil and trying to plant in that & just wait for the critters to be attracted. Because my compost and my aunts compost started with earthworms, and they’re kept outside so that all of nature’s creatures have access to them, we already have those critters & we’re just offering them more room to proliferate. Here’s the real magic though. I took one of my outdoor vegetable pots that was already established and full of life, one of the smaller ones that I usually grow potatoes in but had left it barren for 3 months prior, and gave them that. I put it next to their compost tower and told them to add a scoop of soil from the bin into their stacking unit after every time they added scraps to the tower. That pot and it’s contents had been one of my originals from about six years ago so it was plenty established by that point. It would be a good idea maybe to find another grower near you with a soil that was already teaming with life, and ask to take a few cubic feet of it to help inoculate your yard & garden.
I really like your videos. 👍You have a very deep understanding of gardening and a calm way to explain it. Your clean english is good to understand for a non-native speaker. Greetings from the german coast.
Great video. Very important point to make sure you illustrated how it is a very viable method to use for gardens but also to show how it would not work for your garden if you wanted to plant now and not just doing soil improvement with little or no other work. I have had to use a combination of no dig and digging to get my garden up and running this year, which is the first year for it. Thanks Gardener Scott
I have found that many methods suggested in books and videos were developed in areas that had more rain and longer growing seasons than where I live in Colorado. This is one of the reasons I appreciate your channel so much.
For example, Hügelkultur is one of things I’m not sure is feasible for this area. I have found hunks of an old tree trunk in my garden that had to be there for over 20 years. It was barely broken down. I look forward to some follow up regarding your experiments with this technique.
Keep up the good work!
Timely! lol. Excellent job. I'm so thankful that the last half dozen years have improved my soil. I'll amend it and start growing without digging. Though you don't do it you've encouraged me that it is doable. Thank again Scott. :)
Thanks for sharing this and showing us all useful info, popular or otherwise. It's helpful to understand the various options instead of struggling to make one work.
Thank you for explaining the reasons for the methods. I was a little confused until watching this because my garden has a lot of clay. No dig didn't work well for me this time, but now I know what to do to fix it. Thank you so much.
I first heard of no-dig gardening a couple of years ago, and I've always wondered about the pre-existing condition of the soil; what if it's poor and has little life. So your insight was very interesting.
Wouldn't it be great if you could a conversation with Charles Dowding as you did with Tony?
Although I love to watch Dowding’s channel, his no-dig method is useless for my rock hard clay soil in an extremely dry climate. For years I volunteered to clean a friend’s stable to bring home manure to compost, and I also composted the manure and sawdust from my chicken coop as well as every leaf and grass clipping I could get my hands on. I had to dig the compost into the soil because otherwise it would have never gotten into that thick clay. I can’t do that kind of work anymore, but I am benefiting from what I did 15 to 20 years ago.
Hundred percent agree with what you have explained. Thanks!
Excellent video Gardener Scott and I agree that no dig gardening isn't always practical for every garden due to the soil.
I built raised beds and went to no-till 3 years ago. Buying 20 yards of compost, acquiring 30 yards of composted horse manure, and mixing in the best of my top soil and peat moss allowed me to get started. We have chickens for manure and make 2 or 3 yards of compost each year to maintain the beds. It's a lot of work, but for the first time our soil is improving each year instead of depleting. The weeding is also much easier.
No dig has some really good concepts, and I think we can all benefit from many of the ideas. The issue becomes when 'No Dig' becomes a religion or cult. I moved to East Africa 3 years ago, and started a farm on the banks of the Nile River. The soil was heavy, compacted, sticky, hard as rock clay. I started out doing all the 'No till', 'Farming God's Way', and 'Back to Eden Gardening'. Basically, all these efforts were a complete FAILURE. I tried everything, including many dozens of dump truck loads of mulch. No success. Even tried using the tillage 'clay busting' radishes. Even these famous sod busters could not penetrate the hard clay.
In the end, I got a walk behind tractor, and tilled the heck out of the farm. It took some 5 to 10 passes with the tiller to break the clay up. I then formed raised beds, and on top of the raised bed put a layer of charcoal dust, cow manure, compost we make on site, river sand, and then some topsoil from a nearby old growth forest. Then I turned those layers into the raised beds. I then planted crops that were tolerant of poor heavy soil to start. Then between crops, I would continue to add and turn in the components listed above. Now after a couple of crops, I am finding that I can grow with less tillage and soil disruption.
