Does no dig gardening really work?

[redback]

1, I don't believe no-dig will necessarily improve your results - so don't call me a no-dig zealot.
2. Don't reduce the amount of compost and organic matter to the no-dig trial plot.
3. Of the classic organic books I've read - Dowding's, Fukuoka's (green manure advocate and agricultural scientist), and the regen. ag. recent farming group advocate minimal tillage. Steiner's Biodynamics predates Dowding and is sort of spiritual and artistic and yet still being used. Permaculture has become part of regen. ag. and both of them prefer to use shorter grazing times to move herds on quickly and avoid overgrazing but are not against tillage.
4. Your photos seem to show sloping soil. Must be the camera angle.
5. I spent 30 years on a hobby farm but earned most my income off farm. I did have 10,000 strawbs which I sold locally but was wiped out when one of the big farmers managed to successfully grow and harvest half a million strawbs.
During this time, I took my soil to be tested to the agric. college and - they fumigated it! Even back in the eighties I was smart enough to know that the life in the soil was its fertility. Never again! The ridiculous analysis of dead minerals and salts was of no use.
6. Your brilliant use of cow peas, alfalfa and sun hemp is awesome.

 

[redback]

The above reference to Fukuoka's 'One Straw revolution' says he advocated green manure, but he actually advocated living mulch. His garden was covered in white clover, and he planted his plants amongst it.

 

[Meadowlark]

No, the baseline for compost is 1 inch. I didn't set it. Susan did with numerous posts declaring that 1 inch is all that is ever needed...and you don't need no stinking soil tests when you apply 1 inch of compost, LOL. My goodness.

The no dig approach would reduce the amount of organic matter I add to the soil by almost incalculable amounts. Literally tons and tons. No green manure, no chop and drop, only 1 inch of compost annually. That's why I will only allow 10 ft of my soil to be subjected to this approach...and only for a very short part of a growing season.

As I said, no dig is a significant step backwards for me. For what, better soil? I don't think so and the test will prove me wrong or right.

The books are interesting but cannot ever replace hands on experience and knowledge. I respect hands on experience; knowledge learned in books and the internet, not so much. I was part of the group that put the first humans on the moon and returned them safely. We didn't have books to tell us how to do that. We figured it out for ourselves. That is the best way and sometimes the only way.

However, I just might get that reference Fukuoka's (green manure advocate and agricultural scientist) as it sounds interesting.

Your story on the agri. college reminded me that there is a significant element on this forum that believes in solarization. It completely destroys all soil life. It indiscriminately kills everything in the soil...and I believe the soil never recovers. A lot of smart folks on here, but that practice is absolutely abhorrent to someone like me who has spent nearly 1/2 a century building soil.

Likewise, I find the idea of prohibiting tilling and limiting a gardener's use of the powerful tools of chop and drop, covers, green manure, rotation, etc. abhorrent...but I will give it an honest try anyway.

 

[Susan BBPM]

Title of thread:

"Does no dig gardening really work?'"

NOT:

"Is no dig gardening better than any other approach"

In order to answer the latter question you'd first need to clearly define what you mean by 'better'. (cheaper, quicker, produces bigger yeilds etc). You'd also need to strictly define your test scenario - climate, materials used, existing soil type etc. Something may well be better in one scenario and not in another.

For me, 'better' means quick, easy, works well, cheap.

In my UK climate no dig ticks all the boxes and I would say it is the best method by a long mile.

The UK government are recommending that farmers switch to no-dig, so presumably it's 'best' according to their criteria too.

Adding one inch of compost a year is enough to produce multiple harvests a season, year in and year out. From the first year. That is my experience, and it's the experience of man, many others. Even the Royal Horticultural Society have a public garden that demonstrates no dig methods. Charles dowding has been publishing test results for 10 years or so showing side by side testing of beds where all else is identical but he uses no dig in one and digs compost in in the other. The no dig bed always wins in terms of quality of crops and harvest size. He's also got video results of other long running tests, such as several years of NOT rotating crops - no reduction in quality or harvest size.

If someone wanted to try it they'd be very wise to actually research it rather than blindly copying what someone else has done. Not least because in different countries there tend to be slight differences.

A big issue that we have in the UK is that ANY green matter left to rot down on soil becomes a slug magnet. So we use compost - and 1 inch a year is enough. 1 inch takes a HUGE amount of organic matter to prodcude - way more than you'd ever produce through green manure grown in situ.

