Does no dig gardening really work?

[Meadowlark]

1) Carrots I can do but cannot start them Aug. 15. Too hot until late Oct. to start carrots here.

2) I have tried, unsuccessfully, for 43 years to grow celery in my climate. My climate does not have the required cool days without freezing that is needed for celery, unfortunately. I wish it weren't so. Celery is one of only a handful of veggies I have to buy commercially...and I hate that.

3) I grow 200 pounds of onions for my family every year. I start them in Nov. and harvest the following mid-May. Doesn't fit the timeline for this experiment.

It's hard to measure production of marigolds, maybe by flowers? Radishes I can do. Beets too hot here in mid-August. Multi-cropping, I was doing before anyone ever gave it a name, LOL.

Maybe we need to adjust the timeline?

My candidates are for each row/set of containers: 1) two cabbage plants, two broccoli plants, two collard plants, two different kinds of lettuce, one tomato plant, possibly one potato plant but are potato plants prohibited in no dig? and the remaining space in Swiss Chard but I'll do whatever as long as it will grow in my climate conditions. The Three containers won't hold as much as 10 ft row so some things will have to be left out of them. Regardless the two rows will be identical.

 

[redback]

Cost doesn't matter !!! Sorry I was rolling on the floor with laughter.
Problem solved - hire Charles Dowding to come over there - or some other no-dig guru with sub-tropical experience - for three years - and do your no-dig bed for you.
If you really have no 'hard pan' then I withdraw the reference to it - but equating weeding to tilling is still pedantic.

 

[Meadowlark]

Cost: my compost is literally free, homemade. The cover crop 10 ft cost about $.25 in seeds as near as I can figure. Chop and drop costs pennies. Green manure in 10 ft row is pennies. The cardboard is courtesy of Amazon. The cost of plants will be identical.

So, the difference in cost is probably less than $1 exclusive of labor.

My labor is a labor of love, no cost. But if you wish I will try to keep track of it as I go. For reference, Chop and drop on 10 ft costs me about 1 minute of labor, Green manure on 10 ft costs me about 2 minutes of labor. Cover crop planting took about 30 seconds for 10 ft.
Doesn't seem like labor is much of a factor, but if folks insist, I will track it.

Equipment: I use a tractor that I purchased 43 years ago for $5000. I could attempt to prorate 43 years' worth of use and guess at how much of that is needed in this experiment...but it is negligible, non-factor I think you would agree.

Sorry you were rolling on the floor over miniscule costs, including labor. And yes, you already called me pedantic so no need to repeat insults. I would like to keep this free of insults but that requires two-way discourse.

 

[Susan BBPM]

I think Susan is wrong about the annual application of cardboard. Get the weeds while they're young and mulch. We all need to sit down with a coffee and watch uTube before this experiment proceeds. IMO. Dial up Charles Downing - he has short planting demonstrations that I have watched before.

There is no annual application of cardboard. In actual fact, you don't even need to use cardboard - ever!

The purpose of the cardboard is to smother the perennial weeds, but if you don't have perennial weeds in the ground you're looking to plant in you don't need to bother with cardboard.

All you need is a few inches of compost. That's it. Put down cardboard first if you have a lot of weed, then empty your compost onto the ground. It will work well from year one - you can plant immediately and you will get a harvest that year. If you used cardboard hopefully the weeds are mostly dead by the time the cardboard rots down. A few weeds might persist, but they can easily be pulled out by hand as they manage to poke through. By year two all you have to contend with is weed seedlings which can be easily hoed out.

This is tried and tested extensively in the UK and works very well here.

But as Charles pointed out - you need to engage your brain and figure out how to tweak things for your own climate. He 'borrowed' the idea from an American in a hot climate. They used bales of hay rather than compost. That doesn't work here due to it being so wet. Compost is the silver bullet in the UK climate. Chop and drop, mulches etc don't work well here due to the slug habbitat they create.

Charles Dowding is the guru for no dig in the UK. If you want to try no dig in a different climate you'd be wise to study the methods of numerous no dig experts from climates similar to yours......that of course assumes you're wanting to succeed!