I have a rabbit barn with 170 rabbits. The cages are designed such the urine is automatically collected in a fertigator tank. I have drip irrigation and overhead sprinklers that can water the entire farm. The water is pumped by solar pumps from the nile, and when I irrigate the rabbit urine is mixed in with the river water. The urine is a balanced foliar fertilizer, and is a significant deterrent to bugs and pests, who do not like the pungent odor of the urine. The rabbit poop is also collected, and fed to our black soldier fly operation. The rabbit poop is turned into food for the chickens, and then the remnant droppings from the grubs is used as component/nutrients for the raised beds.
Really have benefited a lot from your videos, thank you for sharing.
You highlight a key part of these gardening methods -- they don't work for everyone in every location. I like your solution, probably because it's similar to my approach. After lots of labor and time preparing the beds and soil, then the "easier" methods can be used with some success.
I'm following Dowdings' methods in northern Italy, with 30 inches of rain per year. I had to adapt some details, but it works fine. Try spreading 10/12 inches of good rotten cow manure before the first snow and see what happens...
I do a mix of no dig and hugelkultur. Some beds I do one or the other. Cover crop and always covering the soil and keeping roots in the ground have helped me a lot
Making a massive quantity of compost is a lot of work. I've noticed that Charles Dowding has a lot of composted horse manure brought in. Our soil is decomposed granite, and undecomposed granite rock.. I have put in raised beds. The soil in those raised beds has been sifted, and dug, and mixed with manure, compost, and peat moss. It works great.
No dig might be good for small areas or if you have access to tons of compost but I can't see how it would work in a const effective way for large areas. I'm on clay soil in the UK and we do a 4 year rotation with green manures and farmyard manure added at certain times. This works quite well and the soil is good in most places. The main issue is insect has been insect pests recently.
This makes a lot of sense! We have yellow clay with zero life. We have dug it out in areas and keave it as the base only. In other areas we have used biochar, bokashi and organic matter dug in to bring it alive.
You can even make a garden in the sand of an islet which is a part of an atoll in the Pacific.First you import soil by ship and ferry it across the lagoon in a motorboat. $$$ Add all the household food scraps and chopped up vegetation (palm fronds, seaweed) you can find, Plant some veg and incorporate all the plant trimmings. Eventually you have it.
This is a great video I have just got an allotment the soil is very sandy and poor in nutrients. It was once a farm land about 30 years ago but once the farmer passed away the land was left to its own devices. Although easy to dig there is no live in it no earthworms. So has my year decided to do a little digging just incorporate the top soil with organic matter and than mulch the beds to keep the moisture so I could actually grown something in it. Maybe in years to come I will turn in to full no dig but at the moment it's just not possible
I have that book. I also have desert soil clay yeah I dig.
Cover crops
I'm experimenting with no dig right now in an area of my yard that had poor soil, no life, compacted, and rocky. It was covered, all summer with cardboard, 2 inches of compost and some mulch. I watered it all summer. This week I've been planting the perennial flowers and small shrubs that I hope will grow there. I will mulch and water. I did not find one worm while digging the holes for planting but I did find the soil was was easier to dig than previously. Still rocky of course. Fingers crossed!
This was also my first year using the no dig method in my raised beds for vegetables and had the best garden in 20 years BUT I had amended and turned the soil for many years prior to this. This is what you are talking about.
2 inches is not enough to start it out. It needs to be thick and then use a good mulch that breaks down easily like leaves not wood chips. Making good compost requires a lot of work but it is the key to plants growing like crazy. Just look at how seeds germinate and plants grow out of your compost pile.
Agreed, what you say is the truth and was praticed way back in farming with horses.
Excellent tip my friend. Hope to see your no dig garden when the time comes :)
Thank you for your very useful advices i am from Algeria i am trying to learn about no dig and natural agriculture it's a pleasure to follow a professional instructions
Excellent video. Great information
Others use straw, hay, etc. instead of thick layer of compost.
Yes! I saw a video about a woman in a dry climate with very little rain who uses hay in her garden on top of a thick layer of compost to help keep the moisture in. She uses raised beds and the no dig method from Charles Dowding and combines it with the mulch up method from Ruth Stout. Charles Dowding has a lot of moisture in his soil because it rains a lot where he lives. He doesn’t use a traditional mulch, just mulches with more compost, because the rotting wood & things was attracting slugs & snails. A dryer climate with dry compact soil doesn’t tend to have slugs and snails so this woman can mulch heavily with hay and not worry too much about it. There are many people around the world with different climates and soil conditions, who still experiment and find a way to make no-dig work for them.
Back at my mom’s place, her soil is all clay and it gets hot and humid. That’s why I put in a container garden for her. But because it gets hot and humid the garden is prone to unwanted molds and fungi. To combat that the new planters going in are a mix of finished vermicompost and coconut fiber and it has a wood chip top dressing around the sprouts. Clay is great at holding on to nutrients but I find that it doesn’t readily soak up water. The water kind of just beads off, and you have to wait a bit before you can water again. Soaker hoses work best in clay.
