No-Dig Garden Introduction
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- Опубліковано 6 сер 2024
- The No-Dig Garden is one of the 7 family size gardens that are being trailed as part of the RED Garden Project.
This garden was originally established using a Permaculture based deep litter mulch as suggested by Toby Hemenway in his book Gaia’s Garden.
But I have found there to be significant issues with this method here in Ireland, including a significant increase in slug population. The challenge is to adapt no-dig methods that will work best in this maritime climate.
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Part of the Cloughjordan Ecovillage, Tipperary, Ireland www.thevillage.ie
Hey you reading this comment, have a nice day ☺☺
Thanks! you!
Thanks. You too, sir.
Same to you, friend! And everyone else! Have a great day aswell!
No
An idea perhaps worth looking into for your no dig mulch, since you don't have enough compost, is to grow your mulch in place by using high biomass cover crops such as perennial rye (winter) or sorgham sudangrass (summer). Grow the cover crop to pollen shed stage and then terminate with your scythe or by knocking it down/crimping the stems at the base. To warm the soil, some have proposed using faba bean as a cover crop over winter as the following mulch is black and my help warm the soil. Also, starting with a raised bed and then transitioning to no dig after raising can help warm it and drain it better. I'm sure you know about these methods but if you want more detail look up "david brandt cover crops" on youtube. Cheers, love the channel.
Excellent analysis and sharing the find. Thanks for making this vlog.
Glad you liked it!
I really like the way how you look to the both sides of coin. Thanks for great videos!
Thanks!
I continually find your videos to be of superior quality; both in terms of contant and delivery.
Your humble and direct approach; combined with simplified breakdowns and visual cues that are relatable and highly informative combine to be the best online presentation of garden biology and methodology available.
It is much appreciated. I continue following the RED gardens series eagerly. I am trialing several of the methods explained here but several seasons after the publication. It is a massive advantage to be able to anticipate my own needs from lessons that you share.
Thank you.
Thanks. It made my day to read your great comment. Good luck with your own explorations!
I love the honesty in your videos! It's great to watch as you experiment and learn from your experience. Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
Thanks! Glad you appreciate my honest approach.
I just thought the very same. Every no dig video sounds like a tale, so I kept researching until here, finally I've found some pros but also some cons! Thanks for sharing something that seems more reallistic and transparent. All the best!
I have a no dig garden here in Northern California. My climate is such that I don't have a huge problem with slugs. My garden is all raised bed also which make the no dig garden an ideal solution even though in the beginning of my raised bed gardening I was turning fresh compost into the beds every season. Now I just add compost twice a year on top and plant away. Thank you for the great videos. I like your informative and concise way of speaking.
I think the approach you have used is probably a really good one - dig and add compost first, then switch to no dig once things are established. Would love to try growing in a climate without slugs!
I'm just beginning my 'no dig' garden-just yesterday! This video is helpful as I learn more of what I'm doing. It's Winter here, in Australia ... the soil exposed is just about frozen ...but covered in mulch-so far!!
Glad to hear that my video was helpful. Good luck with it all!
My no dig vege garden has been revolutionary for me. I weed maybe once every month for 10 minutes. No watering needed. After each harvest. Just chop and drop. Even thick woody steams.My broadbeans hit 2m high this year and gave many buckets of produce., every harvest is better than last year.Worms everywhere. I do cause I love gardening pulling off any leaves touching ground or old which prevents pests.I’m on my 19th layer now.
Wow, amazing! What kind of climate are you growing in? What type of soil are you working with?
Nz temperature to semi tropical. I get frosts which I love for insect control and Brussel sprouts etc but generally warm with lots of water. I don’t have a large plot but still able to get that buzz of producing 100% garden sourced meals from time to time. I’d love more space and produce more for my family and share with friends but....city life. I’m on my 19th layer in no dig garden. Wish market gardeners adopted and recycled all that paper and cardboard the cities produce.
BEST CHANNEL EVER!
Thanks!!
I found your channel yesterday. I'm really enjoying your vids. I'm a professional landscape gardener and have experience on an organic CSA veggie farm, and in my own no-dig garden. I'm also a fan of Charles Dowding, yet also a fan of people that do light tillage with draft animals.
In my own no-dig hybrid garden I've used different methods to establish new 30 inch wide beds. This is in a black clay/gravel soil that is moderately compacted. Basically I have usually forked or tilled first, with the exception of the beds that I just hoed the vegetation till it became a humus layer/mulch combo.
1. Chopped vegetation on the surface with a sturdy hoe, then let it compost in place. Then, plant veggies from 4" cups into the bed and just hand weed occasionally.
2nd method: I broad forked it to establish it, but have not forked it again. There was just a mat of frist killed summer grass on the ground, a weak annual grass, and just a few other weeds having a taproot. There were so few that hand weeding while forking was easy.
3rd method: I borrowed a tiller that was offered to me on that day. I didn't till again in the following years.
In methods 2 and 3 I added an inch of raised bed soil that has manure and compost in it, but granite rock dust as well, abd a tiny bit of sand. I have not reapplied in the following years. The surface is still very nice. It is easy to pull grass from. I don't walk on the beds. I just plant into them.
For fertility I'm testing a crimson clover cover crop that is now actually a living mulch around tomato plants. Excess moisture will be a problem for tomato plants in this living mulch. I'm in central Texas. 1 out of 5 years may be too humid and moist in late spring for tomatoes to be amongst a big living mulch.
We have slugs too, but I've used oak and elm leaves in a very thin layer as a mulch in various spots.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. It is great to be able to try a few different methods in the same space.
I'm interested in what you say about tomatoes. I hadn't considered that central Texas could be too humid for tomatoes at times - just shows how little I know about the diversity of climates in the world. We have humidity issues here in Ireland as well, and can cause problems in the polytunnel (the only space where I can grow tomatoes.)
Great video. Thanks. I operated a no-dig garden for a number of years and used a black ground cover from the start. I found this helped to warm the soil in the spring; presumably the black colour helped to absorb the heat from the sun. I grew fantastic crops of vegetables. No weeding was required and I controlled slugs by sprinkling pellets into the planting holes around the plants (I do realize that you probably don't want to use pellets). No dead slugs appeared on the surface to be eaten by birds . I did not have to add inordinate thicknesses of material to the beds each year. Eventually, I added a 6 foot high wooden frame covered in wind-break netting over the entire (4) beds, effectively creating a net-house. This did two things. Firstly it kept cabbage white butterflies out. Secondly, it created a micro-climate that enhanced growth and reduced stress on the plants from wind and the lash of rain etc. It seemed to create ideal conditions for growing. The net-house did not cost as much as one might imagine. I used 1.5"x1.5" wooden battens as the frame. I am in Co. Meath, Ireland.
Keep up the good work.
