I like the way you work it, no diggity

About now, you may begin to notice blearyeyed creatures emerge from the darkness and begin snuffling around the gardens again, slowly at first but with increasing vigour as the daylight lengthens – yes, gardeners are awaking from their deep winter siesta… Some are young and sprightly and you catch just a flash of them as they dart amongst the bushes but the older ones, perhaps moving more slowly, have great purpose and experience in their deliberations and they actively look for ways to reduce the labour and still grow successfully, whether flowers or vegetables are their quarry.

No-dig gardening is one such tactic, currently gaining ground (sorry…), taking a huge amount of work out of establishing and maintaining both gardens and allotments. The guru of this approach is a fine gentleman called Charles Dowding, author of several books on the topic and his YouTube channel alone has over 599,000 subscribers. What’s more, he lives just over the border from us in

South Somerset, which is awfully handy as he does courses.

The main advantages of no-dig are that it is massively time and labour saving. Gardeners are traditionally indoctrinated from the get-go that you have to dig out weeds and dig over your land. Not so, says Charles and, in my experience, he’s absolutely right.

Five years ago I took on a fairly large and weedy council allotment. I dug and I dug and I dug and still the weeds kept coming, years of cast seed being exposed by my efforts and endlessly springing to life, crowding out my precious veggies. And then one of my nocturnal peripatations on the internet brought forth no-dig, the clouds cleared, sun shone, birds sang, and allotmenting has never been the same since! It’s a subject that can arouse deep emotions. I have been scoffed at, but that doesn’t matter because I grow beautiful vegetables for my family and that’s what matters. So how does it work? It works on the premise that there is no need to dig over ground which destroys soil structure and brings dormant weed seeds near to the surface, encouraging germination – and more weeds. With no-dig you start with a blanket layer that excludes light, commonly wet cardboard. This kills the weeds as they have light excluded from them and they cannot photosynthesise, so they rot down into the soil, enriching it. On top of the cardboard you need to apply at least 100mm (4”) of compost. And that’s it. You can plant straight into it – no digging, no weeding.

My own beds are ‘lasagne’ beds, layers of different organic materials. Typically, as I live on the coast, I use cardboard/seaweed/ compost which I apply during the winter, allowing it to mellow and rot down over the cold months so they’re all ready for me in the spring. Inland, cardboard/manure/ compost will be fine or just cardboard/compost, just so long as you have that crucial 100mm depth. It really has taken so much of the work out of it for me, allowing me to get on with the joyful tasks of growing and eating.