The best thing you can do for that soil is planting the trees that you have all over the yard, establish plants to cover everything, every spot of ground with growing plants, even the pathways. We dig new garden areas from solid lawn, and dig a deep narrow trench that gets filled with organic material, and the soil goes back on top, spread evenly over the rest of the area on either side of the trench. The worms trade the dirt between the material in the trench and the dirt in the sides, so everything becomes evenly fluffy over time~
Great plan for small and bigger situations...
I'm going part way Now I mixed about 3" of pig poop compose with straw and incorporate into the dirt and a layer of cardboard then 6" of compose.Plsn a bed of carrots and kale early first to test the new system,
Thanks for teaching, I just have to many rocks to jump into not tilt and plan any root crops.
But we as you too are working to it.
Yes my compose would break my bank.
I’m in the same boat. Our soil is rock and DG
Thank you for raising an important point. I'm pretty sure soil life - microbes and earthworms - would be imported with compost. I'm off to investigate if I'm right and if woodchips would not bring earthworms, or at least not as many. I agree that approaches must be adapted to the garden and the gardener. I have no chance of digging an entire garden but importing enough compost for one bed at a time is working for me.
We have clay soil, dry and hard. Followed the Morag Gamble no dig method. (She is also a wonderful teacher! I used cardboard not newspaper for my next to the top layer.) My garden soil is amazing now. Rich and loamy. I enlarged the garden this year after pulling out lilac bushes. The soil was awful, clay, hard, dry. After preparing the beds Morag style, everything grew beautifully in the new beds - squash, huge zuchinni plants with loads of fruit, ochra, peppers, green beans, the biggest cherry tomato plant I have ever grown. It must be 7ft high and vining out 8 feet. Still producing tons of tomatoes. I only watered a few times even though we had a near drought this summer. I have various raised type beds; some self watering raised beds in cattle watering troughs and some hugel type style garden raised beds in partial shade which were great for lettuce all summer long. It has been fun experimenting with different bed types. Thanks for all your wonderful helpful information Gardner Scott!
I agree, I don't have soil, I have dirt. I did the Hugelkulture bed and on top I added about 6" of horse manure and composted pelletized bedding then added the top 6" of "dirt" that I had dug out of the bed then tilled them together 2 weeks ago. Now about a week after transplanting I noticed all of my plants are yellowing. I checked soil PH with 2 different test and it is reading around 6.5. I think the problem is probably Nitrogen sequestration by the organic bedding material not being fully composted. I used some Miracle Gro 24, 8, 12 today to see if it will help with the yellowing. Hopefully next year I can go to No dig.
I was recently reading a book in pdf form online from 1980 that went into deep detail on setting up an in-ground polyculture garden without pathways and without digging, and it talked about setting a spring cover of radishes and a fall cover of mustard, and it had main rows marked A, mid rows between them marked B and light rows between the others marked C. It talked about the carrot and onion flies being repelled by onions and carrots, and interplanting with strawberries. It shows that everything we think is new just depends on where we learned it from, and the source is always ultimately the land~
Please share the author & title.
There are many older gardening texts now available free on line via Amzon Kindle & other sources.
I was looking for it again this morning, as it had a lot of good information. the preface started with "I have no theories" and continued on that the information was based on direct experience on growing plants in such a garden for a long time. I do remember the year it was marked was exactly 1980 though, which narrows it down somewhat. It mentioned "mustard disinfects the soil", and 'lettuce protects radishes from flea beetle", and "celeriac prevents cabbage moths in the immediate vicinity"
@@NashvilleMonkey1000 Mustard has a fumagant effect on some nematodes. The hotter, the better.
So does Fuma Rad, a hybrid radish from Legacy Seeds.
Some of those older gardening texts have real gems of info.
AND roots of cover crops loosen soil
I have no soil. Only 'fill' which is only rock and minor organics. I will ad compost only and never till
Exactly, I'd just commit a season to planting plots of vigorous nitrogen fixers and then chop, drop and mulch over it going into winter.
You might want to try planting Daikon radish. It helps to break up compacted soil.
Yes to Daikon! Leave its roots in the soil to rot and feed microbes. I highly recommend comfrey, too. Aside from its medicinal uses, it’s great for making compost. Its fresh leaves may be cut repeatedly during the growing season - it’s a perennial that grows very fast - and their high nitrogen content greatly accelerates the composting process. It also attracts pollinators with beautiful little flowers and draws nutrients up from deep in soil, concentrating whatever nutrients are already there, even in poor fill dirt. Comfrey does spread from roots, but that can be controlled, in my experience, by smothering. Cut it down to soil level, cover it with a wet piece of corrugated cardboard and thick layer of wood chips, and/or lay down a 4-6” (10-15cm) thick layer of other mulch (organic, unsprayed straw is my preference) directly on top of any unwanted plants.