Interesting point you make about the dead slugs not being on the surface to be eaten. And interesting to hear about your success with using ground cover.
I like your idea of the net house, as it could deal with a lot of issues at once, including butterflies and birds. Do you find it blocks the sun a lot?
Really good content thank you. My initial no-dig is all woodchip mulch and though the slugs/snails are getting fed the birds have discovered it now and there are less issues as time progresses. I do a spot of hand weeding each time I harvest something, one maybe two weeds a day is all it takes. We are temperate/subtropical here (Auckland, NZ). To avoid the slower startup for cooler soils in spring I raise out seedlings in the greenhouse or indoors and then plant them out. This gets crops in early enough to be worth it (spuds by christmas).
I've had a few Irish folks inquire as to no dig in their climate, I'll be sure to send them here.
Charles is good aye! I grow a lot of support species/cover crops to get the mulch/compost assembly line moving faster.
Thanks for the comment. Raising seedlings in a propagation space, definitely helps in all of my gardens, but sure if there are any birds around here that eat slugs. Only hedgehogs and frogs as far as I am aware, it would be great if there were..
Honest questions
Thanks for the video. That was a great insight to build out what you can with the materials on hand. It's a lesson I learned. I would rather build a small proper plot, then grow it as I get more debris. Maybe more hoop greenhouses would help you control the environment around your plots?
Interesting video, facing some of the issues you have highlighted with the no dig methods with slugs. Did start with a decent load of well rotted manure a couple of springs ago but that bought a huge nettle problem as well. Missed a few seasons due to ill health and slowly battling back to control things now. Working through your videos with great interest. Perhaps a no-dig update?
I've been randomly watching your videos and something I have noticed you say a few times now is, "if I had done more work in the first place it would have been easier/better in the long run". A valuable lesson in every walk of life, not just a garden. Odd that I watch your videos, I dont even grow vegetables, keep em coming anyway.
Yeah, I think that is a valuable lesson, one that I seem to keep learning. Glad you found my channel, and are enjoying my videos even though you don’t grow.
@@REDGardens Indeed, I like the experimentation and honesty with your results, not enough people seem willing to put their hand up and say oops.
Jim Allen I agree!
I think Charles Dowding has really nailed no-dig. I've latched onto it because it will be physically easier than the other methods once my small farm is established. I'll be investing in a couple of truckloads of mushroom compost first up, then making my own from all the flower plant refuse plus local horse manure. Great video - I love this series and will be chipping into your patreon page - seems only fair. I really value your work!
Yeah, Charles seems to have sorted out a good method for a temperate climate - if you can get the quantity of compost. Good luck with your farm, and thanks so much for your comments and support on Patreon!
This is my first year following Charles Dowdings no dig method. I put my mushroom compost on in the fall of 2017 and have been eating out of my none heated greenhouse garden since March of 2018. It has done better than any garden before. I had already been using mushroom compost but working it in the top 4 inches of the soil. It is a waste of time and work to work it in. It is now May 29. I have the rest of my garden outside of the greenhouse planted and everything is doing very well. As long as i can get the mushroom compost i will never garden any other way. I live in the southern state of Tennessee in the U.S.
We have a no dig bed in our garden but have varying success each year. We mostly have problems with nettles and other grass seeds creeping in under the newspaper we use to block out any grass production. Weeding is an ongoing issue but overall a Hugel culture or no dig bed can be useful with certain plants like pumpkins and brassicas. Finding an organic source of manure is also an issue where we are in the South West of the country. Currently we only use grass clippings as ground cover during the summer months and pile it on high in the autumn. I'm excited to see the end result of your experiment with the apple peels!
Interestgin what you say about brassicas, as I find these are the crops that can grow best in the no dig system. My squashes and pumpkins do reasonably well, if I can get the soil to warm up enough.
I plan to make a video next summer about the apple mulch, once I see what the results are!
Hi, I like your approach (and your vids). On slugs: Monty Don did show how to apply nematodes to the soil that will kill the slugs, but in order to keep slugs from invading he also put copper piping around his raised bed; my preferred method was making use of the abundant population of Blackbirds and Thrushes eating slugs and snails (lots of shrubs and hedges providing nesting habitat for the birds). Now in my new garden, nearly all Blackbirds suddenly died, so I had to fall back to hunting slugs and snails by myself, around sunset and with high air moisture they are on the move and ready for picking. A more lazy method is scattering some boards on the soil and check the next day how many you have caught under them. Happy gardening, greetings from Holland.
Hi there, thanks for commenting!
I tried nematodes for the slugs a few times, and I can't say that I noticed any difference. It was almost as if I hadn't applied them. I often revert to the same methods as you - hunting them down at dusk and the pieces of wood for them to hid under can work really well (when I remember to regularly check them).
I am in 10A Climate Zone in Southern California, and the no dig garden works well for me. I had to use newspaper, instead of cardboard, to cover my lawn, as it didn't rain enough for the cardboard to decompose. It worked best just before winter, when the grass went dormant. I used wood chips, and fall leaves to cover the material. No un-composted material would work, as the neighborhood animals, raccoons, squirrels and rats would make a mess of it. The wood chips are 4-12 inches deep, and after 3 years,much have decomposed into an amazing black, rich soil. I spread finished compost out from time to time. No fertilizer was used, but what was created from the worms and other bio-diverse insects that thrive in the soil. I just imitated the forest floor, with not much cost at all. The wood chips are free at the local parks. I don't need to water as much in the heat of the summer, as the soil retains water well. The wood chips retain the moisture from the heavy rains, and there is no runoff or mud to slip in. When I am ready to plant, I just rake back the wood chips a little to expose the soil, and dig just enough to set the plant in.
Sounds like you found a method that works really well for you climate. I have been trying to source wood chip for a while, and only managed to get a bunch a few months ago, thou not enough yet for the type of method you are talking about.
@@REDGardensIt might pay to keep asking tree trimmers in your area to dump the chips in your property instead of their normal dumping grounds. Chop and drop method when you do your pruning is a good way to make your own mulch, also. Just drop the cut branches as you would wood chips. Even pine needles mixed with chips is great. You ever see a slug trying to cross over a bunch of pine needles? Nope.
I've been reading and watching a lot lately about permaculture and it seems that It works best for small gardens which makes sense since it aims for low maintenance but sacrificing productivity (for suburban needs maybe). Another approach to mulching would be high density planting to suppress weeds. But in a wet climate it can be a problem with fungus. Anyway, your vid is always very informative!
Thanks for the interesting comment and observation. I would tend to agree with you about a lot of permaculture being better suited to smaller gardens, where low maintenance is preferred to high productivity. But perhaps that is because so much of the more publicised solutions and techniques were developed in this small scale (suburban) context. There are a few very interesting farmers using permaculture design to develop integrated and productive systems. Richard Perkins is one of them ua-cam.com/channels/3111rvadtBPUY9JJBqdmzg.html
Personally I don't worry so much about the suppressing weeds issue. It helps but isn't the main reason for doing something for me. I have been developed the attitude of weeding often. The more you do it the easier it gets, but you have to do it very regularly (like once a week).
Morague Gamble puts newspaper between the compost and mulch layers so the weeds will be easier to remove
About slugs, I think for most of the organic material, if we want to bury it in soil, we need to make sure it's fully decomposed. Or else, pest will be a big headache.
you have to have at least 6 inches of mulch to prevent weed from coming up ... if you chop and drop, it's not going to work unless it's at least 6 inch of chops and that's almost impossible unless you have a forest behind you. I did the ruth stout method and it worked but it required alot of hay ... bales and bales worth. Does cost money unless you can get it for free. Turned my clay soil after a year of nice soft soil. The shovel test where I couldn't even dig before the mulch to having the shovel go a all the way down. Worms galore.
We live in Minnesota, land-locked and 45 degrees latitude. I've been doing no dig for four years. I find the same problem with the mulch keeping the soil from warming up. We've had lots of trouble with sweet corn. I suspect it's because the cool soil doesn't let the nitrogen. . . do that thing nitrogen does only after the ground warms (can't say I quite understand it). Now that I'm four years in, I'm also having more problems with perennial weeds like dandelions and thistles, which aren't even slowed down by four inches of straw leaves, or grass clippings. But I do like what it does for the soil. Conventional wisdom says the soil here can't grow long carrots, but last summer I has 8-9" perfect carrots. I also have much less pest pressure than my neighbors. But I think you are right that no dig has to be adapted to your specific conditions. Thanks for the video. Thought provoking as always.
Interesting to hear about your experience with the cold soil issue, and that nitrogen 'thing' (whatever it is) is definitely part of the issue.
Weeds like thistles can be a real problem. Have you tried using several layers of cardboard where the thistles and dandelions are? That might slow them down.
I was a also bit surprised to get straight long carrots out of the no-dig garden - I had always assumed that they needed loose soil. But now I think that carrots like a consistent soil, no clumps that can be caused by digging and tilling. They also don't seem to like hurried vegetation or fertility!
I'm really interested in what you say about having less weed pressure than your neighbours. A sign that something is working well!
Have you ever heard that slugs die after they eat young radish sprouts grown in the garden? Thank you for your time! I am enjoying and learning so much from your programs. Keep up the good work!
I have not heard that about slugs. Glad you are enjoying my videos and value my work!
I use the no dig method. My best success has come when I put 18 inch total material depth, alternating green and brown materials like I was building a compost pile.
Interesting. Are you growing in a warm climate?
ive been following charles dowdling since you mentioned him in this video thank you
Cool. He is doing some great work, and his method seems to work really well for many people - if you can get enough compost.
ye i find thats the biggest issue with his method...but being the lazy person i am i brought a 1 cubic meter for $100 which i hope will give me returns in many years to come
My take on limited compost would be to add extra layers of cardboard combined with urine water and grass clippings over small twigs as your first two layers.
What and how deep I'd put above those layers depends on how much time needed to safely avoid burning the roots.
Another option I'd consider is to only stack thick and deep in adjacent trenches, as a delayed nutrient feed.
It's my first year doing something like this in a mini raised bed, inspired by multiple sources so results may vary.
Part of my inspiration to try it came from watching compost tubes in raised beds and other ideas on UA-cam.
The problem I have found with extra layers of cardboard and grass clippings is that they keep the soil too cool in the spring, and then the slugs really like that habitat.
Compost tubes seem like they could be very interesting and I'm keen to try them out.
I think the first step is the most vital. Heavy mulching and let it sit for a year. I’ve never tried this myself but I know of one homesteader that has great success with this method. “50 ducks in a hot tube” is his channel name.most of his vids are about his ducks but he also has a small side series on heirloom organic gardening. You can find it in his playlist. He mulches his garden in the fall with heavy straw infused with his duck poop. He lives in northern Canada in conditions similar to you. Very cool and wet environment. His garden is always very rich with very little to no work once planted. He too pulls back the straw for germination and once a specific size, about 4 inches high, he mulches around the plants and forgets about it till harvest time. He struggled with traditional methods of tilling, composting and weeding for his first few years but has had incredible results since he has switched to “no dig” methods. It works, you just gotta have the straw THICK! Like 6-8 inches deep and dense and let it breakdown for 8 months minimum.
I have come to realise that the no-dig approach definitely benefits from letting it sit for a season, especially with a deep mulch.
While this method looks inviting, my soil has a lot of clay and many stones and rocks. I used raised beds and dig the soil then sift out all the stones and weeds. I used 1/4” hardware cloth to sift the dirt, the screen is over the wheel barrow. Works good for my purposes. Then annually compost is spread over the raised beds. Thanks for the video and the great information
Sounds like you have a tough soil for a no-dig method, and raised beds sounds like a decent option.
You might be able to find things from other farmers that practice different methods such as hydroponics.
In my area I have a local farmer that uses cococoir in his strawberry production, at the end of the season he has literal tons that he has to get rid of. I've been using that instead of compost. There are heaps of options for no dig. I really enjoy 'I AM ORGANIC GARDENING's' approach, it may be worth having a look at what he does.
That would be great, but I live in an area that doesn't have a huge amount of exploration going on - most of the farmers around are conventional dairy or beef farmers, with all fertility being in the form of slurry. There are a lot of people who keep horses, but I am wary of the various contaminants. I am hoping to get a load of manure from friend who has a mixed organic farm but I doubt they would be willing to give up their fertility.
But I think I need to do a lot more searching, as there is likely someone out there reasonably close by with material that are looking at passing on.
One resource I do have is apple pulp from friends who press local apple juice - potentially tonnes of it! But need to figure out how to integrate it into the garden.
No-dig has been most successful around my fruit trees, berry bushes and native plants compared to raised beds but greater challenges have been numerous critters as well as the slugs requiring cage covers. Not giving up. At age 69 it is easy soil building and preferred technique with average 6 month preliminary time before planting. Any way we can grow let's do it.
Love your channel, very educational!
I'm starting a new garden next season.
How did the apple mulch workout?
Cool, thanks!. The apple mulch didn't work out very well, for the first part of the following season, as it seemed to be too wet, and anaerobic for the first crops. Then it seemed to have settled down. Not sure I would do it again, or I would at least mix it in with something else.
For cold places, compost is the best mulch. 1 year old compost will do a great job.
Yeah, I think you are right, if you cannot enough of it.
