My grandad had a small holding in Yorkshire and he and his wife (my grandmother ) lived pretty much off the land and my mum and her two sisters and brother grew up with this lifestyle. During his lifetime the railway company decided that they had to have a track running across his land. He had no choice about the matter. However, he got his revenge - he made one of the tracks slightly bent and as the trucks rolled across carrying coal - the small defect he made in the line meant that there was a small bump as the trucks passed over his land. He never bought coal again as of course a small amount of coal would fall from the trucks!
I’m a fan of everything you have mentioned. I have clay soil in the U.S. I’m an old man. I don’t have 7 years to grow soil. Next door cows provided huge amount. I also added truck loads of wood chips on my 1 and half acre. Yes, I have sinned. Tilled them right into manure and clay soil. Winter Rye held everything in place over Winter. I tilled, hopefully, the last time in Spring. Now I am using a hand shovel like a warm knife through butter. What doesn’t mix ...clay and being old. Respects. Loved your presentation.
I really appreciate your pros and cons and levelheaded approach. We are in pure clay in the mountains of Colorado arid and cold climate. There are no live worms in our compact clay. There is no soil breakdown at 0% humidity with 10 inches of rainfall a year. I failed with compost, no dig, cardboard and other weed control methods. We had to literally auger holes into the ground, then tractor till the ground AND we have to start plants in a poly tunnel in early spring, then plant into the ground after 6-8 weeks of growth so that their roots can punch through the clay. We have to weed by hand anything that gets by us. We do do mulch at the base of the plant and allow purslane to grow as a ground cover. We do amend our soil with fish oil, molasses etc. Our clay is PH balanced and has high mineral content, so we don't have to amend alot, just right after planting and before flowering. It was great to hear your experiences.
@@marissaalonzo7997 I read or watched, don’t remember, to put oatmeal in the dirt to attract worms. I found some cheap oats and put them on the ground and put hay on top. I was surprised that within a couple of months there were so many worms. Our soil is better and it is clay that will bake like a brick.
@mominthe209 Thank you for this! What a great idea! I tried mulching by itself and it just fossilized vs breaking down. This should work for both because they oats may mold as well. Good idea 💡
These videos will end up in lectures in agricultural colleges on the subject of sustainable farming. They will name some building in your honour, maybe in Galway. We are all looking forward to your videos on the restoration of the cottage.
I bought a house with, unbeknownst to me, enormous quantities of landscape fabric and black plastic buried under a ton of mulch. There was an electric dog fence wire buried all around the perimeter under plastic. There were multiple layers of plastic and mulch sandwiched between, topped of course by mulch in every bed, and pathways too. I wouldn’t have bought this property had I known I’d be pulling up plastic for a year and more, but I remind myself that I’m here to restore this bit of ground to fertility, verdancy, and the accumulation of organic matter.
I really enjoyed this video! About 20 years ago I bought a small tiller like the one you have. The house that I had just moved into had just been built. There was no landscaping whatsoever and heavy equipment had driven across the soil many times. The soil was heavy clay and thus it was compacted heavy clay! Like tilling through bricks, but I managed to get it ground up. I added bales of peat and bags of well rotted manure. My first year garden was not that great. I added homemade compost in the autumn and by the next Spring, the soil seemed not to need tilling. I kept thinking, "I must be doing something wrong! I am supposed to be tilling the soil every year!" But all I did was rake the soil out of the paths and into beds, and then plant. I kept the same beds and paths from then on and my garden did really well with just additional compost and leaves added to the top of each bed every autumn! I sold the tiller and haven't missed it. I had no idea I was practicing no-dig gardening, but that is what it is. Thank you again for the video!
I'm a no dig but I had to dig to get beds in the first place and remove stones, bricks and general rubbish. I do love hoeing it's so relaxing so I hoe the top off of the weeds I don't pull out. It works well in my experience as long as you mulch. I add grass cuttings and the contents of my chickens coops. I'm sure that adds seeds but as I like hoeing it's not been a problem. I now have polytunnel envy. 😎
Admire your practical approach. Not all methods work in all enviroments under all circumstances. Recently had a crazy conversation with someone who thought you could grow a field of wheat using woodchips.
Very nice, instructive "Intro to Gardening" type video. I was taught by my mother-in-law, who turned barren red clay into a rich, highly-productive, organic, small vegetable plot for a family of 9. The first thing she taught us was to toss away the shovel and use a mattock for the first soil turning (we have dark, rich clay like yours). It's really good that you are telling people that "no-dig" can be a myth, because soil structure is the key to success.
Great video. I just used my fresh grass clippings for my no dig potatoes. Learned it from Liz who has the Byther farm RU-vid channel. Worked a charm even on first year no dig on clay. I don't have as much potato growing as you do however, so during a dry spring like we had, I certainly wouldn't have enough grass clippings for your amount of potatoes. Using fresh grass clippings sounds bonkers and I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't recommended by an experienced gardener, but I'm glad I took the leap!
I did my first no dig garden this year and so far, it's worked okay. I used a compost that ended up not being the best quality and things were kind of slow to take off. However, now that we're in mid-July, things are growing quite well. I think next year will be even better since the soil will have had time to fully mature and will be amended with new compost as well.