Living in an area with heavy .. very heavy clay soil, every gardener needs to work with 1. The soil they have. 2. The budget they are comfortable working with. 3. The soil ammendments that they are comfortable working with. And very important, 4. The amount of time that improving their soil will take.
In my case, I have one area of my yard that has been very difficult to reclaim as a workable garden. So this year I dug a trench and added hugelkultur material, I then added soil and compost with additional lime and gypsum to soften and break down the clay.
This was then planted with a winter cover crop.
Sometimes, it takes longer to recondition an area unless you just bring in inches of new plantable soil and either just put it on top or dig it in. Enjoy your gardening.
My soil is heavy clay and mostly hillside (only several feet of flat ground which was previously a gravel driveway). I’m new at gardening & have been following a few channels such as this one. I tried to order some recommended books this spring, but they never came due to shipping delays related to Covid. I hope to be able to grow something besides the cherry tomato plant in conditioned hay bales as an experiment this spring. Have a blessed day!
@@tracieshaw8043 Try growing white potatoes in your hay bales, too.
@@tcanderson1313 Great idea! Thank you!
I think the missing key word is context, sort of picked up in other comments about climate. I really don’t see the issue with an initial slog of hard work if it’s going to give great results in years to come, in fact that’s exactly what we’ve done. I see Charles himself has now replied which is great.
We dig all our organic kitchen waste and any of our home grown pumpkins that have rotten back into our beds.... this brings a lot of earthworms into our ground beds.... we are carefully with the pumpkin seeds if you don't want pumpkins growing in that bed..... if any animals dig it up, we put wire mesh over it for a few day..... the worms get rid or it quickly.... no smell if you dig a deep hole..... about 300mm.... worms love pumpkin....
Great video Gardener Scott! I also like Charles Dowding’s method, and some of his experiments with dig vs no dig demonstrate that not disturbing the soil reaps better results. Look forward to your next video!
Big THUMBS UP Scott! I could not agree more with your perspective. Erosion and compaction have depleted the landscape around the World. It really is quite depressing to see your soil with hard pan right at the surface. The compost will work better for us when we dig it in and mix with those hard materials that are bacteria rich (in most cases). Also by growing plants in it. Not trees necessarily but those of which work their hearts out trying to survive.
I look forward to your next installment , thank you.
The thing Is that you and Charles have different climates! Dry vs temperate wet
Different soils also. When Mr Dowding started his seven years ago or so he had a tremendous amount of weeds I noticed that Gardner Scott started a year ago he had not very many weeds. I stated about the same time as Gardener Scott, but I have a lot of trees around so I grew winter rye covered it with news paper then placed my mowed leaves over it. Planted into it in the Spring. Did al right. A few weeks ago forked the residue of leaves in a few inches now everything is growing crazy. For me compost seems to do better if I dig it in a few inches otherwise it just gets a hard surface. I live in Texas south of Dallas about 70 miles. Gets really hot from June till early September. I reckon you just have to experiment with things.
I think too, as water seems crucial to bacterial life, that in a climate like charles dowding's the bacterial life is already more plentiful in the soil
@@RandyFelts2121 you have nothing when you get that dry. Feel free to look at the desert. Charles lives where the ocean does most the watering. Thats few and far between for everyone else.
@@RandyFelts2121 in texas you still have 2 different ocean currents depending on where you are and i spent a summer in texas yall do t have green grass in august. 👀
@@ACryin_Shame It depends on the access one's has to water I reckon. I have a faucet usually without restriction from the community. :)
in my heavy clay soil what works best results are raised gardening beds (walls from wet clay for stabilizing incl. 90º angles) & filling pantation holes around the irrigation system valves with a few handfull of pindstrup org. urban garden substrate (1 sack for 30+ holes ?) because it has ''golden forest'' = wood fibers &so on, so i got carrots almost as thick as forearms. of course i spread mulch as well all over. raised gardening beds preferable for gardening for injured or aged gardeners then in wheelchairs.
Tip for if you're dealing with hard or compact soil and you need to dig or break it up, go get a geological pick from the hardware store.
A great video which highlights the need to consider your garden's own characteristics in your specific region.
I think the choice whether to dig or not depends largely your climate and soil type. For example, we have heavy clay soils here in southwest UK. This means you either need to incorporate plenty of organic matter into the soil, or not dig at all. If you dig without adding enough matter you will end up with a muddy quagmire in no time.