Your videos have taught me so much since finding your channel earlier this year. Simple, direct, and experimental...I absolutely appreciate them. Thank you. So, I have a thistle patch. Not a small on either. I'm trying the no til with cardboard for next year, but I also thought of a cover crop to strangle them out. Would that work? I've pulled pounds of thistles only to see them back next week. I'm close to setting the whole thing a blaze. Thank you in advance if you have the time to answer me. Have a beautiful time playing in the dirt!
Thanks! Glad you find some value in my videos. Thistles are tough (I assume they are creeping/Canadian thistles) and not sure cardboard will be enough to kill them off. Those shoots can be very persistent and can lift a lot of weight. A few layers of cardboard will definitely slow them down, especially if there is a mulch or something else on top. A woven plastic ground cover fabric might work better, but whatever you do it needs to be on for a while - likely most of a year. The roots have such a strong reserve of energy that they can easily regrow after being pulled out. If you're going to pull them out, you have to keep doing it week after week, pulling up every shoot that emerges, and eventually - if you keep it up - you will weaken the plant roots quite a bit, and if you are really persistent they will eventually die. But it is a lot easier to kill off with cardboard if you pull them out and weaken them first for a few weeks. Good luck with it.
Thanks for sharing your findings. I'm a no dig gardener. And I agree that you can't cut corners or "rush" a no dig garden. Slugs are a huge issue in my no dig garden at home but not in my "community garden" no dig rows. I stopped putting much on my 'home" garden. I really can't tell if it helps. I imagine the no dig soil will take more time to mature. I wonder if putting a black tarp over the bed for 2 weeks prior to planting would warm up the soil enough to improve the germination rate. Some say it will also induce the weeds to grow that will then die if no sun is available. I think Curtis Stone and JM Fortier do that.
I cut a lot of corners when I was starting up all the gardens, and it set me back quite a bit. Would have been better do less.
I have seen Curtis and JM talk about the black tarp before sowing, and I want to try it out here in Ireland.
How do you deal with the slugs?
Not well. I only put down compost, no mulch. I sometimes use Sluggo when I plant seeds or seedlings. Sometimes the slugs/snails still get most of my crop. Most recently they got my cilantro seedlings, despite using Sluggo. I generally try to wait to plant my seedlings when they are a bit bigger and lean toward planting slug resistant crops in these areas. Daikon radish, peppers, sweet potatoes, larger tomato plants, onions, garlic seem to be less attractive to the slugs/snails in my North Texas garden.
That sounds like the experiences I had a few years ago. Slug damage can be very disheartening!
It’s true that it can be a hard job getting enough organic material to cover the soil with a layer that’s thick enough to suppress weeds, especially if you have a big vegetable garden. (Mine is 225 square metres.) We’re fortunate, in this part of Wales, in having a lot of lanes with overhanging trees that provide a mass of fallen leaves in the autumn. I usually wait until January, when the leaves have packed down into damp piles at the edges of the lanes, and then, using a rake and feed shovel, scoop up about ten small trailer-loads, totalling about 6 cubic metres. These go into one of two big bottomless boxes in the chicken area. Every day I transfer a few shovelfuls to the empty box, where the chickens excitedly go through it, eating seeds and insects, and breaking it up. Kitchen scraps and garden leftovers also go in. By autumn I have about 5 cubic metres of ‘cleaned’ and crumbly leaf mould for mulching the soil the following spring. It as a powdery surface, which deters the slugs, and is dark in colour, which I assume means that it heats up quickly in the sun. Buried porous hose provides water from a rainwater tank, saving all that walking back and forth with full watering cans in dry weather. Any weeds that germinate can be pulled out very easily. Collecting the leaves is quite hard work, but there’s not much else going on in January, and the exercise keeps you warm.
That is really interesting. Thanks for sharing. I know of a hollow through a small woods around here where there is a buildup of leaf mould. I have thought a few times about 'stealing' a bunch of it, and your description of your method has me thinking that I should follow through. I had't thought about processing with chickens. That sounds like it would work well. Thanks
I use the Anything Goes Method. That is build beds with whatever material is available. I build them 30-60 cm high and 120-130 cm wide. Cover with grass or hay. Move away cover material when you saw.
Interesting. I wanted to use a similar approach but ended up growing more slugs than plants. Are slugs an issue in your area?
@@REDGardens Yes we have Spanish brown slugs in southern Sweden. You have to pick them and kill them every night. There are other ways to fight them. Overall I have been very pleased with covering with grass or hay. Wood chips have been cumbersome to produce (you need a lot) and I think it is harder to get plants to grow, But One Yard Revolution is very fond of the method.
I had the same issue with slugs when I starting out with this method. The trick is to develop the habitat on the soil surface for predators. Those need lots of nooks and crannies to shelter in and hunt. I don't know what they are in your context, but here the main slug predators are centipedes and black bettles, amongst others. At first I didn't have any in the mulch layer, but now when I take a look at night, the mulch layer is thriving with them, and the slugs are kept in check. That predator population has taken a whole year to develop and in some areas of the garden hasn't yet formed, but in others is doing really well. Centipedes and black bettles like thick chunky mulch, which they run through when disturbed and hide. It takes time, but it works. Hope this helps.
Thanks for your suggestions. Your point about the predator population taking time to develop is an important one. I have come to recognise that the more slugs I kill, the fewer predators there will be, and the more slugs I will have to kill! But if I leave the slug population, I will lose a lot of crops. I think this adds to the idea that it is best to leave the garden for a year, to let the weeds be killed off, and the slug/predator populations to stabilise before planting vegetables. Unfortunately I don't think we have the same populations of beetles and centipedes to do the job, but perhaps I am just not patient enough.
The trick to predators is habitat. I'm not sure the ones we have here would thrive in the nature of the mulch you have on this video. The other one we have is lizards. I encourage them with piles of sticks in various corners. If the sticks weren't there, the lizards wouldn't be, because the birds would eat them. I'm also told that frogs are good predators of slugs here, but I haven't got to building a pond yet. No I'd still kill the slugs, when crops are threatened. But that's only because it isn't in balance yet. Slugs breed fast, they'll be there, as long as the predators aren't. When you don't have to kill them anymore, you'll know the predators have moved in, which has happened in parts, but not all of my garden yet. My deep mulch garden is less than a year old, about 10 months.
I wish we had lizards here in Ireland. The main predator of slugs here is apparently the hedgehog, which are rare enough and generally nocturnal, so it is hard to know if they are there. But it seems that one has taken up residence next to the No-dig garden. At first I thought the blackbirds were digging at the mulch in patches, but then I found that something with teeth very much like a hedgehog was eating my broccoli heads and the tops of carrots! Perhaps it had cleared out the easy to get slugs and had moved on to sample what I was growing.
The other main option is frogs, as you mention, but the garden is up on a hill with quite pours soil, so it would take a bit of work to create a good habitat before I could rely on them to help with the slug population.