We've got the same soil type and conditions (weeds up to our shoulders in heavy clay soil) ... We are growing spuds in the weeds we cleared (piled up) working perfectly ! - getting a crop from pioneering raised bed mounds ... We've found that if we dig up weeds (with roots) - we get more coming back than if we snip them off just beneath the surface (leaving the roots behind) . Apparently this is because weeds (as we call them) are actually triggered to grow by digging as they are the soils first line of defence when exposed by the removal of whatever plants were growing in it . Our soil is really well structured though as it had 8 years without agriculture for the worms to create their caverns within it . I'll never dig or leave soil bare ever again for any plant - just grow carrots in deep raised beds full of compost ! - works amazingly ! Get rid of that rotivator ! U don't need it ! Digging generates weeds, breaks fungal networks and causes soil erosion - digging (tilling / ploughing) is humanities greatest act of vandalism against nature - what were we thinking ?? Probably not very hard . The Greeks grew in raised beds and word on the street is that they had thinking nailed ... oh and we're moving now to agroforestry / forest gardening - tending seeds and planting (year after year) is so last century ! ... all the best fella . X 😁
Charles Dowding recommends that as well in one of his videos - Title weeding in a no dig garden or something like that. Borders around the beds and exhausting the weeds if they keep creeping in from the side. He does try to uproot them if he can, but if they have extensive root systems, he doesn't bother. It has to use extra energy to cover the distance and he says consistency is key. It is not much work once you are set up, but every time they shoot up you take it away and that exhausts the roots over time, they give up ;) he got rid of most of the weeds in year one and one super persistant one needed another year when he developed an adjacent plot he was able to buy.
It was curious at first until the tutorial went on... Then I just felt overwhelmed and exhausted. And I'm not even the one doing the digging tilling ploughing weeding collecting carting planning prepping or planting... Just listening and watching. Good on you guy, you're definitely a keen and hard worker. Thanks for the info. And Moss is sweeeeet. The place is so green and lush. There's something very exciting and beautiful about that. You planted clover!? And have grass that's growing and blooming pink!? With some untamed kale mixed in!? Nice... I like that. Besides being great nitrogen fixers...is clover edible? OK I won't keep you. But I thoroughly enjoy your videos. Very informative entertaining and refreshing... And a bit thrilling.... Literally Cottage Country in the Old Country... ;-).
@@marygunning5121 Sorry but Clover is edible for humans. It's not the best wild edible out there but the flowers are very nice in salad especially if you pick them early in the season before the bees get to them. Clover btw. is in the pea family.... Also some other weeds mentioned in the video are edible like Nettle (one of the most nutrious plants on the planet) and Thistle as well Dandelion and Chickweed. All cultivated plants that we grow these days have their ancestors in the wild and it's well worth knowing them....
@@frankkoenig1411 Yes, we should learn to embrace "weeds" and eat the edible ones since nature is providing free food. Clover jelly is great! I was thinking if Daniel ate the nettles, he wouldn't be as unhappy with them growing in his garden. Pigs work too. Cheers!
you could set up one raised bed. Or only one small garden bed. Borders ! (wooden planks for instance) watch a Charles Dowding video how to set up a no dig bed and keep down weeds. He explains it well. Daniel did not follow the method to a T. And he gets more rain so that may promote the weeds. There is also squarefoot gardenening. A small area but tightly planted. Different plants so pests have it harder. and no space left for weeds.
This is an excellent video...….it all begins with soil. I have a roto tiller, a Mantis. With the soil type in my current garden, it is useless in that it pulverizes the soil. Creates a flour like consistency. One month after using it the soil level drops two inches. For the last two to three years, like you, I have been using the log handled, 4 tined fork with wide tines, inserting, moving it back and forth, covering all with an inch or two of compost and lightly raking it over the surface. The compost drops down the holes 6 to 8 inches deep. Structure isn't destroyed. Wonderful ! Thanks again. Continued success to you.
Very informative and bang on . Doing very similar stuff on a slightly bigger bit of land . 2 wormeries have added some quality to the soil which was quite red plus lots of sea weed and any other leaf mulch and rotted horse dung . It's our 6th year . I did dig first then adopted mulching working great
This is so interesting. I'm in no way a farmer but I'd love to keep hearing about the Irish geography. I'm finished my leaving cert and i don't know where else to find this kind of content. it's very unique
Good video again Mossy, I have watched loads of videos about gardening here on RU-vid but if I'm honest people have made gardening TOO COMPLICATED. I'm 56 yrs old and before I came to Ireland I always had a garden to work in . I had a small vineyard too up in the hills in Hungary. I always dug my gardens by hand how my dad taught me and would never change that method . Manure from animals is always the best but home made can be great too . Back in England I used to take away all the waste from the fruit & veg shops near us they and put it in bins to rot away then dig it into our garden once ready . I used to sell the extra veg to my neighbours for a bit of pocket money . I like the fact that you were honest in this video . Mossy that machine you have in your hands is rubbish it's like a tooth pick in that garden . My relative had 1 made for me it had a 50cc motor bike engine on it and the blades were a meter wide , it had 3 gears but I could only use 1st and that was a job to hold it back. Ye to be honest digging the garden over is the best as long as you use manure or compost and for clay soils you need ash and some sand to mix in . I don't know about you but i've notice that everything as in vegetables are generally getting smaller in the shops and what used to be the normal size is getting called extra large which is a joke . Keep up the vids they're great.
Here in Germany we have around 39 different types of worms in the soil. The compost worms Eisenia foetida and E. hortensis are living in different ecosystems than the other worms and will not survive in an average soil. When I took over a garden on sandy soil this year I mulched with cardboard for three months, removed the cardboard and then put vermicompost on top of the dead weeds. Now I digged small holes planted seedlings inside and covered with a modern material (permeable foil which allows air and water to circulate but prevents weed growth, durable for 20 years). Everything is growing fine.
Dowding tries to make it clear in his videos that not dig just means to minimise soil disruption. E.g. he specifically mentions in many videos that you have to dig out woody perennial weeds for new beds.