Nowadays, I largely practice no dig in my garden, but when I worked on a small vegetable farm we didn't have enough organic material, and because we didn't have the time to wait for good soil structure to appear we had to dig a little. We ended up with a lot of mud in year one, but as we incorporated more and more organic matter in subsequent years, the soil became better and better. Whether you choose to dig or not to dig, keep on adding that organic material to your beds!
You're 100% right as I am currently finding out. I recently bought a house that had a garden area. Well it hadnt been planted that year and the soil had severely eroded and was very clay like. I just threw mulch/fresh wood chips on top. This first year has been a complete bust. Worst garden you can imagine despite this year being one of the best climate wise. Im sure next year wont be much better. Its rather disheartening. Perhaps I'll take next year off.
Here in this part of Scotland we have New Zealand flatworms, probably introduced through potted plants. The flatworms search out and kill earthworms and the result is that on our allotment (community garden) there are no earthworms so compost spread on top does not get pulled down into the soil.
Have you tried adding mycorrizhal fungi to where you added the wood chips to accelerate things along? Also could consider adding a home made organic soil bacteria fertilizer to also promote soil life.
Mycorrhizal fungi are finding their way in, but my dry climate limits the growth. As I acquire more organic matter I'll be using it to increase bacteria and soil life.
no dig is the end result usually never the starting point. all my beds now are biologically active and require very little but it didnt start that way!
My Experience on improving a soil profile so far!
i did the same experiment to get that wonderful soil life!
First you need to till the field once, had compost,
vegetable charcoal and limestone, mix it well and let it rest.
then i mulched the earth with green matter and browns,
woods, egg shells and fruit leftovers, fruit peals,
"fruit is essencial because soil fauna loves sweets
and reproduces faster if it finds quick fixes of energy".
Has the mulch got beaten down by the sun i continued to add a little every week, to this day,
6 months later, my soil was booming with life.
Fundamental Tip:
Birds are full of soil fauna, it is true,
if you don't believe just capture a bird and search on is wings,
all the critters you will find in him, exist in the soil.
During the soil improvement, the initial stages i started feeding birds to call them to
my crop area, provided them with fresh water, with all those bird movements
on the ground the soil critters leave the birds to get a better life.
Birds are the Noah's Ark for soil fauna! Birds are Key.
as for the worms they really need to be added,
because the surrounding soil might be too
compacted for them to travel.
I’ve been doing no dig for three years , I live in British Columbia and it works here . I get great yields and few weeds.
I am aware that this is an older video, but it is still a topical issue. It is becoming more and more topical.
My land was exactly the same, Scott. Hard as concrete, no way to absorb water, dead. We had no idea how to get started, the cultivator was just bouncing over the surface. I almost gave up, who is going to do this every year?
Then I came across the Dowding footage. I gathered my friends, we started with picks to get through the first layer. In two days of hard work, sweat and blisters (unfortunately I don't have access with heavy machinery), we dug up the entire area intended for the garden. In two days, we did not find a single earthworm! I covered the area with 10 cm of home-made compost that I had grown two years earlier. I planted the green manure mix thickly and watched in amazement at the thicket that was forming on that dead patch. In the autumn, I run over the greenery and mulched it with an extra 5 cm of compost. I mulched the intermediate paths with wood chips, 10 cm thick.
What a pleasure it was to plant in spring! I saw more and more earthworms and their mounds on top and produced a satisfying amount of vegetables that year. In the autumn I repeated the mulching with compost, and in the winter I made raised beds in the workshop and put them on this soil before spring. That was 5 years ago.
The beds are low, more like a bed limit, I add 5 cm of compost every autumn and mulch with straw over the winter.
In spring, when everything thaws (zone 7b), the soil is soft, planting is a pleasure, the crop is wild. The soil is full of life and organic matter, I regularly see mushrooms, the gardening is strictly organic, and there is a flowering zone around the complete garden for the pollinators.
I could not be happier, especially after that despair when the space looked more like a concrete slab than a future garden. All the hoes and spades have been replaced by a stick with a wire at the end, which I use to pick up any weeds that may appear. For me, one time dig method was a life saver.
I bought a new house that was from the weeds in the back I had no time to pull out the weeds I did the no dig method And my brother told me you can’t do that I said to him I could do whatever I want and the results were amazing I had a full yard of food beautiful plants so no dig worked great for me
Great! Never let the naysayers stand in your way.