 

[Susan BBPM]

Your Row 2 has a much larger input of effort, machinery and fertilizer than Row 1. I think we should both sit down and listen to Charles Downing to find out the actual method he is employing. No-till does not mean No-weed. He puts compost on every year, but he takes out the previous crop (weeds and all) and then weeds the new crop as necessary - I think. Putting an inch of compost on top of cardboard is not going to work in my opinion. Also, his soil has been continuously topped with compost for twenty years. Weeding can be done with two fingers in such soil. His argument is that such soil is alive with worms that have not been killed by tilling and so is deeply 'tilled' by nature - I think.

No-till means greatly reduced weed as you're not constantly bringing weed seeds to the surface to germinate. Once you get no-dig up and running the only seeds you have to worry about are seeds that are blown onto your plot and they can easily be hoed away. There really is next to no weeding.
When he harvests a crop he cuts it off at ground level leaving roots undisturbed (where possible - obviously you can't do this with carrots). The tops are taken for composting. Leaving any residue in situ tends to become a slug magnet here. It also makes it hard to keep on top of fungal diseases which can run amok in a wet climate. That's the main reason that we tend to keep beds clean and put everything through the compost heap in the UK. But chop and drop doesn't break any no-dig rules if you want to do it. I think that's much more common in Australia.

Charles dowding has demonstrated making a new bed - he puts down the cardboard, puts down 4 inches of compost then he plant it up and shows his harvest later in the year. He continues showing harvests from this bed for a few years. Honestly, all you need to do is put an inch of compost onto your bed each year. That's enough to feed your soil which in turn will feed multiple harvests over the year.
Charles has been in his latest plot for maybe 10 years now. He's been producing videos since year one when he built all his beds on top of weed filled old aggricultural land. He got a great harvest in year one.

And yes, avoiding tilling you allow the soil life to flourish. The compost does a great job of feeding the soil - in the way nature does by dropping it on the surface. The worms are then forced to come to the surface to get it and this areates the soil and breaks it down. Of course - nature doesn't use compost. But as I say, WE use compost in the UK because green matter decaying on soil doesn't work well in our climate.

Another benefit to compost is that in a way you're rotating the soil in your beds and therefore there is less reason to rotate crops. You mix together the crops from all of your beds, kitchen scraps, mushroom compost, coffee grindings etc - each bed gets a wide variety of organic matter, minerals etc each and every year. Because you're taking away the previous crops for composting there is less chance of disease persisiting in your beds. And indeed - Dowding's experiments over many years show that rotation isn't really necessary - unless you get some kind of disease.

 

[Susan BBPM]

She didn't write the rules. View Charles Dowding "no-dig explained in five minutes" on uTube and you will find -
- cardboard is only used on the first application starting out. After that a bit of weeding is necessary.
- one inch compost topping looks more like three inches in this video.

Your experiment has several problems -
- cost is a factor and Row 2 is lot more expensive and energy consuming than Row 1.
- you are not sympathetic of, or knowledgeable enough to do no-dig.
- you are a large-scale operation and no-dig is essentially a backyard operation.

You are being pedantic when you call weeding 'tilling'. At some stage you will have to deep farrow
to get rid of 'hard pan' caused by tilling.

The UK government are providing incentives to farmers to use no-till (or minimum till). So it does work on a large scale operation. But obviously not spreading an inch of compost on your whole farm each year!!!

I think farmers chop and drop (presumably using methods to deal with slugs). Some do a light till which uses special equipment to dig the green manures into the top couple of inches of soil only.

Dowding's approach is specialized for allotments, market gardens and home gardens. Particularly in climates like ours. But his is just one 'flavour' of no-dig.

 

[Susan BBPM]

You can see the scale of his setup via the arial image on the main page of his website:

HOME

Discover the joy and ease of no dig, a method for growing plentiful and healthy food, easily and quickly with more time to be creative

charlesdowding.co.uk

 

[Meadowlark]

There is no annual application of cardboard. In actual fact, you don't even need to use cardboard - ever!

The purpose of the cardboard is to smother the perennial weeds, but if you don't have perennial weeds in the ground you're looking to plant in you don't need to bother with cardboard.