Hi, I stumbled over your vid and was hypnotized by your kind eyes and positive energy. I also admire your love and enthusiasm for creating something beautiful. Also you are speaking from my soul. I am planning to buy a piece of land in the next weeks and live in a caravan with solar and rainwater collection. All the best to you. Love from Austria 🌼, Nicole
Thanks! It’s great to hear both sides of the argument for “dig” and “no dig” . I’ve come to pretty much the same conclusion as yourself. There’s really no need to hold , militantly, to one method or the other....a bit of a mix of methods works well for me!
We have one of those Organic Tillers too, he's the reason the veg garden is sectioned off from his own area 🙄🤣 You may want to look into using Japanese Daikon Radishes as cover crops too. Planted in July, Minowase are a great crop as they are slower growing, go upto 24 inch deep, are frost hardy... I've seen them being dug out of a couple of foot of snow... and they pull up nutrients usually locked away from other plants. They are great food for us, wonderful roasted, in soups, but also great for animals too, so your pigs should love them. Left in the ground though, they act as a soil improver, most especially for clay soils, bringing in much needed organic matter, and air :)
in the U.S. daikon radish is sown by planes as a big ag cover crop. The large fields are likely compacted from the machines (I assume they use a little different seeds they are not meant for food but left in the soil to decompose, but a gardener could work with the regular seeds that are more easily available ). Cotswold Seeds sells seeds to UK farmers for Green manure and cover crops, and they do webinars (see youtube) also interesting for a gardener. They of course cover daikon radish which is as staple for soil loosening, but also recommend chicory for deep, deep losening. That is a perrenial it needs 2 years. And mixed cover crops.
Daikon radish can also be fermented, and it is good raw on bread and butter with a little salt - like the radishes. Or grated as a sald (like kohlrabi).
I love seeing your hard work for years is paying up! I’ve been following you since the beginning. Your cottage and the surrounding where you live is heavenly! God bless & take care from Hong Kong ❤️ Where your beautiful dog??? He’s so handsome 👍
Will be watching tonight after a busy day doing our own garden .We watch mossy and your self for any tips we've picked up a lot .We love your videos and channel we love Ireland all so we like to see what are up to you've been our saviour in time of lock down so thank you for all you do . Peace to you both Diane Colinxxxx 🙏🙏🙏 🙏🙏🙏 🌈 🌈🌈
Always exciting to see a notification from Mossy Bottom pop up on my phone. A really lovely vid, Daniel. Thoroughly enjoyed your take on things. We have grown everything no dig here in our garden except for carrots/parsnips and spuds and everything has done beautifully. Looking forward to your polytunnel video!
Very good! Many very good points and a well thought out and refreshing analysis. You cover issues that most no dig people avoid which is very helpful. Thanks
I have watched u from the beginning. Lovely to see you looking so healthy and content. All u need now is a partner to share your life with and you have Nirvana! Bravo. Thanks for all the info.
why assume someone needs a partner ? maybe some people just don't want or need one...I mean maybe he does but its pretty presumptuos to say such a thing
10:30 Bordes (Charles Dowding talks about no dig and the importance of borders, wood boards). I would have used less manure maybe but would have grown something right away - maybe rye or barley as cover crop. Animals can eat it. Or oats. If the manure is too intense - well then it becomes green manure. Or I would have just thrown on a highly robust cover crop or something that grows like a weed. Could be tompinambur. Or a robust pea, or a mix of grasses. Comfrey as cover (it also grows wildly so it can outcompete the weeds. I seem to remember that John Seymour detected that method. Plant topinambur, drive in the pigs, let them uproot it, if you do that 2 years in a row it costs the weeds a lot of energy. You exhaust their roots.
Hello Daniel. The way I was told (Geoff Lawton) to do no dig gardening using cardboard was to soak the cardboard very well before laying it. It makes all the difference to kill the weeds. Over the weeds I place worms and compost to help the worms establishing themselves. Then the cardboard being wet it is easy the place many layers. I soak it a while in a wheelbarrow. Then more compost and mulch. For planting I make a whole in the cardboard to help the roots. When the crop is finished I do the same again over what is left. After 2 or 3 seasons there is a few centimetres of top soil. My soil a pure clay I am sure I can use the clay straight for pottery. Thank you
Up here on our Rocky Mountain Homestead, we also have hard clay soil with about an 8.0 ph level. I use the no-dig methods as described by Charles Dowding and have had phenomenal success... You had mentioned that you are to lay down cardboard and put compost on top of the cardboard and plant directly into to compost... that is not prescribed by Charles Dowding. He states that all seedlings are to be planted directly into the soil below the cardboard/compost and never directly into the compost since the compost is only for weed suppression and fertility and has no hold in it. Plant roots need direct contact with soil and the mycorrhizal fungi network that is only available in soil. My plants have had no problems whatsoever in penetrating the hard clay and finding what they needed to grow into large, very productive plants. I use a drip-tape system of irrigation which really helps the transplants to gain a good root hold into the soil... I hope you will give no-dig another try... It really does work well with hard clay soil... BTW - digging soil actually releases carbon into the atmosphere...no-dig methods prevent this issue...
Ummm...I just watched charles dowding teach exactly what you said he didn't...here is the link to prove it: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0LH6-w57Slw.html. Laying down cardboard and planting right into the compost!
