January 2017 soil care, compost quality, no sowing yet!
Heading
A happy new year to my readers, may your gardens be bountiful, and easier to look after.When does the gardening year begin? You could pick any date from October to March, depending where you live (snow on the ground, or not) and whether your soil is clear of weeds. In much of the UK, you can mulch soil with compost in January, if you have not already. Check this half-minute video for the essence of no dig preparation, when soil has been kept clear of weeds using a little and often approach.In my diary I begin the sowing year on Valentines Day, because the rapidly lengthening days after mid-February make new growth more viable than when seeds are sown in January. For now, I recommend to sow nothing, and to finish soil preparation instead. Buy seeds and some potting compost, or sieve some of your own. The latter will probably have less nutrients, depending on what you added to the heap.
My six month old compost, I use a fork to break lumps and load it into the barrow
Sun is rising, a new year beckons
Using a chicken wire sieve, compost for potting, is feasible when the compost is not sticky
No dig advantage
I am excited, after practicing no dig since 1983, that it is now more practised and recognised. In Gardeners World magazine of January 2017 is this from Mairi Rattray of Beechgrove Garden:
“We trialled no dig veg growing last year and it was a great success. The veg in the undug beds were larger, healthier and produced greater yields than their traditionally dug counterparts. We’ll be doing that again.”
You can see four year’s of results from one of Homeacres' dig/no dig trials here, and when added to six years of trials at Lower Farm, this experiment now has ten years’ harvest comparisons. In two of the ten years the dug beds yielded slightly more, but most years the yields are slightly higher from no dig, for less time and effort.Perhaps one reason for a yield increase from no dig is it’s preservation of soil fungi, such as mycorrhizal networks which fetch minerals and moisture. There is plenty we do not understand, and side-by-side trials are a great way to gain more insights.
April 2016, dug bed on left, no dig on right. At this stage of the year, growth was even between the two
August 2016, dug bed on left, no dig on right. From this point, perhaps because of a dry autumn, harvests were higher from the no dig bed.
I found this network of soil fungi when harvesting leeks
Annual mulch of compost, adjust for yield
There is no right or wrong amount to use, it depends how fertile you want your soil to be. Just a half inch mulch makes a world of difference. That was my annual dressing on 7 acres of beds in the 1980s. However, I was not doing much double cropping at that time.At Homeacres, the quarter acre of beds are more productive, cropping throughout the growing season. I find that a 2in (5cm) mulch of compost gives most output of healthy plants, when cropping so intensively. The 5x16ft (1.5x5m), no dig bed of my experiment gave 109kg of regular harvests in 2016, from April to December.This winter I have mulched about two fifths of the veg beds with my homemade compost, and it’s quality is better from having the roof over.
Bed on right is mulched, bed on left cleared and ready for compost
After spreading homemade compost on the left-hand bed
View of mulched beds, December 2016
Digging or forking?
In the experiment above, my digging method is to make trenches of spade depth (“single digging”) and place compost along the bottom of each trench.So it’s interesting to run a separate trial comparing no dig with forked soil, and compost on the surface rather than in trenches. Using a garden fork 28cm (11in) long, we loosen the soil of each bed by levering to the fork’s full length, similar to the effect of broadforking. It is much quicker and easier than digging.
There are two strips of 2x9m (6.5x19.5ft). One is no dig, while beds of the other are forked, and both have the same 5cm (2in) compost on top, every autumn. In 2015 the forked beds yielded 90.23kg, the no dig yielded 101.71kg. In 2016 the difference is even more marked:120.33kg from the forked beds, 142.14kg from the no dig beds. I have a table of all the harvests in this pdf
See more in this video.
July potato harvest: there strips run left to right, first one by yellow bucket is dug beds, middle on is no dig with same compost
Same veg, different soil prep: on left is the forked beds, no dig on right in October 2016
After mulching and forking in December 2016, no dig on left, forked beds on right
No dig in pictures - clearing weeds
The link is to my video, and the seven photos show how the weeds disappeared in 2015, and the abundant growth of vegetables, even while the weeds are dying. This area is the third photo of "annual mulch" para above.
1 Starting out December 2015, in front is horse manure with wood shavings, one year old
2 Average 6in compost on beds, no cardboard, for paths less compost and cardboard – this is one option of many
3 There was much couch grass here and I put cardboard on top of the beds in February
3 March, after reflection I decided to use some old polythene to cover the whole area, to save time in summer
5 July: strong growth of veg that one can plant through polythene
6 August: courgettes, potatoes, squash
7 October after harvests, mustards on left went in after potato harvest late August
COMPOSTS
Compost is the decomposed result of dead plants, or their constituents, plus it may may contain animal excretions. It's nutrients are mostly insoluble in water, so compost can be spread at any time and beds do not need to be covered with polythene, unless weeds are a problem.Animal manures turn into compost, eventually, as does all garden waste including leaf mould, bark, wood chips or shavings. The fascinating thing is how every compost heap is different! For growing great vegetables, a finer state of decomposition is good.
Eight month old homemade compost, was turned to here in July
On left is mushroom compost, on right is six month homemade compost
Also six month compost but this heap was open to the weather and had some larger woody pieces
Beds on left are mulched with 2in old cow manure, on right with same amount of mushroom and green waste compost
Humanure compost
I was fascinated to see the quality and quantity of compost from my garden toilet. It was from the whole of 2015, and included the shavings which we drop in, after each visit. I filled one wheelbarrow, and that was it!The quality was mostly superb. soft and light except for some sogginess right in the middle, where brandling worms were still busy.
This space has a whole year of poo and shavings, some straw too, from 2015
In the middle was some less-decomposed manure, with many worms
Most of it was lovely-looking compost, now mulching fruit trees and flower beds
VEG
As winter deepens, some vegetables come into their own, or at least are not fazed by the low temperatures, here down to -6.5C so far (20F). Spinach sown in August has cropped already, several harvests of large, outer leaves. Currently it’s fairly dormant and then should crop heavily thought spring.Kaibroc is half broccoli, half Kailaan and has better frost resistance than ordinary calabrese. Savoy and crinkly cabbage hearts also stand freezing: I tried a very late sowing of Deadon F1, sown July and planted late August after clearing beetroot. SO far it is barely hearting and I hope it will in March or April.
Spinach Medania, sown August, has already cropped heavily in autumn, should crop until June
Kaibroc in early December
December 29th, plenty of shoots
Cabbage Deadon F1, still has some growing to do
Winter salad
Steph and I took a huge pick of leaves on 22nd December, to keep customers happy over Christmas. A quarter of the leaf mix was from outdoor chicories I had planted on 30th August, after harvesting Sarpo potatoes.Undercover, we picked an extra leaf or two off each plant (lettuce, rocket, mustards, endive, chervil etc), in order to increase the time before a next harvest, probably in mid January. Or at month’s end if the weather is very frosty, which looks possible.
Salad harvest of 22nd December, 29kg leaves sold
Greenhouse salad plants after we picked on 22nd December
Same view on 30th December, ten days growth at the darkest time of year
Outdoor Persian cress, seed was from Hosein in Herts, looks promising
Also growing
I was recommended to One Yard Revolution channel on You Tube, where they are superbly working things out from experience of what works and does not. All nicely explained, see this one.
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