All you need is a few inches of compost. That's it. Put down cardboard first if you have a lot of weed, then empty your compost onto the ground. It will work well from year one - you can plant immediately and you will get a harvest that year. If you used cardboard hopefully the weeds are mostly dead by the time the cardboard rots down. A few weeds might persist, but they can easily be pulled out by hand as they manage to poke through. By year two all you have to contend with is weed seedlings which can be easily hoed out.

This is tried and tested extensively in the UK and works very well here.

But as Charles pointed out - you need to engage your brain and figure out how to tweak things for your own climate. He 'borrowed' the idea from an American in a hot climate. They used bales of hay rather than compost. That doesn't work here due to it being so wet. Compost is the silver bullet in the UK climate. Chop and drop, mulches etc don't work well here due to the slug habbitat they create.

Charles Dowding is the guru for no dig in the UK. If you want to try no dig in a different climate you'd be wise to study the methods of numerous no dig experts from climates similar to yours......that of course assumes you're wanting to succeed!

Ok, no cardboard, that's progress. As far as compost, you wrote "A 1 inch layer of compost is applied to the soild every December - nothing more added." Also you wrote above, "Honestly, all you need to do is put an inch of compost onto your bed each year. "
That's pretty clear. Making progress on the rules.

Rules for row 1: 1 inch of compost, no cardboard, hoeing permitted, but no digging allowed.

My candidate list of veggies would then be cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Swiss Chard, tomato, lettuce, excluding potatoes because they cannot be dug under no dig rules. These varieties I can start sometime on or about Aug. 15.

To make it as even as possible I will purchase the plants making them as identical as possible at the start.

Looks like we have a baseline for the experiment.

 

[Susan BBPM]

One more thing....

We had a very long, gravel driveway yet we only have one car. So we decided to built a raised bed at the house end of the drive. It's hard, compacted hardcore or similar under the gravel. You can't get any kind of digging tool into it to break it up. So, we made a wooden frame, scraped off the gravel, put down cardboard and about 4 inches of compost. It grew all sorts of flowers, beetroot, peas etc in year one. We're now on three and despite only adding 1 inch of compost a year the soil in that bed is several inches deep - so that hardcore has already started to soften and break down.

Instinctively I'd want to break up hard ground like this, but Dowding insists you shouldn't. We didn't - but only because it was too hard to do anything with. Dowding was proven right.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

These claims that 1 inch of compost per year and some cardboard are all that is needed, no digging, no weeding, nothing but 1 inch of compost per year and cardboard stretch credulity to the point that I have to try it myself and find out what "works" really means.

It means that after five years you will be able to plunge a metal bar into the ground with one hand to a depth of ... Oh no, wait a minute, that's something else.

 

[Meadowlark]

It means that after five years you will be able to plunge a metal bar into the ground with one hand to a depth of ... Oh no, wait a minute, that's something else.

 

[redback]

Row 1 - 10 foot by say 4 foot; levelled to form a terrace (using the contours) so compost does not run down the slope with the first rain. Top with compost and manure. Half the length planted in ginger and galangal, half in bananas. Leave as permanent bed for at least three years. Top with one or two inches of compost each year before planting. Weed and mulch the beds as necessary.
Don't compare the two just see how no-dig goes in your climate. You will need three years to get the soil benefits. I believe you were too strict on the use of digging in no-dig/no-till gardening. The no-dig term is just referring to tractor tillage which covers a large area and therefore shocks the soil life something chronic. Your sloping block in the heat and humidity justifies your current practice as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Meadowlark]

That leaves me with more questions than answers. To wit:

Don't compare the two just see how no-dig goes in your climate.

It is impossible for me to NOT compare the results of techniques. How can I possibly know how no dig goes without comparing it to my production standards based on 43 years of gardening?

... You will need three years to get the soil benefits.

It was posted on this thread that within one-month spectacular results were achieved.

Perhaps you do not realize that my soil, after my techniques are applied, tests out as "No N-P-K required" and a nutrient density score of 94%. With no dig, you say I can expect to improve on those numbers in three years?

By reducing the amount of compost applied annually by about 80% (limit to 1 inch per year), by removing 100% of the organic matter added to the soil with chop and drop (usually 4 times a year), by never ever again using green manure thus reducing by 100% the green matter added to my soil often at twice a year, by doing all that without digging in three years I can expect soil improvement? Do you actually believe that?