This was definitely one of the best videos on the topic! As usual you never disappoint, my friend. Having a very clay soil as well I have had the same exact experience as you did. You did forget to mention one of the major benefits of no dig which is that it gives the ability To do succession interplanting using better the growing season. I gave up on doing all the hard work you did and decided to use raised beds, since I don’t grow as large of a space as you do, but now I have the issue that the good soil is leaking out of the beds from the bottom and from the sides and I need to keep refilling the beds a lot every year. On top of that the beds when untreated do not last very long and being timber quite expensive they make the whole ordeal quite expensive. I still enjoy doing gardening but I wanted to share my cons as well. Take good care of yourself!
I'm so relieved to hear your experience with no dig as my brother and I have struggled in our garden. Our heavy clay just doesn't seem to respond to the method. We are gardening in Northern Ireland and at present have a lovely big black and white Springer spaniel and are thinking about chickens but I don't expect them to be helpful in the garden
Broadforks. And planting daikon radish for a season. Maybe it is a harvest and maybe it is only soil improvement (leaving it in the soil to rot). Big holes and worm fodder. Chicory is even better. The guys of Cotswold Seeds claim it even goes through hard underground that is clay. But it needs 2 years. Of course one could interplant to not lose one or two years.
The no dig person you didn't mention who's garden I have visited is just a few miles from me. His site is flat. It used to be a market garden so previously tilled at some point. He adds amongst other things £400 worth of sterile mushroom compost plus manure. Outside of most people's budget. He makes over £12k on salads alone so he compares commercial to domestic. It's difficult to replicate that on a small site and make it viable. My field is on a hill, over an old coal mine, covered in rocks, stones and broken buildings. It's lovely soil once you find it. It's also inaccessible to vehicles so I can't have deliveries of compost and manure. I try to follow no dig principles but with my own twist and available resources. Now I have fork envy. Where did you buy the fork? I want one in my life.
Raised beds ? (- if trraces ar possible) containers / buckets ? with a turned around bottle to seep out water so you do not have to water all the time ? Adan Jones in Wales grows hte potatoes in buckets and has lots of raised beds (it is too wet). Huw Richards had a video.
Where I live we have very heavy clay soil. When dry (I live in a very arid state in the western US) it is like cement. So my dad and I built raised beds and filled them with topsoil and compost mixture. The first year was a failure because the were in the wrong part of the yard. We moved the beds against the north fence allowing the garden to have full southern exposure. The garden did ok there but required a lot of watering as we had little rain in the summer months. On summer we had lots of rain and my garden did so well I was donating veg to a local food pantry. A few years later I started an egg business were I cared for over 100 chickens, 30+ ducks, 10 quail, 3 turkeys, and 3 geese and their eggs. This left little time for gardening as I did it all myself. So for about 5 years my garden beds were left to nature. One day while unloading poultry feed, I injured my back. I muttled along and learned how to work smarted. Then 3 months later I learned I had cancer and would have to have surgery. That was a scary diagnosis so I began to sell off my poultry save a handful for personal eggs. I lived with my parents who were becoming elderly so I didn't want to leave them with so much to care for while I recooperated. After surgery I learned that I would have to undergo several months of chemo and radiation. All tolled it was about a year of treatment during which I was very inactive and my back issue worsened. It took another 6 months of physical therapy to regain my strength enough to take over my chores. After being inside for most of a year and a half I was itching to get out and garden however I could no longer dig in my beds or even run a tiller because I was left with pinched nerves in my back which effected my legs and caused me to need assistance to walk either a cane or walker. Difficult to run a tiller when you can't stand in aided. So I searched for ways to garden that didn't require a lot of physical labor. First I tried straw bale gardening. First problem was, I couldn't handle the bales myself (each weighing between 60-65 lbs. ) When I finally got someone to place the bales for me, our short growing season had already begun and I still had to prep the baked which took a couple more weeks. By the time they were ready it was well into growing season. I bought started veg plants but it took them awhile to get established. Some didn't survive. I found it difficult to keep the straw wet enough until I got soaker hoses attached. The plants I started by seed did not survive. They were eaten by insects as soon as they sprouted. All the setbacks delayed the plant growth too much. While my plants did produce a lot of fruit it was too late in the season and nothing ripened before our first hard frost. The next year I tried no dig gardening reclaiming my garden beds. The people on RU-vid made it look easy. It was in ways. Again I got a late start in preping the beds. And again I had to buy some started plants. For those plants I had to cut through the cardboard to plant them. It took a while for them to get established but some of the plant survived long enough to produce fruit but too late in the season. Once again, although the plants were loaded, the fruit didn't have time to ripen before the killing frost. The plants I tried to grow from seed did not survive. The next year I tried self wicking tubs. Again it was well into the growing season before I was able to aquire all the necessary equipment. Some things that were easy for the RU-vid gardener to find were more difficult or costly for me. I finally got some tubs prepared and began to plant. Some things grew but some things didn't. I soon realized that I had them in the wrong spot in my yard and there was little direct sunlight getting to them. I will move the tubs and try again this year. I want so much to grow a garden. Gardening is a journey.