I agree. I cannot work a tiller but I can layer materials over wet cardboard. Im quite pleased with the results of my efforts. Totally no dig for me and now my soil is about 8” deep atop the sand. Plenty of worms too. I use a lot of wood chips, grass, straw, leaves, food waste compost and wood ash. I now have a full 50’ x 45’ veg garden all done no dig. Its coming along nicely after 4 years.
I would love to see you experiment with one bed gardened in the no dig way - wet cardboard over the hard native soil, then 6 or so inches of compost on top of that. Then seedlings (or seeds) planted into the compost. That would be very interesting. In my new raised beds, i've tried this method, and its working well, but I have fairly good topsoil and my subsoil is free draining.
That's a good idea and I do hope to do that, but I still don't have the material to make six inches of compost. When I can make enough compost I'll be doing more no-dig.
@@GardenerScott Yes, and I just remembered that I didnt use all compost, but mixed it with good garden topsoil.
I’ve seen some over wintering green manure mixes that are supposed to be really good for heavy & compacted soils that you can just dig in in the spring. I guess the root system must be pretty sturdy and loosen things up a bit, before being dug in and feeding the worms.
Farm some earth worms, add them to that orchard, at the base of each of the trees. I would also consider some spots of shade cloth, one square foot, raised just a foot above the soil, near the base of those trees, cool, and shade a small area for the worms, or pieces of plywood just lying on the ground, the worms will come and thrive. I know a bit about that aired Aurora Colorado weather, and it's barren soil also, you are smart to start with raised beds.
I had to dig due to Asparagus Ferns and invasive Ivy that had been growing for 50 plus years with roots thick as my leg. I dug down 2-3 feet taking all roots out. I add food scraps at the bottom. I added screened soil and organic matter. My tomatoes are 12 feet tall going crazy. I’ve never seen my veggies grow like this. There are worms everywhere and I can easily stick my whole arm into the soil. It was a lot of work but worth it🌱🧞♂️
Why "pull plants" as opposed to chopping and dropping? I'm doing wood-chips and discovered that sunflowers cut at the base, leaving the roots in the ground can be quite a success story.
Bermuda grass though? I'm considering a low-yield nuclear device.
If you ever find a way to get rid of bermuda, please let me know! I agree the nuclear solution looks attractive at times!
I mainly pull plants so I can accumulate enough material to make compost.
Have you tried vinegar?
@@debbieduggan6796 vinegar doesn't slow the bermuda grass down...
If it’s a small area, slash, cover with heavy black plastic followed by corrugated iron sheets. Leave for a year. Works for things worse than Bermuda grass.
I follow the no dig method to a certain extent, I do dig some beds, mainly to help with previously compacted and not so great soil, left from desire lines. However, most of my soil (here in the UK) is a dark, loamy mix, well draining but with clay way down to help keep a rich mix and moisture. We live in a slighter dryer region, but still have plenty of rainfall. As you rightly say, you would have to shell out hundreds of dollars to start your soil as it does look pretty compacted. Charles brought this method up to date here in the UK, and I think we find this method suits our climate. Those before him had done the same, such as Guest etc. He is the more modern day pioneer, and here in the UK it’s very popular as our garden soil is quite fertile in most areas (mainly due to our excessive rainfall and hence consistent cover of weeds, grass and a diverse selection of wild plants). Worms enjoy moisture, so if your soil is dry, you’d have a dig a fair way down to find moisture and soil life, which isn’t so prolific that far down, plus greatly lacking in sandy types of soil, so I totally see why this methods not for you. You’ve made great tracks and as you fill your space more and more with plants, such as shrubs to provide shade and deep rooted plants to help break up your soil, you’ll get the fertility back. The only downside to having rich, fertile soil is the amount of 🌧 we have to put up with. We are in the midst of our ‘Goldilocks’ gardening months, where we have both long warm days with pretty good sunshine and a small amount of rain. Thankfully our water butts are full from the earlier months🙏. Good luck and look forward to see your garden mature more and more. All good wishes 🐝
my property in Chch NZ had "Liquifaction" from the 2011 earthquakes like gardening in compacted vacuum cleaner dust there was nothing there or alive when I arrived
I have no idea where the worms came from but after making my own compost I had gazillions
you need to make large scale bins with lots of green and cardboard banana skins and coffee grounds ( free from local petrol station and supermarket)
Love your channel Scott
Scott, maybe you are familiar with the book "Teaming with microbes", by Lowenfels and Lewis. It explains in details how the soil "food" network works. The area where you mulched with woodchips only will not become rich soil very soon, despite the watering and its thickness. Wood is broken down by fungi, it is a slower process and earthworms won't visit the area, as it is a rather acidic environment. This is why you had good results and earthworms for the 2 beds in which organic matter was incorporated. Love your channel and your passion for gardening!
