hello from wadawurrung country. I use no-dig in my lil suburban garden for a really selfish reason that I think a lot of people kinda overlook out of shame: I don't want to exert all my energy on digging up very heavy clay soil 😄Gardening can be as chill as you want it to be, and no-dig can really go along way in making it a much more approachable activity for people who are time/energy poor. We have all we need already in the soil, just plop your good stuff on top and let nature do the work for you 👍
Yes indeed! Such a good reason to do no-dig. All that organic matter on top will help break up the clay soil for you as the worms come up to the good stuff you're putting on top. Well done!
Oh gosh your videos are like watching myself 😂 I’m a no dig gardener from NSW, I do it for exactly the reasons you mentioned and it’s so easy. So glad I found your channel.
Hi Megan, thank you so much for watching and commenting. I love hearing that you do exactly as I do! It’s such a great way to garden. I hope your garden thrives this year! 🌻
Yeah, when you till/dig the soil you break up the soil network and then it takes time to recover. I'm only a Melbourne suburban gardener but try to minimise any soil disruption. (Once I've got some decent organic matter in there) I probably spend as much time trying to produce compost and worm castings as I do growing veg. Nice video, 👍
We grow in raised crates due to living in boggy marshland. The edges of the crates turn to concrete if I don't turn them. I try to be as less-destructive as possible. 🤗 Love your work 👍
We all do what we need too with the climate and conditions we live in. Sounds like you’ve worked out a great way to be able to grow food and that’s so wonderful! 👏
G'day from the mid north coast NSW. I have a vege garden. My kids harvested some beetroot today and our radishes and Pak choy germinated also. Thank you for the enjoyable video.
It took 2 years to completely smother cape weed here. But. It's gone now. Everytime I see some now it's just an odd plant elsewhere on the farm and easy to dig out.
Learning about the beautiful structure and life in soil has definitely made me garden with a no dig method as my preferred way to grow . Ive been building up this terrible sandy, rocky with occasional clay pockets of soil for 4 years here and it has improved a lot . In the 22-23 garden season i harvested 145+kgs of food here , i havent tallied up last season yet but im confident it was greater. Ive never gardened in such poor soil but i must like the challenge because i keep expanding the patches. Haha. Ive put some hugelkulter and core raised beds in too and im hoping that we get even more food this season. Whats the coldest temp you've gotten there ? Great video . I love your video endings. 🐓 Thank you for sharing lovely ❤❤ This winter was a proper one for us, most years we get a few cold weeks of 0*c but this year we got below -3 *c multiple times. I loved it ! ❤
Sounds like you’re doing amazing things for your soil and garden! And what a harvest 👏👏 It feels good when all our hard work is met with such an abundance. We mostly get to 1 degree or 0 degrees over night, with a few -3 and -2 each week during winter. At the moment we are 2 degrees to 9 degrees at night, so it’s starting to change. Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I love hearing from you 🌻❤️
Keep up the great work and I love your videos and seeing what you can grow down there as I’m on the mid north coast of NSW and we don’t get frost or really cold winters here Your videos are amazing and very informative,shame about the storm but that’s the life we live with growing our own 🩷💕🥕🥕🥕
I am about to start a no dig garden today. I am very lucky to have a GIANT bunny (his litter tray can go straight on top) and newspaper from my mum and free compost from council. All that it will cost me is sweat.
I used an old plastic tent floor to smother the cape weed. Worked well. I removed the tent floor once it started to break down. Hadn't started to pull apart but it had changed colour so removed that and away we went. Horribe stuff cape weed
If you ever have excess fresh farm eggs, I would be very grateful to purchase 🥰. I’m missing the local ones I’m used to purchasing or if have anyone else you know that is selling 👌🏻👌🏻 I’m so excited, I got a plum & blueberry on the wknd & removed as much weed mat from my new yard ❤, it takes time to setup & create beautiful soil, so worth it in the long run. Happy gardening 🪱🦋🐛
Hi Lyndal, We do have excess eggs and sell to friends and family. Send me a dm on my instagram account and we can chat. Exciting you have a plum tree and blueberry bush! Enjoy setting up your garden! 🌻
Thanks for your perspective on this. While in my context I will still dig and prepare my beds before planting I do appreciate the benefits of this technique especially around soil structure. I add a lot of compost to my beds and like to have the flexibility of not having permanent beds so I can plant different plants in different bed arrangements. As for weeds I use closer plant spacings to shade out the weeds when the plants get bigger and knocking out the thread weeds when they are still small. The cost to build a no dig bed in the first instance with all the imported compost and manures is the big issue for me. Did you use the natural soil in building your beds or did you lay cardboard down and then compost on top?
Absolutely, you should do what’s right for you. I put cardboard done on cut grass and then manure on top. Then the cardboard broke down and the soil underneath has mixed with the manure and compost I’ve put on top. The cardboard is now long gone and the plants go far into the soil. I only get manure in once every 2-3 years and use our manure and compost we grow here on the farm too. I hope to build bigger composting areas one day, but for now we are trying not to add more jobs to our list. I hope your garden thrives this year! 🌻
I love the no dig way of gardening and use it in the beds raised and on the ground. Rethinking the way we garden is an important step and at my age of 65, the less work the better for my old back. 👒🧤🧣
That’s great to know. There isn’t any left in our paddocks and perhaps that’s because of what we’ve put into the soil? The cape weed grows in the paths only and we’ve added nothing there. Interesting, thank you!