Hi, interesting story, hope your health is good so far. Maybe your problem is that you set up the materials, it gets late in the season - but you do not _not build on it next year_ but try out something new, instead of repeating the experiment of last year under better conditions (starting earlier, which may be the only thing that hindered yur success). So you have to gather new things or build them or wait until someone builds them - and are late again. I would return to the methods of last year but this time with an early start. Likely you could start seedlings yourself (if you have space) and get to an early start (in case of a crazy spring you can keep some seedlings to replant. 101 of gardening: there is no such thing as growing too many seedlings). And hoops or improvised clear foil just laid on top or your raised bed with the seeds - with a little distance - could be bricks - can lengthen your growing season. Or persuade someone to build a hoop. Even an improvised structure. even cardboard and clear foil might do (depends on how much rain you get). You can use wood glue (PVA glue) to glue wood stripes or cardboard stripes onto carton or wood to "reinforce" them, put a weight on it it needs some pressing especially if you use wood. If you put the foil on top of the bed and it hangs over the frame of the raised bed (wood ?) and is tied to the sides of the bed (screws or hooks into the wood should do) it should even protect the carton for a while. You can reinforce PE foil be gluing more foil or tape to it and then cutting out a hole so you can tie down your foil. You can even iron on patches on PE to reinforce the space where the hole will be (between parchment paper or aluminium foil. and with openwindow - fumes. And the iron should not be too hot. That would work for 1 bed or 2 until you can talk someone into building you a nice professional hoop / top cover. Or maybe you have DIY skills if you take your time. Thin wood stripes can be strategically reinforced if you glue small wood pices on it, that saves weight. Of course you might have a lot of wind exposure ..... I would try the improvised prototype (and watch videos). By working with an improvised solution you might find out how you want the better version to be. Check out the channel of Melissa K. Norris, she has a video about growing plants on a trellis or self made arbor. People bend ? steel or plastic stakes into half circles and stick them into the earth and put foil or textile over it (caterpillar tunnels, too she covers cabbages and keeps them till winter). Some stones can weigh down the foil , That oculd be a good enough improvised structure to protect seeds from spring frosts and rain that is too heavy. the arbors stay in the soil the foil is removed (or lifted) curing day until the cool spring is over. Then you do not have to bother with seedlings and can use seeds but get the longer growing season like in a "glass house". but you have to lift it or alllow for some ventilation or you get mould or they over heat. and you have no delay with waiting for a "proper" hood, that is not yet built. You protect the seeds for a while. in fall when you want to extend the season you might have gotten round to building it and until then you know exactely what you want. Happy gardening.
After 5 years of no dig, I am very happy with our results, eg this year 12 seed potatoes produced 60 kg of good clean spuds. Will keep us until February ar least. Out plot had more weeds than you can shake a stick at. Bindweed, ground elder, teasles, nettles, thistles, plantains and yes, creeping buttercup. Compost is mostly made from our grass clipping. It takes a bit of extra effort to stop it going sludgy. But easy enough. At 72, I cna make 3 tons a year without damage to the back. Weeding is simple, basically because it is so in frequent. Seems like in looking for short cuts you made it harder for yourself.
Thank you so much for this video and all the other "teaching" videos like it. I've quit my job here in the USA bc of COVID risks; I don't have another job yet, and I'm trying to grow a little food for myself, but know so little about it. Definitely soil type and quality are factors whose effects I'm observing now, for good or ill. I talked to a teacher at a local junior college about their horticulture classes, and I hope to enroll in some once the virus situation is better (gosh I hope it gets better soon!), but in the meantime, you are providing us bits of a free course, well organized and well communicated for very newbie people like me. I don't know if you realize how vital that is, to those of us who need to learn as much as we can, rather quickly. And I guess we'll all forgive you for disliking garlic too. Every friend I have, has some unfathomable flaw ...
Irigdren Irigdren, try the MI gardener in the USA also Justin Rhodes, Joe Saladin plus Roots and Refuge who are all into the permaculture and have daily vlogs. Best of luck with your course but there are great books to be had on the same subject too.
Charles Dowding (if UK growing conditions are relevant - or ar you in the subtropics ?). Melissa K Norrris - she has a homestead in the state of Washington many very practical tips how to grow specific plants, check out vertical gardening, her trellis methods.. Maritime gardener (Canada I think) - when it comes to slugs and pests or how to fill raised beds for cheap. Dowding also has good advice (nets for brassicas and carrots). And the How To when it comes to turning a weed covered plot into garden beds (carton = sheet mulch) and how to suppress weeds. Daniel did not quite follow his method, it is possible that cost him and he was just using the wrong crop for a start. He could have just used a broadfork to loosen the soil after mowing weeds. Then manure, THEN carton on top (he put the manure ON the carton so the opposite) to kill off the weeds. Then planting into holes of the carton, if he has compost or soil to put on top fine. If not, also fine. Carton breaks down quickly when it is rained at. Daikon radish as green manure planted immediately and later in between some clover as soon as the carton has broken down. And if it is not a great harvest (for humans or pigs or chickens) - he would not have lost any time. at least the weeds are suppressed and the soil is improved the rotting bulbs of daikon aerate the air, and feed the worms. There are even nets for hail protection (VergePermaculture channel). Just don't start a hugelbed, chances are it does not work in your climate (unless you live where Sepp Holzer had his farm). What you can do is establish a raised bed built from wood and fill it at the bottom with wood logs, branches, spent soil (no air pockets) - the good soil, compost is on top. Maritime Gardening explains that in You have all the soil you need (only slightly raised beds for better drainage). And James Prigioni, he has higher beds. Or only have a slightly raised bed with borders made from corrugated roofing material - since wood is so expensive in the US right now (Cuban method). fungi will very slowly break down wood (chips) or any carbon rich bio mass and they bind nitrogen in the process. So the layers where the roots are and the layer where the breakdown happens must not be mixed. And if you use wood chips as mulch - don't mix them into the soil, then they compete with your plants for nitrogen. On top they rot too slowly, so no problem (unless you are in the suptropics or tropics, in Florida wood chips on the top become soil within 1 year, maybe those growers added a little nitrogen). Nitrogen lack can be fixed with blood meal, fish meal mixed with water (or fresh urine). Wood chips are great as garden path, to maintain a clean look, drain water, and they start rotting and suppress weeds. You can use them for soil building later when they have started to break down somewhat (then they gobble up less nitrogen). Mulch on top - straw, hay (beware of seeds) and even wood chips can attract slugs. In the South of the U.S. mulching is an issue. Seems like fire ants like undisturbed soil. And termites like wood. In wettter cooler areas slugs can be an issue. You can build your defenses by attracting wild birds, predatory insects (some go after slugs or their eggs), amphibics, reptiles (litte wet corner, dry corners with a "stone wall", insect hotel, bat hotel) permanent little pond with some reeds for the dragon flies, bird house, hedges with fruits. Martime gardener gives good advice how to deal with them with iron pellets - until they are large enough. For those plants that would be eaten even when the plants are larger a raised bed is great because you can defend it better (hoops against birds and copper against slugs).