I've used sacrifical crops and plants to good effect over this first year. Slugs seem to love mustard, which is cheap and fast growing. In the places I have large populations, I plant patches of mustard and the slugs tend to congrugate on them rather than my crop, and they're easy to pick off because they're all in one patch. Otherwise I leave one or two of the previous crop plants to grow old. As the plants decay they attract the slugs and leave the next main crop alone, also making them easy and quick to pick off on these individual plants. This has worked well as an interim measure to manage them, as the garden balances.
That is very interesting. I need to think about adding intentional sacrificial crops.
Gets pretty wet in New Zealand too, I've found with no dig that wood-chips were the most effective, with straw being the worst as far as controlling moisture goes. An established root system is extremely helpful (like tree roots) when it comes to controlling moisture.
I am thinking that wood chip may be much better in my context.
It is interesting what you say about an established root system managing soil moisture - hadn't thought about that in my context.
Its more an observation I have made. But 'I am organic gardening' has some interesting material about root systems. ua-cam.com/users/iamnjorganicvideos
Nice one sir.Thank you. Been wanting to ask you a question about your beds, the width and heigth of these. Charles Dowding has exemplary gardens, just fingerlicking. On the little actionfootage of him I did see a raised bed. This will help to work on a better drained ground and make it easier to get it warm after the winter. At just before 7.00 you stick your fork into what looks like very nice peat? This should warm up good if it wasn't so wet. Interesting to hear that in your area there are so many organic veg growers that the supply of good manure is a challenge...(do know from experience that apples make a great compost and this very quick, good there is such an abundance of other materials too). I like it you are this scientific about gardening, but that it is so difficult to get and keep all the elements under control keeps me grounded in a different way.
Hi Peter. The images of Charles' gardens are so fantastic and inspiring! I don't really have any raised beds, not in the manner that Charles and others use. But I do have fixed beds generally, or rather fixed paths, so the growing beds tend to be higher than the paths I have trampled on. Although beds that are raised quite a bit (perhaps more than 30cm or 1ft) will dry out and warm up faster, the site I am growing on is quite well drained. My experience is that raised beds with boards around them are a great place for slugs to hide and weeds to colonise, and uses a lot of wood at the scale I am operating at!
The issue of organic growers around here is that there are not enough of them and none of them have enough manure to spare.
Your points about apples making good compost is reassuring, as I really don't know how my experiment will turn out!
I see, good points. The beds will form themselves a bit from plantrests and compost. Slugs are a nuisance and more. Hard to imagine them being good for something. As our bit of land is very much former spruce forest, with sandy patches, we are lucky enough to have lots of slowworms. There is also a small stream nearby from where toads come foraging and they help too. Our place lays at the end of a long slope and always after a good rain it takes a while until al the water has run off. The squish squish soggynes under your boots, sounds familar? Made high beds of woodchips with horse manure and after a year under a cloth they are ready for planting next year. As a very little meat eating person, the growing without animal manure is i an interesting idea (as a horse is more a transport/tool/recreation creature their contribution is not necesarry dinertable related). It should be possible to make veggies out of plant rests and worm castings? But then again, milk and cheese and eggs and butter...
Charles has only 3 or 4 wooden sided raised beds and these are all for experiments. The majority of his beds - and the method he teaches - is not using wooden sides. They are entirely compost.
He uses composted mulches, that's why he has almost no slugs. HTH :)
Another very nice introduction, but I am missing a yield comparison with the extensive and intensive garden, that would be very interesting. Charles Dowding has quite a few clever methods, for example his multi sown, dense transplants work really well shading out weeds and preventing seedling losses from slugs. Maybe Charles himself will post a comment on here. I can't use the no-dig method unfortunately, because my chickens on patrol duty will scratch any mulch from my raised beds. Instead, I work in compost just shallow and superficially with a garden fork. As long as you don't tread on your beds or compact them, they don't need digging or loosening anyway.
I am planning to do a yield comparison later in the winter, once most of the crops are harvested.
Charles does have a lot of interesting techniques for more dense planting. I have adopted the multi sown technique he uses for a few crops. But I still get seedling losses from slugs as they tend to wipe out whole areas, rather than a bit of thinning.
Not stepping on the beds is a key point!
I am really looking forward to the yield comparison, because I don't think it has been done on this scale, and you do it quite thoroughly, it's bound to be good data :] I also get "bald patches" on my beds from slugs, I find that sowing 25% more transplants than you need and filling up the holes 2 weeks later helps to some extent.
I have found a method that works very well in my setting in Denmark on a sandy but fertile gardening soil. I made a Hügel bed 3 1/2 years ago digging to spade's depth filling the hole with branches, leaves and even smaller logs. Subsequently the soil is filled back onto the organic material and the bed is ready. This seems to work fine, from three growing seasons I can conclude that this bed is just as fertile as the dug beds right next to it. I have tried a range of crops since I try to make it a polyculture with lots of interplanting. Pretty much all of the crops have yielded really well and just as well as their counterparts in the dug beds.
I created this bed before I became aware of the Charles Dowding method so I haven't mulched it heavily. I leave the soil bare in the spring to warm up and mulch lightly with grassclippings and what else I have and mulch it heavily in the Autumn for winter cover. I do intend to turn in into a fullblown Charles Dowding style bed for the next season but actually I does not seem to be neccesary but is more to gain experience with growing in compost mulch and assess the weed suppresion in this system.
I should add that this soil did not suffer from great weed problems and virtually does not have any perennial weeds, only weeds grow from seeds, which the minimum disturance seems to discourage comparing it to the dug garden next to it. With a soil infested with perenial weeds this method might have been more difficult to accomplish, but in this case it has worked very nicely. However, it is interesting to hear about your experiences and the reasons why it does not work so well makes a lot of sense. You might not have been able to copy my method since you appear to have a greater weeds pressure and more loamy soils which warms up more slowly in the spring.
Very interesting about the Hügel bed. I have made a few beds like that but they are in a perennial garden so not so easy to compare. Starting with a lot of buried carbon Hügel method and then switching to a heavy surface composting Dowding method after a few years might be a really good approach, especially with sandy soil. It could provide some of the benefits of both systems.
I think the anti-digging aspect of these methods can be a bit overemphasised. It certainly does disturb the soil, but the ecosystem will bounce back quite quickly. So digging for the sake of digging may be a problematic issue, but if you are digging to make significant structural changes, and don't mind the work, then this could be a real benefit in the long run.
yeah it is indeed a very interesting bed, looking forward to see the performance in the upcoming fourth growing season. I hope that the compost mulching will pretty much stop all weed growth. I think you're right about that the no dig approach can get sort of almost religious. I believe it can serve a purpose e.g. in very compacted soil such as a pasture or former construction site being converted to a garden where biological loosening of the soil would take too long. I
I am a firm believer that Charles' method is one of the best methods for maximizing the yield/work ratio but you are right that the the excessive use of compost is a large disadvantage and no always even possible. My method indicates that you can get the same benefits but with only light mulching
I think a lot of these no dig variations work really well when there is very poor soil quality, or if you have access to extensive amounts of good compost and are planning to grow quite intensively. But I wonder if the effort, material and some of the follow on problems are really worth it, and good old digging is a better way to approach the first few seasons?
