I’m so envious of your green, and rain. We are burned to a crisp! 104 temps and no rain for over 100 days! Waiting for cooler temp and some rain! Your garden are beautiful!
This has to be one of the beautiful tours I have seen Charles. Everything looks incredible. The vegetables look amazing,the grass edging is so neat, and the flowers add a beautiful pop of colour, bringing so much joy. And the sunflowers... Magnificent!!! This tour has reignited my enthusiasm after what has been a difficult year for me. Thank you!
I’ve followed this man for a long while. I’ve studied on the cutting of herbs with moon phases etc Like to take cuttings of Rosemary, do it in the morning as the sun rises cause the oils in the rosemary are rising too. BUT- I check this mans advice for everything regardless to what my studies have taught. Only difference that I have to do IS- we always get an early June frost so time our planting do the tender wee things aren’t up, if lettuces are just planted I lay cardboard or newspapers over the rows and we have melting snow right through April and it’s mid May before our ground is workable So I don’t start seeds inside in middle winter as they’ll be so long and spindly, and can’t find the entrance to my greenhouse until end of March/April either. Even the ground inside is so cold then. So I’ve decided I need to move next door to Charles 😄👍. Love your channel- and love how so natural you are about all things you talk about. 🙏 for you n your family to be always happy safe and healthy
flea beetles can be such a pain and do so much damage...I tend to get them late in the spring. The grasshoppers have been really intense this summer in southwestern New Mexico, USA. It has been (and still is) so hot and dry (since about mid June). whew.
Charles, thank you so much for the beautiful videos. I am located in NE Japan. I was first inspired by a horticultural person and set up my mini-farm in a circular shape and called it Mandala garden. I like it but a bit difficult to manage. I happen to find your NoDig book in a library in US this summer and my son bought it for me! I am reading it and enjoying it. I will reshape my farm to manage it easier. My squashes are growing all over and even crawled on my tomato section. Two squashes growing amid cherry 🍅 🎃
Thank you for the tour. Aside from the wealth of knowledge, what I particularly appreciate is the unending positivity of your videos. Even in the case of problems 'this plant suffered from X but the rest grew nicely so overall it's fine' or 'we'll know better for next year'. Setbacks are an opportunity to learn, not the end of the world. Everyone has someone whose demeanor makes everything seem right as rain. You are that person for many of us. If you really like that puffy sunflower there's a dwarf multi-stemmed variety called Teddy Bear and it's as adorable as can be.
Such a nice comment Diane, thank you very much. Plants and soil all my refuge and I can channel good vibes through them! I have grown that variety and yes it's cute!
I'm also in Somerset and haven't suffered from wasps on my plums, been a good year for them. But I've had to watch brassicas like a hawk. I ran out of net cages, so a few spare plants have been left out, relying on hand picking of cabbage white caterpillars - and there's been a lot! A daily task. Seems like yours aren't affected. Your mix of flowers in the vegetable bed works so well. Given how much time we spend in the vegetable patch, it's a shame not to make it very pleasing on the eye if you have the space. Wishing you continued excellent harvests.
I challenge anyone to name a better gardening teacher than Charles Dowding, God sent🙏🏾. Been implementing many of your teachings in my backyard garden here in Zambia and the results have been amazing not just to myself and even to my visitors. Just amazed how simple my gardening has become since I came across your channel 2 years ago
Every year I try to follow your excellent advice , and it works , I have to say even with your dig and no dig trials if the results were the same with no difference in yield, who would want to spend hours digging when there’s no need. Now I must sow my last batch of spring onions while there’s still time 👍❤️
It's a no brainer. Tilling is killing. It all begins with soil. Keep it covered, keep it planted. Happy soil, happy roots, happy mycelium, happy bacteria, happy harvest, happy tummy ❤.
Sweetmeat is my favorite winter squash. Brilliant orange color, dry-ish flesh, huge seeds for roasting. Keeps forever. Hard skin? Think Hubbard...get out the hatchet! Charles, every video is an inspiration...I have learned so much.
As always your garden never disappoints! 😍 My garden is slowly growing! I have been buying and saving lots of seeds. I am going with metal raised garden beds and chicken wire. My yard slopes and I have to keep chickens and the neighbor’s cat out. The cat think my garden is a litter box. 😕
Hope you made sauerkraut from that red cabbage… with a little corianderseeds in it. It lasts for months and is fantastic for any duck or pork! Thanks for another inspiring tour - has me going here in Denmark for third year of no dig!