However if you start out be super careful not the get any grass clippings, straw, hay, compost, or manure with *_aminophyralides_* in it. Check it out. - There are youtubers that warned others - only to be tripped up (on one bed) when they added manure from a friendly source. - Dowding even had it in bought compost. he now tests every batch of compost (whether he bought it or whether he made it with bio mass from outside). The test is done with seedlings of sensitive plants in smaller pots - and a few are planted in soil that he knows is safe, so even if pests get them or they do not like temps he has the direct comparsion of the soil effect. all of that to make sure that herbicide from hell is not in it. If it is in compost / soil the seedlings that just looked good and healthy, will stop growing, curling leaves, etc. Lazy farmers use it to kill everything that is not a grass, and it only breaks down slowly with the help of soil bacteria. (or if a thin layer of soil would be exposed to summer sun, but that is not practical and of course kills soil life and oxydizes carbon and nitrogen out of the soil). Aminophyralide is used for grass on meadows (to kill all plants that are not nutritious for lifestock, if a farmer can't be bothered to improve pasture with other methods). Or for wheat, rye, corn,... to kill weeds. If cows (or other animals) eat that grass the herbicide is in the manure, it does not break down during digestion, and also not with hot composting. If you get that stuff into your soil (for instance by getting bedding from a horse stable that used straw from wheat that was treated with it - which the horse owners likely do not even know) you can forget about any conventional harvest that year. With luck only _that_ year. There were organic farmers that had their whole plantings wiped out because they got and applied manure or compost containing that herbicide. Their only chance was to grow corn or a grain and I assume they lost the organic certification for a few years. Some vegetables can kind of tolerate it - but must don't. The only possible crops would be corn or oats, barley,.... And of course you can expect aminophyralide to be in the food, which defies the purpose of having a garden. Allegedly it is harmless for animals and humans - they said that about glyphosate too. (I already was on organic dairy products - one more reason).
I have also tried "no dig" technique on my plot. Card bords and old juta rugs + soil on a top of that. Next I have sown mustard to provide quick nitrogen fix. It was a disappointment. My plot is a small field size wise like yours situated amongst the pastures. Grass self seeded everywhere and supressed mustard seedlings plus the old covered roots grew into the new plants. Enough to say, I no longer use this method. I believe it may on the allotments but not on an exposed site E.g. a field. Thank you for sharing your experience.👍
Again, thank you, thank you, thank you. After 4 years of a very poorly producing garden in clay soil, this old woman finally had decided to break down and rototill one time. Will get someone to do that for me, then compost/manure heavily and be ready to plant in the spring. So glad for the confirmation!!
Great video and well balanced conclusion. Traditional agriculture has been around for many thousands of years. (modern commercial agriculture is an abomination) I've been growing for 50 years. 'No-dig' has been around since 1983 but only took off in 2003. I have seen many examples of it in recent years and have come to the conclusion that 'No-dig' should read as 'no-digging-on-my-plot'. So much work goes in to creating compost, off site and often with machinery, so I see no net gain in terms of pollution. I have a around 12" of rich dark moist soil with a wonderful crumb structure that grows any vegetable. This was created by digging in large quantities of well rotted farmyard manure every four years and green manure every year. Better to work with what you have over time instead of all these quick fixes. Edit - I grew carrots on heavy clay soil for 20 years before moving to Ireland. Application of lime helps to exfoliate and with time a good crumbly soil appears!
No dig does not _cut apart the webs of fungi_ (if you have them, compost rich garden soil tends to be bacteria dominated). There are other critters and organisms that also do not like to be exposed to air and solar radiation. Important: _Carbon and nitrogen_ in the soil _react_ much more easily with _oxygen_ when the soil is overturned and when it is left bare (fallow plots, no ground cover year round). C and N become CO2, and NO2 I think, they are lost then to the air, that loss degrades the soil - and both are green house gasses. Those emissions do not matter for a garden but it plays a major role in big ag. If soil has 4 % stable carbon it counts for good soil (up to 10 % seem to be possible), and under 1 % it becomes critical for soil fertiliy. Carbon helps to absorb and store water (without being water logged), and the humus (sticky carbon substance) glues the small mineral particls (sand, clay, silt) together and gives them pores and structure. Good soil also has around 5 % of stable nitrogen (not completely sure about that percentage, order of magnitude it is not 1 or 10 %). Stable carbon is the gold standard for good soil. Losing carbon and nitrogen by such processes is part of soil degredation and at the level of global farming the greenhouse gasses matter - they are factored in in the models regarding climate change. Organic gardening / farming (with no till, or very reduced use of tilling) can store carbon in the soil and is now considered for sequestering. Only RESTORING farm soils and undoing the effects of big ag practices could sequester a LOT of carbon and would have a ton of other benefits. No dig also goes well hand in hand with mulching. In many areas that are dry that can halve the need for water and makes drip irrigation super efficient if it is needed.
