When I first started my vegetable garden, I did what any beginner gardener would do and dug. To me, gardening was all about the digging, turning over top soil and ripping out the weeds. When I heard about the no-dig method, I wasn’t sure I really believed it!
WHAT IS NO DIG?
No dig was made famous by Charles Dowding, a gardener with a mission to let the garden work for us! By layering on goodness onto your raised beds, you create a kind of gardening sandwich where goodness and nutrients are encouraged and where insects and worms can thrive.
Digging also released Carbon into the atmosphere, and so by not digging, you are helping the environment by allowing the ground to keep the Carbon locked up.
HOW TO CREATE A NO-DIG RAISED BED
It’s so simple! First of all, build your raised bed from whatever wood you can get your hands on (mine are old floorboards which I have treated to make them more weather proof.
Now place a layer of cardboard on top, making sure to remove any sticky tape and labels first.
Next, water the cardboard. Though not totally necessary, it does speed up the process of the cardboard breaking down. Worms LOVE cardboard and it encourages them to come up and have a munch!
Finally, add a good could of inches of fresh compost, manure and perhaps some soil improver. The more the merrier to be honest as this will make a fantastic bed for whacking your seeds of plants into.
I threw in my onion and garlic bulbs pretty much straight away. However, as most of my seeds wont be planted until spring time, that gives these new no dig beds a couple of months to do their thing!
Do consider starting a no-dig vegetable garden, especially if it’s your first time. Not only will you find fewer weeds, but you will be doing the environment a big favour!