Still experimenting with the right amount of companion and interplanting here in SE Michigan USA, my garden by no means looks so tidy! That said, you are a huge influence in my garden life - composting / no dig, and "popping them in". Also love your work in the book, "Skills", but something holds me back in adding notes to "Diary" until perhaps I have it nailed down a wee bit more... or maybe I should just buy a couple more copies to keep one pristine until I have it nailed down a bit mo-better.😎 In any event, you've helped me view what once were "Dreaded Weeds" to "Look at that fodder for the compost pile" or "That Dandelion is doing wonders to penetrate the clay; maybe I'll let it be until it flowers". THANK YOU, Charles!
Your garden is like a photo from a magazine. I wish mine looked like that. It’s presently very dead. I live in the southern US and we had a hard drought and freaking high temps (105 high). Even the trees are suffering. Nice to see someone else’s garden doing so well.
Such a lovely tour Charles, everything still looks so colourful! and the veg amazing. Can't wait for the new website to show and I only wish I could make it down to one of your Open days but I'm in southern Scotland. Maybe one day!!!
There's a free, wild & friendly cat here that enjoys sitting in some of my pots even though I've put up a barrier. He likes to squash the sunflowers, the climbing beans, the capsicum etc & these are all young plants not long germinated. But surprisingly he leaves some untouched that I swear he sat on earlier. Lol
Great tour as always, look forward to them Charles, next year Im making sre my plants are in the ground week after last frost date, the terrible July weather we had meant a decent fruit set but only now ripening some of them, take care all.
Amazing abundance. Quite pleased with my garden at the moment to. I amazed too how the Cavola nero brassica is growing without insect netting and looking so great. If I took the netting off they would be caterpillar food.
Thanks Andrew. We use soil bacteria caterpillar killer every 18 days, on eBay worldwide www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_nkw=dipel%20insecticide&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=710-55005-18975-0&mkcid=2&mkscid=102&keyword=dipel%20insecticide&crlp=_&MT_ID=&geo_id=&rlsatarget=kwd-81982464782090:loc-188&adpos=&device=c&mktype=&loc=69110&poi=&abcId=&cmpgn=373195863&sitelnk=&adgroupid=1311717575875343&network=o&matchtype=e&msclkid=bded594265c51233046b3db521221cb4
Always amazed to see your garden. Really wish I lived in the climate that would allow for many of the crops you grow. Being in zone 11 the summer is really to hot and humid to grow what you do. But my tropicals trees are doing very well this year trees full on mangoes and star fruit.
Bom dia sr Charles, sua horta é o jardim mais lindo que já vi, cheguei ao seu canal e já estou pegando ideias para minha horta, moro em São Lourenço da Serra-SP- Brazil. Parabéns ❤👏👏👏
All the order and beautiful veg are stunning, but it is down to years of experience and super hard work. Charles, you are so effortless, but your grace and garden speak volumes. I know I need to try harder (and smarter).
I. Convinced my husband to watch a few of your videos early last year & he said if I could get my garden to grow like yours, I could try your methods. But now, he says that you must spend all day, you & your employee(s) to keep them all so well maintained. I’m pretty sure you’ve said you only have 1 full-time employee. Would you be able to say about how many hours per day or week are spent by yourself & any employees to maintain your garden? I’ve grown a 30’x14’ garden for years and look to enlarge it, but hubby worries I won’t be able to maintain it beautifully without many hours of time or tilling/cultivating regularly,at least the paths, for weeds. But the last couple of years, my small garden has been MUCH easier to keep weeded and nice looking. If I could have some estimated time you spend to maintain yours, I’d have an idea how to refute hubby with a smaller garden for myself.
So I'm cropping 1500 m² which is around 1600 ft.² and have one full-time +2 part time plus occasional volunteer equals 110 hours per week average, which also includes mowing the grass, trimming the hedges, running the trials we do here, and a lot of marketing and delivering. Hope that helps!
@@CharlesDowding1nodig yes! Thank you SOOOO a much! That’s extremely helpful!!! God bless you for all you do, and share, and taking time to answer questions!
25:00 with trees like this, you will get the same weight harvest but you will have smaller fruit, if there is less buds those fruit will get larger and give you about the same yield up to the threshold of the tree.
Thanks for the mention of tomatillo. We have (in New York State both those and) the sweet equivalent - ground cherries - which I can strongly recommend for their unique flavor. But to your point, I cultivated 6 plants this year, and have about 40 that I have left to grow (because of ‘volunteers’) and to the extent the volunteers are overwhelming they become weeds which feed the compost!
Roast tomatillo, garlic, onion. Blend with cilantro, Oregano, S and P to taste. Brown some meat (Rabbit, Pork, Chicken) add sauce amd cook low until tender. You can add hominy, potatoes or eat with rice.
All the green! I'm green with envy!!! We had to give up watering a single thing but livestock in our area. Lake (our water source) is lower than it's been in 33 years. Praying for rain! Thanks for sharing all that beauty!
Just casually blow my mind with the hedges and the fruit trees, magnificent bounty and the sharing of the pear was very considerate for…. I was also drooling lol😂 thanks for sharing, have a great September
Oh my sweet Jesus! Not enough to say , or would pay justice other then seeing it in person . Pure magic Charles ! Please could I have the name of the gorgeous sunflower 🌻? It's beautiful!!
what an inspiration, thank you! I really liked the radicchios and I was surprised to see a variety ready to eat in the summer. I m growing a couple of varieties for the winter
So gorgeous! Looking forward to checking out the new website on Monday. I grew butternut squash for the first time this year and they were looking beautiful with prolific numbers of squash two weeks ago. This is in a garden at our lake home where I grow things that don’t require as much oversight since we come and go for a few days at a time. I came back yesterday to find many of the squash had split. Here in SW Missouri we had some extreme heat for a week and a couple of gully-washer rain storms, so I’m guessing one or the other or both caused the splits. I plan to see if I can salvage some to peel and cube for freezing since they won’t be keepers. Thank you so much for sharing these splendid walkabouts with us. As you can see from the comments, you give joy to so many.
Thanks so much. That sounds a real pity, I'm hearing about so much weather that is disrupting food growing. So far we have been fortunate here. Please forgive the new website if it's not 100% up together, we decided to make it live anyway and the main features will work, I think you'll like it!
What a lovely tour round your life work. I had to abandon plans of coming down for at least a day course this year with Mum's passing but hopefully will make it in 2024. I'm now up to 130m² of growing space(including paths) with a 6x8 greenhouse & a 20x10 First Tunnels polytunnel & have two issues: How to make enough compost (I estimate I need 2.2m³ annually to apply 3cm to the beds - paths get year old shredded hedge clippings/pruning containing plenty of green material). What to do with everything I grow. The former is being addressed to some extent by helping people clear their overgrown gardens & the latter has meant my local food bank is currently receiving several kg a week of tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, cucumber & French beans.
You are doing very well. That's a great way to increase compost volume and I see nothing wrong with buying some compost when you are exporting so much food. Or if you have space, to accept delivery of wood chips which gradually turn into lovely organic butter. We use a 12 mm sieve at 45° to take out the big pieces and then add the lovely soft brown to compost heaps.
Always admirable skills and growth to see and being shared thank you! We are behind you in season and weather flow i have kind of found! Nearing spring here and so greatful for your inspiration advice and knowledge! Kia ora!
Looking fabulous. Love when you do a taste test and a shout out to Nicola. Close-ups are really helpful. Thanks to the both of you. We've been busy with canning Roma Tomatoes for sauce in two location planted weeks apart. Zone 6b. Hoping for bountiful fall harvest we just planted. Great advice on mixing greens and browns for compost. Ours are working. See ya in the next video.
I started my first few no-dig beds this spring, and they were doing fantastically. Then, in July in my state of Vermont, we had a massive flood, which covered my no-dig beds in several inches of silt. I'm wondering how to continue next year. I want to do what I can to heal my soil, but I'm not quite sure what that is. Oh, I did a soil test, and there's nothing nasty in my soil, that is the good news! Love your videos, and I have been gardening for probably 6 decades, but am still learning a lot, thank you, Charles.
Goodness me that is drastic. I would leave it there and cover with an inch or so of new compost or any organic matter to encourage soil life below. In the coming months the Lumbricus worms et al should recolonise. Still learning is great! Same.
He’s shown us a huge array of veggies in this one. This time of the year has been very good and l’m envious of the plants he’s got on the go! Everything looks amazing!
