No-dig Gardening, Sounds Good To Me.

Yesterday I was having a good read of the March issue of Grow Your Own magazine before it's time to move on to the April edition. I am a bit organised like that but tend to keep the previous month's one at hand to refer back to. (I AM trying to have a more relaxed attitude to my gardening but there are some things I just can't shake off!)

In the Show Us Your Plot section I was reading more about no-dig gardening. 

I've seen a bit about this recently but I'm sure a lot of people have been practicing the method for a good while - but I'm always keen to learn.

Joshua Tutt is the featured gardener and he explains why he wanted to start the no-dig method, which he and his family did in 2017, so quite new to the idea. Not wishing to teach Grandma to suck eggs, as they say, but the principal of the thing is - in Joshua's words - 

"you build up layers of organic matter and by doing so you create an undisturbed healthy soil structure that you can then begin growing in immediately."

After the fun of planting and harvesting you can leave the roots of things like lettuce to break down and add to the structure creating useful fungi to make healthy crops. When the beds are empty after the final harvests you add a mulch of garden compost about 5-10 cms thick, feeding the soil and burying weeds, and that is it for soil work until the following year.

I think I can begin this new sowing and growing process myself this year as a while ago, can't seem to find on my blog exactly when!, I took the time to use our supply of chicken manure and cover over with polythene the main veg plot in readiness for the Spring; wish I'd done the same with the smaller one but will address that next year!

I was inquisitive the other day as to how the soil was looking underneath the covering and turned the soil over - which if I'd read the article a few hours earlier I wouldn't have done! I was very pleased to see that there were NO weeds. Yay! I only did one fairly small area ready for planting my 1st early spuds so will leave the rest of it as it now should be.

I would be very interested to hear of other people using this method for the first time so I can gauge how my harvests turn out in comparison to others and to my own from last year.

I have begun some sowing and have my tomatoes in the conservatory along with the first lot of sweet peas and plan on sowing some basil to keep in the kitchen. If the weather holds I would like to get the frame for my climbing peas up early - not going for the wigwams this year as found it hard to harvest the peas when the foliage was so thick inside the structure.

In other news, I have finally managed to get back within my target weight at Slimming World after struggling a bit after Christmas so very chuffed about that. But much more important than that we have had Jon's case reviewed by a specialist panel who actually know something about Sarcoidosis and they have told us that between the last two scans he had taken his lungs have really improved and they think the condition may actually peter out, which is the best news, EVER!!

Right, miserable old day outside today so going to do some baking for the tin, light the burner and keep warm, oh and some homework for my Welsh class this evening.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx