Start Out No Dig, one method with cardboard and compost
My «maximum compost» method for starting out. Add a lot to make new beds, then very little in subsequent years. The cardboard is only for this stage of smothering weeds — keep them in the dark and they expire! Then you dont need to lay any more cardboard, once there are no weeds.
For how to continue, see my Tools and Techniques video www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic0LrNBuSi4
You can use less compost. Lay thick card on weeds then 2in/5cm compost asap in early spring, and wet the card if its dry. Then use a trowel to cut potato size holes in the card and a little into the weedy soil below, to pop in a seed potato. This can give some harvest by summer, while killing weeds too, but you must pull any weeds you see :)
Using less compost for no dig www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC6OBOyQ0mY
If you do not have access to any compost, use old leaves, manure at least half-decomposed — or at limit the one month old you see in this video. Results in year one will be less brilliant than in subsequent years, but you will be clearing weeds easily as well as having a harvest.
Vegetables like potatoes, squash and zucchini grow well though cardboard and less-perfect compost. After they finish you could plant kale or leeks etc.
POSTSCRIPT JULY 2020 the Charlotte potatoes from the two beds in the thumbnail photo gave 54kg/119lb. Then we transplanted looks.
My website has a Start No Dig page charlesdowding.co.uk/start-here/
See my other videos for information about:
How I started at Homeacres, year one in 2013 although I was not making videos until the first autumn www.youtube.com/watch?v=HATC3rG6NbQ
Clearing weeds www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mmv2zGfhG8w
Propagation www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ5csH9K3aw
Spring in Homeacres no dig garden www.youtube.com/watch?v=imwNA4iCtBc
Learn in depth about no dig gardening with my online courses, which contain many more videos. Course 1 covers no dig charlesdowding.co.uk/product/online-course-1-no-dig-gardening/
Course 2 is about success with growing vegetables charlesdowding.co.uk/product/online-course-2-growing-success/
And there is a package of both with 25% discount charlesdowding.co.uk/product/online-courses-1-and-2/
The wool you see here is from Chimneysheep www.chimneysheep.co.uk/product/wool-felt-mulch-larger-areas/
The bagged compost is from New Leaf www.newleafcompost.com/
You can buy mushroom compost from Woodland Horticulture Somerset www.woodlandhp.co.uk/product/mushroom-compost/
Immunologist Jenna Macchiochi is here www.drjennamacciochi.com/
Find more information about no dig and my garden on Instagram charles_dowding and Twitter @charlesdowding
Filmed at Homeacres 18th March 2020 by David Adams.
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