Tomatoes and potatoes

[Meadowlark]

...The addition of compost each year is essentially the same thing. ...

Sorry but I strongly disagree. It is not the same, not even close.

I use several different composts each year, but I have found over decades of gardening in the same soil that Green Manure is absolutely magic. It works wonders far beyond compost in its effects on nutrient density, the taste of veggies, and insect control. I know for certain that my tests would not average above 90% nutrient density unless Green manure is included in my program.

Some claim chop and drop is also just as effective as Green Manure. My tests agree that chop and drop is effective but not nearly as effective as Green manure turned into the soil while green. I don't know why this is the case, but only know that Green is magic stuff.

I never have the insect problems that so many post about on these forums. Never have fungus in my hot/humid. Honestly, I don't even own any fungus treatments. My only non-organic chemical I own is Malathion. I use it occasionally outside the garden area to kill stink bugs on sunflower traps. Highly effective.

 

[Susan BBPM]

Sorry but I strongly disagree. It is not the same, not even close.

I use several different composts each year, but I have found over decades of gardening in the same soil that Green Manure is absolutely magic. It works wonders far beyond compost in its effects on nutrient density, the taste of veggies, and insect control. I know for certain that my tests would not average above 90% nutrient density unless Green manure is included in my program.

Some claim chop and drop is also just as effective as Green Manure. My tests agree that chop and drop is effective but not nearly as effective as Green manure turned into the soil while green. I don't know why this is the case, but only know that Green is magic stuff.

I never have the insect problems that so many post about on these forums. Never have fungus in my hot/humid. Honestly, I don't even own any fungus treatments. My only non-organic chemical I own is Malathion. I use it occasionally outside the garden area to kill stink bugs on sunflower traps. Highly effective.

I guess a lot depends upon your climate.

In the UK's wet climate leaving vegetation to rot tends to result in a major slug problem. So in this country people use green manures, but harvest and compost them. A layer of compost (that doesn't attract slugs) is then added to the beds - in the case of Dowding he adds one inch a year. In December. Then no other nutrients provided and he succession sows producing multiple harvests a year in each bed.
He's a commercial grower.

He does lots of side by side testsover many years and he maintains that any digging of the soil is bad for it. He's found that laying the compost on top of the soil works best in his wet, UK climate.

With such wildly varying climates I don't think you can ever find an approach that will be best in every situation.

 

[Ruderunner]

That first sentence is important.

I've treated both of my plots the same over the years, and they react differently. My one plot is essentially a raised bed with almost full sun. The other is ground level with less sun. They're less than 10 feet apart.

I've been throwing my grass clippings on as mulch for a few years now, the lower plot has had a fungus issue (passed quickly no harm) and the upper has thrived.

I'm currently experimenting with fresh clippings vs some that have dried for a few days. Results are pending. But I can say that weeds are much more manageable with a heavy layer.

As for slugs, in my experience it seems that the mulch keeps them at bay, it's when I let weeds get out of control that the slugs appear. The weeds keep the surface of the soil shady and damp, the mulch gets sunny and dry.

 

[Susan BBPM]

That first sentence is important.

I've treated both of my plots the same over the years, and they react differently. My one plot is essentially a raised bed with almost full sun. The other is ground level with less sun. They're less than 10 feet apart.

I've been throwing my grass clippings on as mulch for a few years now, the lower plot has had a fungus issue (passed quickly no harm) and the upper has thrived.

I'm currently experimenting with fresh clippings vs some that have dried for a few days. Results are pending. But I can say that weeds are much more manageable with a heavy layer.

As for slugs, in my experience it seems that the mulch keeps them at bay, it's when I let weeds get out of control that the slugs appear. The weeds keep the surface of the soil shady and damp, the mulch gets sunny and dry.

There are so many variables over and above climate, soilt type etc.