I'm late to the party, but one thing to keep in mind with Hügel is that you may end up breeding slugs in the process. That was my experience when making a Hügel bed. When digging out jerusalem artichokes this winter, I found that many of them had slug damage. Digging around some more, I found several clumps of eggs within the bed. It was my first Hügel bed, and I probably didn't add as much soil on top as I should, making it easier for slugs to dig into it. Something to keep in mind.
I wonder how much overlap there is with no dig gardening and no till farming. I am just about done with my first year of no till with a diverse cover crop very densely seeded on a bit less than an acre In the spring I am going to add a bunch of classic garden seed into the no till drill seeder along with a less dense spring cover crop.
So far I have been able to grow diakon radish , turnips and kale in with the rye and peas.
Except for irrigation there has not been much labor involved so far. The biggest part of the theory is to maintain a living root so your mycorrhiza have a steady supply of food
yeah, material limitations and cool, wet climate can hinder the no-dig's effectiveness. Slugs love straw. Finished compost is the best mulch, for many reasons. If you want to try a novelty method which really sucks, try straw bale gardening!
I am coming to that realisation, that finished compost is the best. Just struggling to get enough decent stuff.
I have been thinking of giving straw bale gardening a trial, more to see how problematic it is in this climate!!
To establish no-dig garden, I believe we need "double dig". We need to dig at least 50 cm deep, and add a lot of compost and manure into soil, and mix them. The good thing is, it's one time thing.
Double digging then no-digging could be a very useful hybrid method.
RED Gardens yes, I do agree, it works for me. Since real weed roots are deep and double dig can pick them up, that make no dig easier later.
I'm old school, the local farmer ploughed my vegetable area to get me started, and I've had raised beds and no-dig since. But from what I have read any disturbance of the soil breaks the mycorrhizal fungi mycelium so maybe even no initial dig is best? Charles Dowding is the world's No-Dig expert and thus knows exactly what he is doing which maybe guarantees success, but here's his videos of just putting a wooden frame on the lawn, filling it with compost, and away you go! albeit with 6" / 15cm of compost ua-cam.com/video/OIojWdJz0RE/v-deo.html
Charles dowding doesnt usually just put compost on the untilled up sod, he usually puts carboard sor something 1st layer, or killing off w black plastic 1st. As far as double dig 1st, then no dig, I have done basically as u described & no, like Charles shows, that makes for more soil compaction ( at least in clay based like mine), even w added leaves etc., than just layering on top on unplowed sod. I have avoided straw tho, per the slugs & weeds or oats or wheat coming up so thickly. Old, old hay, or woodchips, work well for me. Have been both in west central wi & northern IL .
You can use pesticides made of neem garlic and chilli
I have heard about that, but don't know anyone who has used it. Do you have experience using it?
...in no Dig the best mulch is a Lot of compost or wood chips (self-produced But in medium size), hay, straw, or dry leaves have some problems...
I am going to try the wood chip method this season in another part of the project.
If you use a thick layer of a good mix of brown and green mulch materials, wouldn't that keep the ground warm due to composting action?
As far as slugs are concerned, I wonder if it would be economical or even possible to introduce certain ground beetles that eat slugs?
Think the layer would have be really thick so that the heat of any decomposition doesn't dissipate.Then when the decomposition slows/cools, the temperature would drop again. If I timed things right, it could work, but not sure.
Interesting point about beetles and slugs. There is this idea that after a while, the ecosystem would develop enough to bring in slug predators, but I haven't noticed that happening yet. I did have a hedgehog in the garden last year though!
You spread some raw apple pulp onto the soil acting as a mulch layer. How did this work out in the end?
Brilliant video by the way, really well done.
Thanks. The apple mulch it didn't work out very well. I think I spread it too thickly and we had a very wet winter, so it became a bit of an anaerobic layer. Some of the plants seemed to suffer in the spring, but later in the summer it seemed to be fine. Perhaps if I had covered it with something it would have been better.
My way of thinking when growing, was too only grow produce that sold at a higher price at market.
Saving garden space and saving money.
That is a useful way to make decisions about what to grow.
@@REDGardens Also consideration to the climate zone and viability of producing a good crop is important.
Did the apple pulp make any significant difference or impact ? One would think it an exceptional organic material . I would assume a huge boost in microbiology , worms and beneficial insects ect . On the other hand could bring in scavengers if not lightly turned in which would go against no dig principles....
I am not sure what impact it had, compared to just the compost, for the plants. It did produce a fairly sludgy layer on the surface of the soil for a while over the winter, and it was probably beneficial for some soil biology but not for others. The layer was still partially there in the spring. I don't think I would do this again.
I currently have a no dig method garden and also have a problem with slugs. If you suggested another method, what transformations would you recommend? Is mulching the issue you see in regards to this? Is it better to just compost everything and only spread finished compost? Thanks for your thoughts.
it seems in this maritime climate that spreading finished compost is a better way, but I haven't fully trialed that method yet. In other climates, different methods may be better.
👍👏
Mulch is a very generic term and can refer to any number of different top layers such as hay, straw, compost, grass clippings etc. You need to be more specific as to which mulch you used. I only started the no-dig method yesterday, and have only used compost on top of the cardboard. I have heard pros and cons of using hay so I'm staying away from it. I might dump grass clippings on top of my compost. I'm hoping for good results but if you had been more specific I could have anticipated any problems I may have in the future.
Which of your gardens is the most cost effective? Fixed costs and variable costs vs yields?
Good question. I don't really have the answer at the moment, but at a guess I'd say the Simple Garden. Least amount of inputs compared to the yield, assuming that I can stretch the cost of the ground cover fabric over mayny years.
@@REDGardens thank you. A quick follow up question: Do you notice an increase in slugs due to the ground control fabric being a good place for them to hang out?
@@brewityourself3638 Not in the Simple Garden.
Do you understand russian language? Probably not but there is very good youtube channel called vogorode.pro. It is located in Moscow and only fertilizer she is using is grass mulch... just in better way. She accidently found that grass leaved in big pale for few days starts fermentation process and gets hot (hot grass). She mulch cabbage family plants, peppers, gegplants and potatoes 15-20cm layer with this grass and plants grow with huge harvest. Just be sure that hot grass doesn't touch plants stems. Slugs are not problem because slugs doesn't like fermented grass smell and too hot soil so they leave plants alone. Also she uses fresh grass mulch (15-20cm) for other plants such as tomatoes and cucumbers. Slugs doesn't like that fresh grass mulch too because that grass will ferment too. Sorry for mistakes :)
Very interesting. thanks for sharing. i don't speak Russian, but the idea of mulching with hot layer of grass clippings is an interesting one. I have done it a bit, but with thinner layers, and I haven't tried it around plants themselves. I give it a try this season.