... I believe you were too strict on the use of digging in no-dig/no-till gardening. The no-dig term is just referring to tractor tillage which covers a large area and therefore shocks the soil life something chronic.

So, are you saying that if I used a spade fork to turn the soil instead of a tractor once or twice a year, I could say I was performing no dig gardening? Really?

If I used a machete to chop and drop instead of a mower, would that be better for my soil? Really?

After 43 years of using the same old small tractor, it seems like I would have observed a decline in productivity due to "shocking the soil life something chronic". Far from it. My production numbers are higher this year than previous year, and previous year is higher than the next previous year. The trend here is increased production, better tasting food, and virtually the elimination of any insect/fungal problems. I keep records. This is not hearsay.

In fact, I'm having to reduce plantings because I just can't keep up with the production. We have started an active ongoing donation to the local food bank to get rid of the surplus. I'm not bragging, not at all.

Do you honestly believe my production numbers will increase, in three years, with no dig?

How much hands on no dig have you done? How many years?

 

[redback]

I don't claim you will get better results. If you want to have a small bit of no-dig to test results against I think you need to level a bit of land and try it for three years. All the British no-digs are on flat land and even Susan has used timber retaining walls to flatten her slope. I'm just telling you about the minimum requirements for a reasonable comparison.
As for my practice it keeps changing. I read Dowding's book in the seventies, and Fukuoka's book and the Permaculture books and Bio-dynamic fellow and I conclude you need to adapt to your local conditions. I did have one rotten bit of clay soil here that I top dressed only to find all the loose soil down on the lower fence line by the end of winter.
That is all. I read your comments with interest.

 

[Meadowlark]

So, when you advise me that my results will improve in three years, you have never actually done that yourself...only read about it?

Does your "experience" with books say that by "reducing the amount of compost applied annually by about 80% (limit to 1 inch per year), by removing 100% of the organic matter added to the soil with chop and drop (usually 4 times a year), by never ever again using green manure thus reducing by 100% the green matter added to my soil often at twice a year, by doing all that without digging in three years I can expect soil improvement? "

Exactly which specific book have you read that says reducing those organic practices while not digging will increase production? Reference please.

I live on flat land which is 100 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. The land gradually slopes over those miles to the gulf.

Have you ever, in your lifetime, received a "No N-P-K required" result from a soil test of no dig soil? How about nutrient density scores above 90%, ever get that with no dig? Both of those are routine now for me.

Strange, but the no dig zealots seem to spurn soil tests saying they know better than science about their soils but only as long as they use 1 inch of compost per year. Do you also spurn soil tests? Do you think that is the only practical way to know what is in your soil?

As a scientist (retired), I find it very hard to accept this shunning of soil tests. I have relied on them to step by step build my program over the decades. I have had setbacks discovered by soil tests. It really is hard to understand how a gardener who strives for soil improvement would speak negatively of soil tests.

Significant events of the last 10 years or so have enabled the results I now routinely get. The first of those was the discovery how to use cow peas to build soil. I found I could chop and drop peas and let them reseed themselves up to 4 times in a single growing season. Discovered this myself through soil tests, not books, not the internet. For just literally pennies of cost of seed, I could shred organic matter up to three times a season and add green matter at the end once. Incredibly powerful tool. Absolutely incredible. All this proven through soil testing.

The second major discovery was the discovery of alfalfa as a fall/winter cover crop about 7 years ago. I experimented with it several years and discovered through direct soil tests the absolute power of alfalfa as a soil builder. It is incredible.

About three years ago, I discovered the third major factor in soil building using Sunn Hemp as a cover crop. I found through soil tests that it is possibly the most powerful nitrogen fixing agent in the entire world...again through soil tests and directed experiments. I have Sunn Hemp thriving in containers and garden soil right now in daytime temps exceeding 100 deg.F and nighttime temps never falling below 80 deg F and 100% humidity with zero rain. Absolutely incredible and I would never have discovered the power of Sunn Hemp without soil tests.

Now, you ask me to believe that giving up these incredible tools will improve my soil? Forgive me if I am a bit skeptical. 43 years of working at this can make one a bit skeptical, I suppose.