For example, we have to distinguish between tilling and no-dig gardening. Proponents of no-dig gardening will tell you that tilling destroys the soil life. So that instantly makes green manures problematic - you can't till them in. The no-dig alternative would be to chop and drop then cover in a layer of compost.
Many no-dig gardners produce 3 or more crops in one bed even in climates with very short seasons. They underplant, have plug plants ready so when one crop comes out another goes in and hits the ground running. Simply putting a layer of compost on your beds once a year facilitates this. You don't need cover crops to protect the soil as the compost mulch is your cover. If you're growing green manure in the bed you aren't growing crops to eat/sell.

So for sure there are benefits to green manures. But you will get great results with no dig and an annual compost layer. If you don't have a need to be producing eddible/sellable crops on every square inch of your land then growing green manure's is a fantastic thing to do - but for the no-dig gardener you chop it down, leaving the roots behind and put the tops on the compost heap.

The point I was making was to focus on the underlying principles that apply no matter how you do your gardening.

1. Soil life feeds your plants.
2. Soil life needs organic matter
3. You can import organic matter (and you need to - or minerals etc - if you harvest anything from your garden and move it off site as you will lose nutrients over time).
4. You can also grow your own organic material. If you chop and drop (or chop and till) all the nutrents go back into the soil so you have net gain. However, you get the same result (organic matter to feed the soil life) by growing green manures on any empty beds and using it to make compost. In fact, this is better as you're taking nutrients from another bed and adding them to the bed you're composting.

You can't say which is best without taking ALL variables into account.

 

[Meadowlark]

That first sentence is important...

I agree but not in the way most say. My belief is that the more severe, the more difficult the climate, the more insect problems you have, the more important it is to use green manure in your tool kit....not just chop and drop, but actual GREEN stuff incorporated into the soil.

In ideal climate conditions, making the soil better is not as much a factor in production as it is in difficult climates. For example, it has been 100/100 here every day, and mostly without rainfall, since early May. I expect that. It's Texas. Yet, my soil enables growth in several veggies that in soil with lower nutrient densities they would simply perish or stop producing. I've seen it and experienced it many many times.

No matter what your climate is, your soil will benefit from Green manure and produce better than a soil without it. It may not be worth the effort to some especially if their climate is relatively favorable, but in tough conditions you really notice the difference.

 

[redback]

Very interesting.
No-dig does mean lop and drop on the surface. Green manure does imply digging in. The current topic is 'tomatoes and potatoes and rotation'. My interest is in the great unknowns under the soil - the microbes. Oh - and I have no machinery and I'm getting old. As you say - there are many factors at play here. So I side with Hew and Susan. I am experimenting with weeds and nature to give me the nutrients, the microbial life under the soil and the fireproofing that must be in place by the end of spring- September here. So I dump heaps of compost and manure on the top of my soil beneath the permanent trellises every year and rotate the tomatoes, beans, peas, cucumbers, melons and other climbers between the four groups of trellises. Potatoes rotate with all the other crops. Generally I top-dress with my own compost and humus rather than mulch because of the fire threat. My 10 hens are rotated between four pens which are planted in veges when not occupied.
There is more than one solution. There are probably thousands of different approaches to organic gardening.

 

[Susan BBPM]

Very interesting.
No-dig does mean lop and drop on the surface. Green manure does imply digging in. The current topic is 'tomatoes and potatoes and rotation'. My interest is in the great unknowns under the soil - the microbes. Oh - and I have no machinery and I'm getting old. As you say - there are many factors at play here. So I side with Hew and Susan. I am experimenting with weeds and nature to give me the nutrients, the microbial life under the soil and the fireproofing that must be in place by the end of spring- September here. So I dump heaps of compost and manure on the top of my soil beneath the permanent trellises every year and rotate the tomatoes, beans, peas, cucumbers, melons and other climbers between the four groups of trellises. Potatoes rotate with all the other crops. Generally I top-dress with my own compost and humus rather than mulch because of the fire threat. My 10 hens are rotated between four pens which are planted in veges when not occupied.
There is more than one solution. There are probably thousands of different approaches to organic gardening.

If you make the decision to go with no dig that kinda answers one of your questions - whether to have tomatoes or potatoes in containers.