@@REDGardens Few more tips when using hot grass clipping mulch:
1.If You use it only for ONE plant use it for potato. Woman in Moscow can grow this way 11.5kg potatoes from only one plant.
2.Be careful not to burn your plants. Mulch can not touch plants stems.
3.Repeat mulching process about 2-3 times in every 2 weeks. Thats all you need in one season. If there is no mulch left just add whatever mulch you have.
4.When you are watering your plants water all ground where mulch is, not just plants. It is necessary because then earthworms will eat all mulch faster (they don't eat dry mulch) so plants will get more nutrients.
Hope it helps.
@@saulespukje8 good tips, thanks
Well..im trying the no dig..mainly because i have to...too old to do all that digging. I ended up doing solar then spot digging out some weeds... trucking in compost to 8 inches deep...starting seedlings in 1/4 inch blockers...adding blood meal and bone meal ....when i made thr beds..i planted in it IMMEDIATELY. We will see...
I pick 100 snails moring and 100 most nights and one morning i got 801. Once u got em...there is no getting rid of em...but every day picking then up has brought them to the level where total destruction does not take place anymore..tho thr bright white ones are very sparce...the brown ones have taken over.
That sounds like a load of compost to be shifting around. Wish I had access to that much material!
Yes slugs and snails can be devastating. I did the same nightly cull of slugs in our urban back garden a few years ago. It seemed that the numbers would never go down, but they eventually did.
Have you ever heard of a compost tumbler? I am sure you would be able to create one your self to scale up easier. This would get rid of all of the painstaking work that it takes to turn over the compost. Google it!
Yes, some people have great success with tumblers. A few friends I've talked to have had mixed success with them, which has made me more hesitant to invest in buying or building one. For the scale I am at, and the amount of compost I need to process, I figure I'd need at least 3 large tumblers, if not more.
Backatcha!
:)
I'd like you to do a Back to Eden garden!
That would be interesting. I don't have space for another garden yet, but I may start to use wood chip on one of the gardens. One potential issue here in Wet and cool Ireland is that the soil is often too wet for most of the year, and one of the main benefits of the Back to Eden approach is that it helps tor retail soil moisture. So, I'm not sure that benefits will be as great here as in other climates. But we shall see.
A mulch-covered, no-till/no-dig garden IS a "Back to Eden" garden. They are the same thing. It doesn't matter what type of mulch you use. "Back to Eden" is simply a hyped-up, hippy title for "no till".
I am still trying to figure out the range of what is meant by "back to eden" - there seems to be variations on the approach, and I am not sure if they would all work equally well in my context.
I think the classic definition of BTE would be Paul Gouchi's version. But I agree with you that his method gets mixed with the Lasagna style. :)
Does anyone know what happened with the apple pulp?
It decomposed.
@@REDGardens I was curious if it affected the soil ph in any noticeable way when you tried to grow something in that bed afterwards? I know acidity in apples varies greatly.
Wow! It snows in Ireland?
Yep, but only very rarely!
ever heard about Back to Eden ?
Yes. I got a load of wood chip a few weeks ago, and planning to do some experimenting with it in another area. For this garden, i am going to stick with the 'Dowding method' for a few years.
I like the no dig method, The worms do the digging.
I like it too, just need to find a method/system that works for me.
RED Gardens wood chips?? Something like back to Eden. Also chickens would destroy those grubs.
I've been doing some initial research to start a small garden in my backyard. This, while fully logical, just seems super complicated and heady. Is gardening just that difficult or is this overkill?
Gardening does't need to be that difficult. It depends on the context and how much work you are willing to do and time you have. One thing that I have found is that the more effort you put into your garden the more you get out, and the better quality the vegetables tend to be.
I've been growing vegetables since I was a teenager. There is a lot of work involve in traditional methods of digging (during winter) and then hoeing regularly to kill weeds. As per that tradition I made compost and added it back during digging. For last 10 years I have done No-Dig instead. Much less work just adding a layer of compost (the same compost that I have always made), which (mostly) smothers the weeds as well as keeping moisture in, which reduces watering work during summer in dry climates. Also evidence that any soil disturbance disrupts the soil eco system (and reduces yield). Charles Dowding has side-by-side comparison of No-Dig / Dig. Lately his "Dig" has become "just loosen the soil", not actually turning it, but he still gets somewhat higher yield from the No-Dig, and a lot less work. ua-cam.com/video/tLHtveS3qJg/v-deo.html
@@kgarden8960 Interesting to hear your experience with shifting to a No-Dig method. Charles is doing some great work. My problem with he no-dig garden that I am trying is getting enough compost to provide a thick enough layer to start the garden, or to rescue it from the perennial weed pressure. I plan to shift a few of my other growing spaces to no-dig (or at least minimal loosening) using the compost on the surface as you suggest.
@@REDGardens I've heard you mention that you don't have much mulch available locally, except "recently dead"! material from your neighbours. I hired a mini tractor and topper mower, once a year, to take a hay crop from rough pasture here, and composted that (it doesn't make slime like grass clippings, but likely to contains lots of seed). Maybe you have some perimeter land where you could do that.
@@kgarden8960 That is definitely an option, but more work. I have been hauling partially composted horse manure from a farm 5 km away, which is easier at the moment. The thing that kind of bothers me with the mulch no-dig method is the idea that it is easier, and that I just need to put in a load of extra work to get the compost. For example, I can grow great vegetables on the Extensive Garden with only about 10-12 wheelbarrows of compost (a layer less than 12mm or 1/2 inch spread over a 100m2 1000sqf garden), and a cheap bag of organic fertility and a few other amendments, and some light forking over of the soil (about 1.5 to 2 hours total for the season). But with the no-dig method I need to find at least 4 times as much compost each year (perhaps 8 times as much to initially establish the garden), and either do all the work to haul it to the gardens and spread it around, or spend a load of time making compost. If I had easy access to lots of great compost, I'd be a happy no-dig gardener, but I find it a struggle, and a lot more work than some of my other gardens.
Sounds to me the no dig may not be the method in your climate. The simple garden may be better due to the covering keeping the ground warm. As for my area, Texas, no dig would work better due to the heat of the summer the deep mulch would keep the ground cooler during the summer creating less evaporation.
It does sound like the deep mulch of no dig would be better for your climate. I'm hoping that the no-dig method of using compost or well rotted manure will work well in this climate. It is so interesting how different things can be, depending on location.