If compost is moved around during processing, it does not disturb an eco system (like soil, it can be seen as an organism) the raw materials need the aeration. The fuel necessary to transport it (CO2 and pollution, noise and traffic) has to be considered. But I think with compost it gets quickly too expensive, if they transport it (that is why garden soil that is sold in retail contains peat - they can plunder what nature created over thousand years and do not have to put in the effort, and resources to create compost or worm castings). The market gardeners that need more compost than they can produce are in dire need for quality compost that does not cost too much. Cost is an issue, and long tranports add to the costs. Although in some rural areas biomass may be abundant, and the necessary land to run a compost production site is much cheaper than in densely settled land. There are the fixed costs of transportation (the truck coming), and then there are the proportional costs for distance.
Store bought vegetables also would need to be transported and they contain more water, so they are heavier than compost (and the distance is often much longer *) So if short distance "imports" from people that produce compost with professional equipment helps to avoid vegetable transports from farm to retail that is still a net gain. Despite the fact that the adding of compost has to be kept up (the carbon povided by compost is more instable, _that_ carbon cycle may only last 1 - 5 years until a lot becomes CO2 again). The saying goes: My garden "eats" the compost. Compost however helps very much with soil improvement and soil life - that is a long term benefit and the gains for fertility and having soil that supports healthy plants compound. * to be sure transport by ship is on its face energy efficient, so those long distance are not quite as bad. But then the crops have to be harvested immature. And ships are also terrible polluters (air quality) because they burn what is left from petroleum processing, their diesel would not be fit for a car or truck, they run on bottom-of-the-barrel residue, really. That is why ocenafreight - which is in itself energy efficient - has a bad track record when it comes to producing pollutants. They emit much more toxins that you would expect if you only look at consumption.
I also have clay soil and use the no dig to start with. I had fresh horse manure which I layered as you did and stamped on well after watering. It ended up 30cm high, nextto it we kept adding wood shacings and cardboard on the path to bring it up to at least half the level of the bed which received after the manure an additional 10 cm of compost. I had good yields - as you say weeds kept coming up and I had to look and pull byhand the ones coming through. The path had fairy more weeds and we kept putting cardboard and wood shavings or wood chips. it went ok because we persisted adding once a month cardboard and shavings on the path and on the sides of the beds where the coverage was lower and weeds did get through. I had no brambles... Got some lovely carrots rooted right through the clay (my horsepoo and compost disappeared literally in a year
Thank you for your candid thoughts on no dig. I have clay, and very established grass, so…this broke my heart (or is it my back?) that didn’t want to dig. But you saved me time in the long run… The part of Moss digging on command cracked me up.
Great video. Yes the enormous amount of compost needed for no dig isn't practical for most gardeners starting out. Thanks for discussing some of these myths.
I am sure this will be really helpful to people on clay soil. I gardened on clay for 16 years. Hard labour. But on good loam for the last 37, 10 years no dig. Wish I had known about no dig in 1968! Really well made video. Will look forward to watching more. I can always keep learning...
Thanks for the vid. I love the non-dogmatic and balanced view on roto-tilling and agree wholeheartedly. Roto-tilling has its place. A couple questions. 1. I assume you do chop and drop with the cover crops. Is that right? Also, what do you use for mulch over winter?
My allotment had weeds three feet high three years ago when I took it on. After setting out the beds , my wife and I dug out the weeds. Thankfully, it was sandy soil but like Daniel said, nettles root systems underground everywhere. Since then we have used a no- dig approach which is hugely successful. I don't regret it. The only downside is you need lots of compost. We have three huge bins made out of pallets. You couldn't make compost for a plot of an acre or so. Good video Daniel , thanks, and a wise choice to buy a scythe when you first moved there.
Some people likely won't like this comment, but this is not to put down this wonderful young man. But I just can't stop myself here. First, second, third, etc... are adverbs deriving from their respective number, and as such do not need the suffix "ly". I've noticed that most young people and a lot of older ones make the same mistake. It just seems to grate in my ears. But young man, appart from that, I just love to watch your videos as it has been my life long dream to live the kind of life you live.
@@alexarcher6103 I'm still trying. :) Digging them out with a garden pick when the soil is damp is all I know. But leave a bulb behind and they'll be back pretty soon.
@@electric10101 What if you just plucked them w/o the work to go after the bulbs. They'll come back but it was less hassle for you - and you pluck them again. You can do that w/o fetching a tool - in passing. - Wouldn't that wear them out over time ? (Dowding says that is his experince, they grow back you pluck them once more. Even hardy weeds cannot go on forever it costs them. Although he tries to get the roots if he can, but if not he just plucks them). As this is a pioneer plant soil disturbance - like digging it out - might trigger it into extra effort - which is their role in nature - to move in and to cover soil if it is disturbed or even bare. But when the shoots are never successful the plant may invest in another place. And for you it is easier to stay on top if you do not invest so much time per plant.
@@xyzsame4081 Digging out the bulbs can keep them away for months. Clipping the top lasts about a week. Since my last comment I really let it go, now they're everywhere!! I started digging them out again a week ago. If I knew how bad they were I would have dug them all out while the patch was small. It would have been possible to eradicate them at that point. Hindsight...
I had the same experience laying the cardboard barrier. My soil is a loamy glacial till, right full of stones. I agree with you on digging the perennial weeds out first. I just need to lay compost on top after the initial weed (and large stone) extraction.