I love that book and refer to it often. I reference it in some of my other videos about soil. Thanks.
You should try and get a chat with other gardeners on youtube including Charles. Most are decent people with similar sub counts so could be useful for sharing both ideas and subscribers.
Native soil makes all the difference. Many UA-camrs have success simply because their climate and native soil is better. Scott's arid Colorado climate is brutal on plant life. Everything is brown and dead out here on the prairie. I've really enjoyed getting ideas from Scott. He has cattle panel, shade cloths of every color, plastics of different sizes. Just goes to show what it takes to protect your plants out here. Scott has his gardening down to a science. Honestly some might do better on Mars then grow out here in CO prairie lol.
Your soil is like a rock, wow. It is so much fun building soil, watching it come to life. We have clay soil and it has taken years of added organic matter to build it but if I don't keep it up it goes back to hard as a rock. It is so full of worms now I have problems with them digging up my newly planted onion starts. Still have to weed but they are easier to pull. I love dividing my garden up and practicing different ideas I read about.
I tried no dig. I put bags of purchased organic compost on top of cardboard to start with. In some areas I also added raised bed garden soil. One bed had the most expensive I could find. I just tried different mixes in 4 different beds. My results were varied but I could tell there just wasn't any life in the garden. It took more amending and starting over a few times. I'm just now getting tomatoes and peppers. My corn was weak but it did kind of grow. My strawberries were happy but I could not get squash to grow at all. It just sat there. I planted several and they literally just sat there not growing at all. Eventually I would get frustrated and cut them down put in more compost and a new plant and it would just sit there.. Not growing... Not dying.. Just sit there. I am finally seeing earth worms. I've amended some areas and I'm about to plant garlic but I did mix in some organic fertilizer and bags of more compost. I've started a compost bin of my own. I hope that's the answer.
I believe this is the Ruth Stout method also called lasagna gardening. I have similar soil to yours only it's sand and it's easy to dig. There were no worms until I added a lot of any and all compostable material and slowly I see a few more each year. I thought I would try this Stout method, but I really didn't see fantastic plants in that garden, plus the thought of snakes that love piles of straw. For those reasons I prefer to get it mixed in as I'm not waiting for great soil at a glacier pace and like to see the snakes first. We have tree trimmers in the family and was lucky enough to get a couple truck loads of bark. I also added to the garden. I just make sure I have enough nitrogen. Lasagna gardening adds more to soil than Stout method. She added cottonseed meal or greensand and I don't think that's enough. The video I seen of her she was older and I'm sure her garden wasn't as well kept as when she was younger, but I like a tidy garden. I don't till all season only at the end and a few raised beds. I've never heard of the author you mentioned. Sometimes I bury compost material direct to garden in trenches. Great info, thank you.
They are similar but the key ingredients are different. The Ruth Stout method focuses on using hay or straw as a thick mulch to block weeds and feed the soil. Lasagna gardening incorporates a mix of different materials.
You could have put the organic matter on top and begun planting in it. You didn’t have to wait for the earthworms to appear or dig it in. I do no dig and two new beds this summer I just mounded 4” of compost and planted right into it. Currently I have fennel in one of the beds that followed lettuces and beets. The other bed was lettuces, basil and onions and now has rutabaga, kale, beans, parsley, beets cauliflower and cabbage in it as second plantings. The university said two years of 3” and Charles says just go for 6” to start. Same difference except Charles’ method you would begin planting right away. I’ve been doing the no dig for the last three years. My soil test came back great this year and each year my plantings improve. This summer I’ve had great success with no soil amendments. I just add fresh compost once a season and I start planting. Maybe this isn’t for everyone but my experience so far has been positive results.
I agree. The big issue for me is that I don't have 6" of compost to put on all my beds.
@@GardenerScott thanks for your reply. Fair enough. I agree, getting the compost started and continued production of enough of it is the first step and key component of this method. Thanks for all the videos. I’m going to watch another right now. Have a great day.
Good, I do minimal dig, not no dig at all. I am still expanding my veggie patches, 5 at the moment. I leave 1 fallow at the moment, while trying square foot gardening at the moment. Next I will trying intermittent rows.
Ground (dirt) such as yours does not need "a couple of inches" of organic matter placed on it. You need a few tons of the stuff. This is where the Ruth Stout method comes to the fore. You cover the ground with bales of hay or straw and plant in THAT. This will break down and enrich your dirt. You may have to import a handful of earthworms once the organic matter has broken down enough, but in time everything will sort itself out. Basically you will be laying new soil over the old ground. The old ground will then soak up water from the layer above, allowing the earthworms to carry the organic matter into your ground, thus deepening the productive layer and turning it into arable soil.