Potatoes and no dig don't really go together - you need to rummage a round the bed to get the potatoes out. I follow quite a few no-dig gardeners on youtube and I've noticed them grappling with this problem over the years. A lot of them end up growing their potatoes in containers (which needs an awful lot of compost and watering and that puts me off that approach).

Another approach I've seen is to abandon rotation - and Charles Dowding has indeed grown potatoes in the same bed for several years without problem. Just that inch or two of fresh garden compost added to the beds each decembeer. He does side by siide testing every year and weighs his harvest so he has hard data to back up his approach.

Huw Richards (another no dig youtuber) used to follow Dowdings approach of not rotating, but one year he got potato blight - thus forcing a rotation. And it absolutely scuppered all his work on developing no dig beds. He now grows all potatoes in containers and uses blight resistant sapo mira.

I'm still undecided as to my approach long term. In the UK we need to grow tomatoes in a greenhouse or tunnel. I have raised beds in my tunnel so I have tomatoes in the same place every year. I put my worm farm in there over winter (so all the worm tea drips into the beds all winter long). I also put my hot bin in there and empty it onto the raised bed at the end of winter. I haven't had issues yet.

I prefer growing potatoes in the ground too. So I just accept that I'm going to dig around in the bed where my potatoes are - I'm not a no-dig purist. That means green manures are an option for me. However, if you.re harvesting potatoes from the same bed every year you need to be putting something into the soil over and above what you've grown in it. So green manures wouldn't be enough.

I am curious as to why (assuming it truly does in my environment) green manure has added benefits over compost. I haven't ruled it out. But you do need to consider all the variables and implications. Mostly no dig, compost on top, no rotation is working well for me. Green manures (without changing the other variables) may well put a spanner in the works.

I've read that poached egg plant (a flower that I like) is a great winter tollerant green manure. I'm thinking of trying that in my front garden flower beds. Nice greenery on the beds all winter then chop and drop and cover with compost (for aesthetics) in the spring leaving a few to flower in spring.

 

[Ruderunner]

Regarding the phrases no dig and no till I wouldn't call them absolutes.

Re no dig, how does on plant without digging? Just drop the plant and hope it roots? How does one harvest root vegetables? Hope they just pop out on their own?

Is tilling really that devastating to soil? Sure some worms will get chopped up but they become fertilizer afterwards. Yes some microbes might die from exposure to sun and air, but certainly not all.

Both tilling and digging can be overdone but they are necessary to some degree.

 

[Susan BBPM]

Regarding the phrases no dig and no till I wouldn't call them absolutes.

Re no dig, how does on plant without digging? Just drop the plant and hope it roots? How does one harvest root vegetables? Hope they just pop out on their own?

Is tilling really that devastating to soil? Sure some worms will get chopped up but they become fertilizer afterwards. Yes some microbes might die from exposure to sun and air, but certainly not all.

Both tilling and digging can be overdone but they are necessary to some degree.

That's a whole new (and massive topic)!!

But in short, you dig as little as humanly possible. You never dig anything into the soil. When harvesting you cut the tops off the plants but leave the roots behind. You disturb the soil as little as you possibly can. You mimic nature by dropping deaying matter on top of the beds and letting the worms take it down to deeper layers - ariating the soil in the process. In the UK at least we tend to use compost as that keeps slugs and snail populations down. Also, you're adding a wide variety of nutrients and matter to the soil keeping things more balanced.

Proponents of no dig say 'yes - tilling really is devastating to soil'.

In short, the longer soil remains undisturbed the better the growth-enabling organisms can heal, multiply and do their job. Every time you dig the soil you harm and set back the very organisms that you need for great crops. Good soils is full of billions of fungal threads, nematodes and earthworms. Left to their own devices, and fed by nature (from above in the form of fallen decaying matter) you will get optimum conditions for growth.

When we garden we traditionally till and damage the soil life. We can make up for that damage by adding more nutrients - so if the soil life is no longer able to feed our plants we can add fertilizer that will feed them instead. But that further harms the soil life. Green manures will go a long way to ensuring we make up for some of the damage done to the soil (and for the nutrients stripped out by harvesting). But that digging is doing harm as well as good (in terms of soil life health).