Dear Charles. So nice to see you again. Many good vegetables to show in August and many of the species I get to know little by little. I can't cover it all at once, of course. But I'm taking notes… I'm interested in nutritious crops, transforming them into good dishes, for example parsnips as you call them. I'll try the crop and put it on the menu if I like it. Always good ideas that we tend to forget is getting the most out of the space we have, such as interspersing small vegetables during the lettuce threshing process. And I really need to render my space. I have only 50m2 of cultivation area. Compound. My passion. This year I'm getting a lot of fresh grass clippings. I'm mixing it with cardboard, earth (?), straw and all kitchen waste, mainly potato skins, which I think are “brown”. I understand in fact that decomposition is very fast. Maybe not a very aerobic stack, I'm afraid. Earth might not be a good idea. Let's see what happens. Oh! I remembered. I'm going to use "your" punctured tubes. It's just that I'm making the compost in bathtubs, that is, without side air intakes. But, the height of the stack does not exceed 30/40cms. It's easy to turn. Seeds. My second passion. In general, I still haven't managed to get my seeds to outperform the purchased seeds. Trial and error! Trial and error! Yes. I loved the tour. Like always. Best regards. PS: excuse the will
Green and orange buttercup pumpkins grew great this year, about 30 pumpkins per 4' x 8' raised bed in a cold climate. Also they are the best tasting, not stringy or watery, more like sweet potato. 21:50. Aphids are easy, a butter knife thin strip of a sticky goo (tanglefoot) at the trunk works, applied early spring. 23:30. Put that in the incinerator not the compost.
@@CharlesDowding1nodig Only in the sense that it gets hot enough to destroy weed seeds and roots, Charles!! Unlike inferior compost that never heats up.
@@CharlesDowding1nodig Only in the sense that it gets hot enough to destroy weed seeds and roots, Charles!! Unlike inferior compost that never heats up.
Excellent tour today Charles! My squash is struggling this year, lack of sun and heat. Any that have two fruits on I've cut the growing tips off to encourage them to finish the few they have. I'm growing Alderman peas like you do and I'm wondering if you've picked yours yet? I'm picking mine now because some pods were getting moldy. I'll be drying them to store. I'll shuck them and let the peas dry out of the pod. Is that how you do it?
Thanks Mary and oh dear! If I want to keep those peas I wait until they dry on the plant. I'm afraid that if you dry them when shelled out of a green pod, they won't store, hope I'm wrong!
Awesome Charles. Had 2 measurable rains since July 1st. Texas coast near Houston; 35-40c temperatures. I've well water, it's OK. But I let it aerate in on the surface in buckets before using. Glad you're getting rain.
Hey there Texas. I see your summer has been a lot like mine. I’m really loving no dig. I’m having luck with stuff I’ve never been able to grow. Good luck. ❤ Alabama.
Hello Charles! Wonderful tour. I'm glad you showed what you're doing with your spinach. I was going to ask you about them and how they transplant for you. I always start spinach in late August and September and cover for the winter so I get an early start to leafy greens in spring but I have so much difficulty getting them to germinate and keeping the insects off them until they get established. I direct sow a lot of things but decided to start some inside this year and transplant once they are somewhat established and the weather is cooling and the insects are dying off. I started some a couple weeks ago in cell packs and just started some more since I did not get a great germination rate even in the cell packs. Hopefully this batch will do better. Cheers!
@@CharlesDowding1nodig Maybe but we have a late season heat wave coming next week and that's not going to help me any. I'll probably keep them inside under my lights until the heat is ver.
Thanks and yes you can for sure. The drawback however especially with kale and brassicas in general is insects eating the small leaves before plants establish. Chard is much easier in that respect.
@@CharlesDowding1nodig thanks, that’s good to know. I don’t have a green house and so space is an issue in the house to start seedlings off. However, During peak time (March/April) I create space in the house. 😊
I planted some bush beans in May, then sunflowers came up. All the beans failed, but these tall things did appear in their place, I didn't know what they were at first, then I saw the flower forming. I assume the birds planted them because I didn't. I only found out a few years ago that pears ripen after they are picked, that's why when you buy pears, you have to wait to eat them, watch them closely to see the change in colour.
Thanks again Charles. Those sunflowers are something else! I am not being rude but they remind of an Andean bird called cock-of-the rock -very similar head pompom -gratitude for your instruction as always