Our village is built upon solid rock. Sand had to be imported, so there is a few inches of it over the rock. When we arrived, my wife and I found a veritable desert landscape with only a few indigenous weeds and grasses growing. We gathered up all the fallen leaves, cut grass and any other stuff we could find - our neighbours registered horror at the sight of us placing layers of corrugated cardboard boxes on our yard! - but even in that first year we were able to grow a reasonable crop of vegetables. Now, six years later, the garden produced so much fruit that we have been able to preserve enough to last 'way past the winter months.
DEEP mulch is the answer: not "a couple inches"!
40+ years ago i started testing out different methods..either what i dreamed up or what i read. From a no dig, lots of worms, compost used in different methods, of all the methods that made any difference in my garden was a french intensive method that thomas Jefferson had tried... along with not walking on the garden beds and using companion planting, adding composed enriched with year old goat manure. This worked fantastic for first year didnt do next year and got a slightly resuced crop next year and reduction continued for next 2 years till i did it again...
Will add on to that...french intensiveis turning soil 18" deep and turning soil....it was sandy maridian loam ...
Thank you for that explanation. I had been considering the "no dig" concept but now I realize it would be wise to wait.
Good morning Scott. The soil sure was not ideal at the start and I assume 2 years later you have made great progress. I appreciate your added knowledge to the conversation that many may not realize. Not all soils are equal, at the start. Then there is annual amounts of rain. You mention in the start that the organic matter was nowhere near 5%. I would hazard to guess it was not 25-25=50% air/water either. Again, I assume that is fixed by now, or at least where you are growing in ground.
Our ground here in central NC comes with at best 2-4 inches of top soil set upon red clay. Good for pottery or even making bricks but you cannot simply get to growing without fixing that top soil. It is the same approach here as you mentioned in your video. The CSU advice. We added composted organic cow manure with fine pine bark year after year after year. Essentially it is the dig once method. I honestly never heard of no-dig gardening until a few years ago. We were doing it by habit. Dig a hole, throw down some new compost, plant, backfill with soil already present. It works! Of course we get a lot more rain here than you do there.
Anyway, I am glad you shared this information to the conversation. It will certainly benefit thousands of new gardeners each year.
Happy growing in 2023.
Good morning to you. Yes, my soil is gradually improving, and you're right about the ratio. In my dry region it is a challenge to get air and water into the compacted soil. While it can take years to get good soil, it's great to hear you understand the need for that effort to improve soil and are willing to make the effort. I hope you have a great gardening 2023.
Brilliant!
It has nothing to do with wet vs dry climate (that's what water is for) it has more to do with soil quality. I am in 5b CO as well. I have put leaf mold and compost in my 200 sq ft garden for several years I tilled it once a year. I started no dig this year, my garden produced approximately two to three times the veg. I agree with you that you have to start with "fixing " your "Colorado soil"aka clay. I am totally now doing no dig. I think youre going about this the right way fix what you can first then go no dig. Hagd and happy gardening.
I'm in Englewood CO with an Enormous back yard, wanting to turn it into gardening, but NO experience, AT ALL, yet Bags of leaves from 20 fruit trees- do I just compost this year? ALso have a 17" x 25" porch, enclosed with clear plastic to keep the snow from blowing in, which seems like a Greenhouse to me. Container grow? what should I start with this winter Jan-March? Besides composting?? Of course I might just a create snow mountain (using stRAW bales ) and a lift (?) for backyard skiing. Because WHO doesn't want to ski in their backyard suburban yard? And finish off with indoor(-ish ) porch gardening , the bar, chaise lounges and fire pit? Light up the pellet smoker, imbibe, and wait for compost.
Like Waiting for Godot with booze and mulch and snow. Which would have greatly added to THAT play.
Start with whatever compost you have for a section of land just like the raised bed you make, don't need it for the entire field. The soil near the compost actually starts becoming less compacted overtime, and only enriches it over the years.
My soil is clay and my root vegetables found it too hard to break with just cardboard for no dig. I didn't like the results. All that soil is so expensive. I agree with you.
I agree I built raised beds this year and I filled them with good soil and organic material. Now that fall is here I am starting the no dig method the life in my beds is amazing. I also started two of the beds using the Hugelkultur that I saw you doing. Thanks for sharing this video.
How's the rest of your soil around those raised beds
thats exactly the soil i have in my garden, stony hard and compacted... what do you do about it? raised beds? near my garden there is a field where the farmer plowed and cared for the soil for years (30) and there are many earth worms and i can dig easily in a whole shovel in the soil withoud impact drill which i need in my garden to dig a planting hole for a tree.