But there is more than one way to skin a rabbit. It's about finding an approach that works for you. But you can't just take elements from one approach without regard from all else that's happening in your garden.

EDIT: Point being - I'm not saying no dig is better than green manures. My point is that with both approaches you need to look at the wider picture and if some aspects of an approach aren't going to work it perhaps isn't doing you any good talking a half arsed approach and only doing bits of it.

 

[Ruderunner]

I understand that no dig/till is intended to mimic nature. But nature has a geological time frame and can take decades or longer. Humans don't have that luxury.

Looking at it that way, even no dig is cheating. Man is moving debris to speed the process along.

When I started about 15 years ago, I had clay that would barely support grass. In some places not even that. I brought in sand and manure to mix into the clay so it could support life. If I went strictly no dig I'd have to bring in clay as well and then wait for nature to mix it . Meaning I might not yet have a garden.

I'm not saying those methods don't work but I see no reason not to use the tools at ones disposal.

In my case I seem to have finally reached a point where no till can work. Most of the garden did not get tilled. I did do some areas to loosen some soil to fill in the garden expansion. The expansion will be aggressively tilled and compost spread in the fall. We'll see what it looks like in spring and it might get tilled again.

 

[Susan BBPM]

Interesting and relevant (to no dig vs

If you could take a drive through the heart of corn growing acres in Iowa and northern Missouri in USA in the most sophisticated farms in the World, and most highly productive I might add, I doubt you would say that. Thousands upon thousands of acres of soybeans and corn in rotation. Literally more than one can even imagine. Incredible to see.

Yet another tangent, but there are huge criticism of monoculutre farming and whilst it's hard to get away from when you're mass producing food, in garden environments people are moving towards polyculture approaches. So that's one of the reasons why rotation is becoming less prelevant - if you're growing multiple crops in one bed how do you rotate? What's most beneficial in YOUR garden - rigid adherence to rotation or taking a pollyculture approach? There probably isn't a universal answer to that question.

Just to throw thoughts and ideas into the pot here's Charles Dowding's comments on the matter. I'm not holding up Charles Dowding as the ultimate authority. Just as one of the pioneers of the no dig approach (so an expert in no dig).

"You don't have to rotate in this way, I certainly don't, because it is simpler to grow what you want, leaving as long a gap as possible - which may be only two years - between vegetable families such as legumes, brassicas, potatoes, alliums, umbellifers; note that ‘roots’ is not a family so makes no sense in terms of a rotation to avoid disease. I spread some compost every year, to feed the soil and keep it in best condition and to allow double cropping as much as possible - which is difficult if you leave soil fallow. In a small garden I would never grow green manures;, because of their need for extra time and effort to grow, incorporate or mulch, and then to rot down; I recommend compost instead.

Rotation needs bearing in mind, without letting it dictate what you grow. There are four or five main groups of vegetables with family associations, making them susceptible to similar pests and diseases which can be reduced by growing the same family in different places each year as far as is practical. All gardeners have favourite crops and I know many who successfully break the rules in this section, for instance by growing carrots and runner beans in the same place every year or tomatoes in the same greenhouse soil each summer. When rotating minimally, adding compost and manure does help to keep soil, and therefore plants, in good health. "

https://www.charlesdowding.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Second-sowings-Ch-13-Veg-Course.pdf

More recently Dowding has been experimenting with growing the same crop in a bed for many years - without any problem or reduction in harvest size or quality. 8 years in a row with broad beans and potatoes in the same bed at the time of this clip:

 

[Susan BBPM]

I understand that no dig/till is intended to mimic nature. But nature has a geological time frame and can take decades or longer. Humans don't have that luxury.

Looking at it that way, even no dig is cheating. Man is moving debris to speed the process along.

When I started about 15 years ago, I had clay that would barely support grass. In some places not even that. I brought in sand and manure to mix into the clay so it could support life. If I went strictly no dig I'd have to bring in clay as well and then wait for nature to mix it . Meaning I might not yet have a garden.