Thanks for the update. Nice info :)
Ps: you don't sound Irish at all!
Thanks.
I'm Canadian, which would explain the lack of accent, despite being here for 20 years.
You sound just a little bit Irish
Why have you gone with organic for all of the gardens?
I guess it just made sense to me, to explore less common territory, and to do what I though was the right thing. I have never used conventional fertilisers in my gardens, and don't use pesticides/herbicides at all. Also, using organic methods is a condition of the site I am using.
RED Gardens Ah ok makes sense. I'm all about sustainability but not all about organics, at least not large scale organics which often uses more insecticides and fungicides but just organic ones. It would be great to see you do a non organic plot too to see the difference in yield. I think globally the increase in food that we need will come from the non organic sector.
@@oliverbyrne508 I am approaching all of this from a different angle, as I think that we need to shift food production to a lot more being produced at small local and personal scale. The big industrial farms - either organic or conventional - are way to resource and waste intensive. And at a small diverse scale the issues of pests, fertility management, storage, and resilience all change dramatically.
RED Gardens Yeah actually I think your right. Keep up the good work!
@@oliverbyrne508 Thanks
You need a pond for slugs The pond will attract newts frogs and toads all of which will eat the slug and snail eggs and young bringing the slug and snail populations back into balance
No dig (like every method i guess) isn't a one size fits all approach. I live in a similar local climate to charles dowding but on starting my no dig garden this year i took his approach of adding 10cm of compost but next year i will add a bit less. In subsequent years i will add around 5cm which i feel should supply my soil life with enough food for two successions of crops without tiring the soil. I expect to supplement heavy feeders with some chicken manure but i don't see that as a bad thing. There is no way i can produce enough compost for my humble plot to sustain 10cm each year and besides that i'm not sure if i wouldn't have created a mountain by the time i'm an old man.
As you have an intensive garden on the go i have taken from that the assumption that your no dig garden is not intended as an intensive garden like charles dowding's no dig method is geared towards. If my assumption is right and haven't made and ass of u and me then perhaps reducing the amount of the annual compost mulch you add could be reduced in subsequent years too?
Sounds like your garden is off to a great start. How big of a garden do you have?
With the amount of compost you have added you can definitely go the intensive route, and no doubt be able to add less and less as seasons go by. I kind of have this idea that all the gardens should be 'intensive' in that we should be getting as much out of the limited space as possible, but I am also trying to let each of the gardens evolve into what is more natural for the method. If I was to follow Charles' advice I'd definitely go more intensive, but with a deep litter mulch and using grass clippings throughout the growing season, it makes sense to have more space between plants. I guess right now this garden is in-between a bunch of different variations of the no-dig method.
I think my garden needs more attention and fertility!
My no dig garden is 7 by 5 metres but incorporates a 3 bay compost heap, a raised bed for herbs and some spare space for growing potatoes in sacks so the actual growing area is 5 by 4 metres. A small space in comparison to your total garden space so producing enough compost is a doddle. Time will tell how bountiful my no dig gardening approach will be but i feel confident that I've started on the right foot.
Like you say in the video it's about finding what works in your context. I find your videos especially helpful in that respect. You draw from many difference sources and speak like you're thinking out loud which is engaging and helps me reflect on and question my successes and failures.
After the first year, I think 5cm of compost per year is more than enough. You would probably still do very well with only half of that; it's been very successful on our intensively planted raised beds at least. This year I'm only using 1/2 an inch since the soil fertility and structure has been improved over a few years of no dig. Even with intensive planting you may end up with overly fertile soil like OYR Frugal did with his applications of compost, worm castings, leaves and coffee grounds (ua-cam.com/video/zSxa9GVwGns/v-deo.html).
You make a good point about overly fertile soil (thanks for the video link!) as i didn't know this can potentially be a bad thing (I.E phosphorus) . It seems intuitive to consider fertilisers to be only a good thing when in fact it's not that simple. I will test my soil just before it warms up this spring and give more consideration to the process of adding compost (and what i add to my compost pile!) in the future.
Here's another OYR Frugal video where he explains how long he thinks it took for the nutrient surpluses to develop - ua-cam.com/video/S-Ppo5RiND0/v-deo.html
the answer is ducks for the first 3 years until you get that compost
But then the slugs would just migrate in from the other gardens/allotments on site which I don't control.
and the ducks would keep eating lol. by the time you make it 3 years in you would have built what you wanted for your system. if you keep wanting to do it that way keep the ducks.
Just use woodchips, Paul Gautschi Back to Eden garden
I'm hoping to try wood chip in part of my gardens. Do you have a lot of experience with them in your garden?
RED Gardens yes I do, and Paul Gautschi is a friend of mine
My problem, as usual, is getting enough material. Not a lot of trees/forests in this area, but I'm hoping to befriend a local landscaper who could keep me supplied with enough woodchip.
Do you have tree service companies in your area? Often there are companies that cut down trees near power lines or buildings and they are overflowing with woodchips and will give them to you for free. That's how I got mine.
That is what I need to find.
Im trying to sell this to people and all I am hearing is negativity so far!
you are very easy to listen to however :)
@@lillired857 Glad to know that I am easy to listen to. I have had more success with this garden since this video, and hope to make a n updated video soon.
One permaculture principle states that the problem is the solution. Is there a local solution where the slugs could contribute?Charles Dowding says he has constant battles with slugs & snails. They eat weak plants and decaying organic matter. I keep 14 ducks and I only see slugs where the ducks aren't pastured. What local natural slug predators do you have in abundance that are beneficial to your garden? Toads? Snakes? Hedgehogs?
Here's a link with some ideas: www.slughelp.com/attract-hedgehogs-locate-slugs-enemies-garden/
I had a big hedgehog in and around the gardens last year, and I hope it is still there. It ended up eating all of my broccoli as well!
I would need to build a pond or wetland to build up any frog population, but could definitely be worth a try.
What eats Hedgehogs? BIGGER Hedgehogs! lol.
Also chickens can be trained to eat slugs as well.
Yeah, I had a batch of hens that were great at eating slugs, but found it very difficult to train them to not eat the crops as well!!
Get rabbits. 8 rabbits make one ton of compost a year.
That would be one way of generating it!
Where's that rat video?
Soon!
No one digs or tills the forest
Yep, and no one get all their vegetable needs from a 100m2 (1000sqf) of forest.
No one grows farm crops there either. Forests, gardens and farms are 3 completely different animals. Apples to oranges.
sod all that complicated shit. 8" of woodchip and add some wood ash. Wait 6 months, boo done. It really is that simple. Hay and straw are bad ideas and won't provide good structure, it'll just rot down to nothing. I'm in wales, same climate as you.
Don't plant into the mulch! Plant into the soil underneath!