I tarped a clay soil garden for 1 year and it worked well. I planted it in fruit trees and it was heavily mulched with wood chips after - (8-0 inches high). I am still dealing with some bindweed and nutsedge but it gets better every year. Overall I think, if you are a consistent weeder and take care of them when they are small, your gardens get less weedy over the years. If you never seem to get around to weeding until weeds are really going, you will have never-ending problems. You left out the fact that digging promotes erosion.
He does not have erosion. The overturned soil can lose more carbon and nitrogen to the air (it reacts with oxygen). Plus the damage to fungi and other soil life. - An orchard is completey different than a garden, tree roots are much stronger and the also can deal with very wet conditions). The high wood chips layer is good it creates fungal dominate soil - like in forests - and that is a good fit for berries and trees. wood chips can be used fresh for an orchard but for a vegetable garden they would have to be pre rotted somewhat. Paul Gautschi has them in the chicken coop as bedding for a while and then they go on top of the garden beds.
Loved the presentation although I am now laughing so much due to your professional manner, whilst your lovely dog insisted on you giving your attentiion. I have a female cat rather with a similar attention seeking issue. Thanks for brightening my day.
My first year with no dig and I have had amazing harvests. My compost was mainly leaf mold from the massive trees in my garden. I couldn't have done it any other way. Now have lots of good compost.
Patience is a virtue, you must have loads but I see your little homestead taking shape, all seems to be going well, this is the wettest Summer I can remember, let’s hope we will have a better Autumn.🙄.
Cate7451..It has been a very disappointing Summer and it’s quite cool as well, I think we had our Summer in June all five days of it.. Hope you have luck with your pots.
Best summary of no till, forking, and tilling a new garden space I’ve ever heard. Thank you! I’m going to place my compost beneath the soil as you did, as well. Go, roots!
My daughter has grown a Back To Eden garden for the last two years it is basically a no till garden, built on compost and a bit of added topsoil. It was two years to get to the gardening point because she raised 8 chicks, and in addition to the eggs, they made her compost (initially in the coop run), and a year after they matured, she had just enough to make her garden, with cardboard and newspaper. The ground has some clay, but fortunately her plot formerly housed an abundance of spearmint and had not been gardened. It's a great cycle; she chose this method because she has physical issues that make regular gardening impossible for her. Her chickens were raised almost organically, use their own shells for some of their calcium needs, and they eat wonderfully, they are almost like pets who produce, and she fences them in to get rid of weeds, etc. and take care of the biters. They also get dandelion greens, and I've made battered dandelion flowers and dandelion salad. I enjoy your videos, wonderful. Valerie ☺🌿🌄🍁🍂🙌
chickens like young nettles. In another video (winter) Daniel says he lets brasscias stand over winter (and continues harvesting) and they flower in spring. The chickens go wild over those flowers. If you have a greasy pan wipe it with cooked potatoe peels or mash a potatoe with a fork, that absorbs the fat. Chickens love that stuff, they need fat to ceate the yolk. I know homestaders that cook a big pot of potatoes (from the field). They don't bother washing the potatoes a lot. The nice potatoes are for the humans and the chicken get the other ones. the water with soil in it goes into the garden. They have an old pot only for that.
Great video, Daniel, if your dog goes missing you will know he is in safe hands with me!! He's just gorgeous. Re-mineralising the soil with volcanic dust could be worth a mention, Thanks a lot, and good luck, Adam
You do exactly what I did first year I double dug my plot then proceed with the no dig method but I will trench for potatoes - I think using flexibility on methods is key
Moss is like our Springer spaniel Snoopy. Isn't it nice to be loved unconditionally! I needed to hear all about no-dig because I had the same difficulties on my clay soil. Maybe I'll get a rotavator/tiller. Please show more of the pigs and other livestock. Thanks
I had raised beds in my garden but hadn't used them for years because of a back injury and cancer treatment in the same year. I finally felt like I wanted to go back to gardening but physically couldn't do all the back breaking digging. I first tried straw bale gardening because it seemed like less work. It wasn't. I had to hire people to lay down weed block and place the bales. That in its self made me late in starting the garden. I first had to water in granulated fertilizer into the bale of straw to start it rotting. This delay delayed the planting of my vegitable plants and We have a short growing season. The plants I put in as young plants grew well but I planted them too late in the season so nothing ripened or produced fruit before our first hard freeze. I considered it a success because things did grow. It was just too much work because the straw bales needed replaced each season and the whole process begun again. It just didn't work for me. Next I tried the no dig gardening method. But again. I started too late in the season and because I'm disabled I worked slowly. My plants grew but again the frost got to them before I did. I think I harvested 2 squash and some herbs that year. Last season I heard about self wicking tubs. I live in a very arid climate so I thought this would be a good way for me to gardening method for me . I had no idea it would be that difficult to find the components to put them together. I finally found things that would work. But once again by the time I got them assembled there was little growing season left. I had plans to use the tubs again this year and started this spring by adding fertilizer and more soil to the tubs I had assembled previously. I had just got started preparing the tubs when an opportunity to tu buy some mini goats. Preparing my barn for their arrival was a lot of work so the garden was put on hold until the next season which is also when I will be expecting new born baby goats. I may not have a garden then either. We will see. I am only one person doing the work. Have you ever tried loosening the soil with a broad fork? I never have but it looks like it does a great job with minimal effort. I'm haven't seen any of your videos lately. I've missed Mossy Bottom and you and Moss. I hope you all are doing well.
Diana Russell, perhaps you are trying to do more than you can with all the things working against you. Focus on your goats as they provide milk and possibly meat. They also give you manure and rotted bedding. Maybe start with a smaller garden? Raised beds to make it easier to work in? As you say, your experiments are successes because you are learning. Keep trying things and you will find something that works for you and your area. Nature is healing. Blessings!