The UK Government advise farmers that there might be slight reduction in harvests for the first couple of years after switching to no dig. I think this applies to farmers currently using fertilizers etc. If you switch from chemicals to no dig you'll need to give the soil life time to recover to get results.

But if you're starting out on a bit of old field that hasn't been dug for a few years you should get decent results from year one I think. In my experience the soil looks better each year, but you get good harvests from year one. I think the answer is that it doesn't take the best soil in the world to grow outstanding crops. You only need good enough.






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[Susan BBPM]

Charles Dowding started out with no-dig methods 40 years ago using the Ruth Stout method. Ruth Stout developed her no-dig method of gardening with mulches in the 1920's.

Ruth lived in a very different climate from ours. Her chosen mulch was hay, but when Dowding tried that here in the UK he found it created a slug habitat. Through trial and error he discovered that compost was the best thing to use in this (and many other) climates.
In a hot climate hay, grass clippings, green manure etc might work best (or equally well). Although that said, I'd have thought compost would be better simply because you're adding multiple sources of organic matter to all of your beds.

I think when farmers use no-till / no-dig they use cover crops and they chop and drop.

Ruth Stout Gardening Method - An Easy, Labor Saving Method That Really Works

This gardening method has slowly grown in popularity because of its simplicity. Growing vegetables and food for your family shouldn’t be difficult, and she firmly believed her method works for any soil type and gardener.

www.gardeningchannel.com

 

[Susan BBPM]

Row 1 - 10 foot by say 4 foot; levelled to form a terrace (using the contours) so compost does not run down the slope with the first rain. Top with compost and manure. Half the length planted in ginger and galangal, half in bananas. Leave as permanent bed for at least three years. Top with one or two inches of compost each year before planting. Weed and mulch the beds as necessary.
Don't compare the two just see how no-dig goes in your climate. You will need three years to get the soil benefits. I believe you were too strict on the use of digging in no-dig/no-till gardening. The no-dig term is just referring to tractor tillage which covers a large area and therefore shocks the soil life something chronic. Your sloping block in the heat and humidity justifies your current practice as far as I'm concerned.

You plant in year one. Then you mulch. Ruth Stout mulched with hay. There is no need to use compost if you don't have slug issues. (Although I suspect compost is better due to the wide variety of organic matter)

It works well from year one on soiil that hasn't been tilled.

Farmers that previously tilled and used chemical fertilizers are told that it might take three years for the soil life to recover.
I'm not sure what the situation would be if you've been tilling in green manures only for years. The tilling kills the soil life, but it will recover sufficiently inbetween tilling to produce good crops. As no dig works from year one (because soil life builds up quickly) I'd have thought that switching from digging in green manures to just chopping and dropping (or topping with compost) them would result in no difference in harvests. *(EDIT: although dowding has been running side by side tests of dig and no dig for a decade and no dig always wins out in harvest size/quality/apperance).

Digging in green manures works. No dig works too. There should be no difference - other than no dig being easier and more productive.....you don't need big gaps with no cash crops in your beds. If your climate allows you could have crops in your beds all year around with no gaps. Dowding starts his off in plug trays thus getting a month's head start on all of his crops. Even in the British cool, short season he can get 4 crops a year from each bed. He grows all year around in his tunnels.

 

[Susan BBPM]

One other thing that springs to mind. I recently read a research paper (I'll see if I can find it) that found that tilling in green manures reduced fertility for about 3 months (due to soil life being damaged). But then it recovered fully.

So, if you had a dig and no dig bed, with all else being equal if you only had one crop a year and you allowed your bed to rest after digging there should be no significant differennce. So dig in a cover crop in Feb, plant your cahs crop in may - the digging won't have harmed fertility.

However, with the no-dig bed you can keep growing all year around. You don't have that down time after tilling.

That said, I read another paper that looked at results of organic slow release fertilizer, chemical fertilzier and compost. Compost faired the worse - the other two performed equally well. The compost took about 3 months to kick in (so 3 months for soil life to come on line).

That would suggest that in year one it might take 3 months to get no dig up and running. And if I recall correctly I used bagged compost which comes with 3 months plant feed in it. Which will be why I hit the ground running. In subsequent years there's no interruption to the soil life. The compost added each december keeps the soil life well fed and thriving all year around..

I'm speculating here, but I don't think it takes long to create great soil for growing flowers and veg. Soil life builds quickly - it might take longer to get a well draining texture to the soil. I don't think it's something that takes years to build up. The key thing is that it's sutainable. You don't need to do anything but spread compost, hay, grass clippings (or chop and drop) to have great soil for ever. Soil life isn't fussy and it'll feed on what you give it. Dowding has said that minerals etc are rarely an issue - it's the bacteria that feeds tha plants.

 

[Susan BBPM]

Morag Gamble's video on how to create a no-dig garden. She is in Australia where water retention is a priority and slugs aren't a problem. She therefore doesn't use compost - or rather, less so. She also does a lot off composting in situ....which I've toyed with, but again, you have the slug problem here.

 

[Susan BBPM]

No, the baseline for compost is 1 inch. I didn't set it. Susan did with numerous posts declaring that 1 inch is all that is ever needed...and you don't need no stinking soil tests when you apply 1 inch of compost, LOL. My goodness.

OK, I'll bite....

1. I didn't set 1 inch as a baseline. I said that it's the baseline set by Charles Dowding. Charles Dowding is a leading expert in no dig methods, and this thread was asking if no dig works. This isn't a no-dig rule.....it's a Charles Dowding recommendation. One that I've followed so know it works in my climate/situation.

2. Your claim that I said 'you don't need no stinking soil tests' is incorrect and indicates to me that you are getting angry and personal because someone is sharing info about somethiong that you don't want talked about? I have not used the word stinking. I merely stated the fact that you don't need soil tests when following no dig approach as developed by Dowding. The objective is to create fertille soil that grows great veg. Soil life feeds the veg. So testing for anything other than soil life is futile. There is no point in testing for something if you have no intention of acting on the results. Your harvest tells you whether you have enough soil life to adequately feed your soil.

3. Again, as many have verified, 1 inch of compost is all that's needed to keep the soil life thriving. If your soil life is thriving you don't need to worry about soil tests as you can be sure the soil life is providing all the food your veg needs. This is based upon decades of experience and testing by more than one person.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

From a slightly different angle, I was interested to see you distinguish between 'dig' and 'till'. Mechanical assistance is a different thing, most garden machines work with a rotating blade which will press down as it goes across the bottom rather than cutting in. Dig with a fork and you break what you dig away from the bottom. As you get larger the wieght of the machine also becomes a factor, though I try to spread my weight with planks just walking on it.
Mechanical tilling has the potential to cause problems both with drainage and creating a physical change in soil for roots to cross to get deeper. The no dig as it is described does not have that disadvantage once the cardboard starts to get penetrated, and drainage should gradually improve.

 

[MiniOrchardDude]

Ran into this short video that I found very interesting definitely worth watching. He covers soil structure when tiling with machines or a spade and the effects of each.

He based his research on the current structire of his soil and when he needed to til and when to possibly stop.

I followed his apple tree pruning videos and so far it is working for me. My apple trees will bloom next year following his tips.

The UC Santa Cruz Center for Agroecology is a research, education, and public service organization dedicated to advancing agroecology and equitable food systems. Formerly known as the Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS).

MOD

 

[Meadowlark]

Actually, I found the comments far more interesting,

"@michaelg86424 weeks ago (edited)
i also have horrible hardpan clay soil and tried no-till for years and it was like beating my head against a brick wall.. if you just put compost on top it would dry up and disappear.. started working amendments into the soil and have seen drastic improvement.."

Soil amendments...that rings true to my experience.

 

[oneeye]

No dig gardening doesn't work for everyone. It really depends on what's in the substrate as far as "no dig" goes. If you have a rock-hard black gumbo soil vs a sandy loam it makes all the difference in the world. Both benefit from compost but the gumbo will need compost for at least 5 years where the loam is ready in the first year. So mostly it depends on the starting soil and soil content.

 

[Steve @ Celtic Farm]

Absolutely, I run a flower farm and we've been using the no-dig method for a while now. We layer compost and mulch right over the grass, and it's been transformative for our soil health and plant growth. Using cardboard is a great way to smother and naturally decompose the grass below; it acts as a barrier and also breaks down over time. As for rogue grasses, they can pop up, but they're easier to pull out from the loose, rich soil. Overall, this method has reduced our weeding efforts, and our plants seem happier and more vibrant. Would highly recommend giving it a try!

 

[big rockpile]

Solarize, in garden terms, means to heat the soil with the sun. It gets hot enough to kill seeds, grasses and weeds down to a substantial depth. One uses black or clear plastic sheeting to do this.

I was thinking of this but anything along this line will kill Microbs in the soil which plants like.

I was watching one guy he put down cardboard and heavy with leaves.

Like I say I glean what I can and use what I want.

I think for now I will continue to till.

big rockpile