I'm not saying those methods don't work but I see no reason not to use the tools at ones disposal.

In my case I seem to have finally reached a point where no till can work. Most of the garden did not get tilled. I did do some areas to loosen some soil to fill in the garden expansion. The expansion will be aggressively tilled and compost spread in the fall. We'll see what it looks like in spring and it might get tilled again.

I am not suggesting that no dig is the only way. Far from it. The point I am making is that you can't just cherry pick bits from various approaches without understanding the interplay between various elements, and expect it to work well. If you are seeking the benefits of no dig, then digging in green manures is probably out of the question. But there's no reason why you have to follow no dig if that doesn't work for you. That's the point I'm making - you need to consider all the variables when deciding whether a given thing (e.g. green manure) is going to work for you.

keep quoting Charles Dowding as he is the guru of no dig in the UK. Not becaue I think he is always right. He says NEVER dig. Just put compost on top of your soil and start growing. Let nature do the rest.

It's not about whether or not you cheat. It's about finding the best way to grow vegetables. Dowding's experience is that he gets the best results by mimicing nature and letting the soil life do it's thing unhindered.

Others might find that digging in manure, compost, green manure etc works best.

But if you're going to pick elements from various approaches you need to understand how they work as you may well end up with the worst of all worlds!

 

[Ruderunner]

Agree about doing what works in a particular environment. And yes, one can pick the wrong techniques.

One thing to keep in mind is that whatever techniques you employ are changing the garden environment. So it's a moving target as to what works best. My own garden has changed personality over the years to the point that no dig is viable. But I'm not going to throw away my tiller or shovel. What happens in a few years if blight develops? What if the soil gets compacted?

Getting back to topic of rotation, my 2 plots are developing different traits. Meaning each will be better suited for some crops vs others. They'll require different rotation plans. Those rotation plans will affect obviously where things get planted but also what gets planted. Some things may have to sit out a year.
Regarding companion planting and rotation, if plants grow well together, it seems like they should rotate together. In my case cabbage and tomatoes seem like a good pair, so next year they can move to a different row together. Pickles and onions can take the now vacant row.

 

[Meadowlark]

...Regarding companion planting and rotation, if plants grow well together, it seems like they should rotate together.

Excellent!! That is a commonsense approach which will serve you well for decades of gardening. Well done.

 

[redback]

Regarding the phrases no dig and no till I wouldn't call them absolutes.

Re no dig, how does on plant without digging? Just drop the plant and hope it roots? How does one harvest root vegetables? Hope they just pop out on their own?

Is tilling really that devastating to soil? Sure some worms will get chopped up but they become fertilizer afterwards. Yes some microbes might die from exposure to sun and air, but certainly not all.

Both tilling and digging can be overdone but they are necessary to some degree.

This is becoming a novel not a thread.
Some of my friends are perfectionists and allow no dissent. I am the perfect dissenter.
I do use a fork to turn over soil when necessary. The soil that is now growing my brassicas was once the worse possible clay. (okay, 0kay yours was worse!) When I forked it the lumps that resulted were the size of a matchbox or bigger - there was absolutely no fines. I had to use potting soil to put around the seedlings I planted there. Twenty years later I can till the soil with my fingers. I notice too that the gardeners who 'till' often talk of mulching and top dressing with compost. So, we are all compromised.
The local organic guru is Peter Bennett. He talks of 'trenching' a lot. For tomatoes on a triangular trellis, you plant either side and leave the middle blank for irrigation and a 'trench'. This idea of double digging down two spade depths is also popular in Italy. You fill the deepest part of the trench with kitchen scraps, or pigeon poo in Peter's case, and then you replace the top shovel depth with the excavated soil. It encourages deep rooting and, because the top layer keeps sinking, it encourages topping up each year too. I have done it and it works because the worms and others come to feast on the deeply buried nutrients, and the tomato roots get a boost as they reach the middle where all the nutrients and water are, and just when they reach maturity and the fruiting stage.
I do like Charles, Hew and Susan and their 'no-dig' idea but only when it's the best option.