This is wonderful. Thanks Lucy. I am very excited to see your allotment develop & to learn along with you as a beginner to gardening. You are making me think I should be getting on with setting up some no dig beds out front already, so I can enjoy their yields next year, but I find it so hard to consider doing this (or almost anything) in these achy, dark months, when my body seems to demand near-constant rest. I don’t know how you do it!
Oh! They are perfect, it means you dont destroy the microbiome in the soil wich means you vegetables and fruits will be able to access minerals through their root systems that become part of that undisturbed ecosystem. I'll write more as the weeks pass ☺️
Oh how lovely, in summary you just create beds that are about a meter wide and 3 meters long, that way you can reach to the middle from each side and walk round them, so they don’t get compacted. Much longer and there will be the tendency to walk on them. If you have a lawn, you can just mow it then pop about 8 inches of compost on top to create your bed. If very weedy cut down, dig out any brambles, cover with cardboard and pop a few inches of compost on top to sew seeds into. Or, for many vegetable plants simply cut a whole in the cardboard and plant through, if you covered in the autumn and the weeds underneath have died off. Each year you add an inch or two of fresh compost. For watering, deep watering of each bed each week is better than every day, once plants are established (seedlings need daily watering). You can pop some bottomless plastic bottles in the ground up to their necks and pop the hose in them to deep water. The aim is to water the bed rather than the established plants.
Thanks, molehill, its because of the tiny streams, where they all converge lits of the new trees fall down, its so beautiful there and timeless, and in spring wild garlic blankets the whole wood ☺️
This is wonderful. Thanks Lucy. I am very excited to see your allotment develop & to learn along with you as a beginner to gardening. You are making me think I should be getting on with setting up some no dig beds out front already, so I can enjoy their yields next year, but I find it so hard to consider doing this (or almost anything) in these achy, dark months, when my body seems to demand near-constant rest. I don’t know how you do it!
I love doing it, have to admit on the way home I was willing each leg to keep stepping 😆 and i didnt make it bouldering with my son
Such beautiful words and images, Lucy. And I've never heard of no-dig beds, so very curious!
Oh! They are perfect, it means you dont destroy the microbiome in the soil wich means you vegetables and fruits will be able to access minerals through their root systems that become part of that undisturbed ecosystem. I'll write more as the weeks pass ☺️
Very keen to follow along for advice on no-dig beds Lucy. Spring is turning to summer over here so lots of action happening/needed in the garden 😊
Oh how lovely, in summary you just create beds that are about a meter wide and 3 meters long, that way you can reach to the middle from each side and walk round them, so they don’t get compacted. Much longer and there will be the tendency to walk on them. If you have a lawn, you can just mow it then pop about 8 inches of compost on top to create your bed. If very weedy cut down, dig out any brambles, cover with cardboard and pop a few inches of compost on top to sew seeds into. Or, for many vegetable plants simply cut a whole in the cardboard and plant through, if you covered in the autumn and the weeds underneath have died off. Each year you add an inch or two of fresh compost. For watering, deep watering of each bed each week is better than every day, once plants are established (seedlings need daily watering). You can pop some bottomless plastic bottles in the ground up to their necks and pop the hose in them to deep water. The aim is to water the bed rather than the established plants.
Fabulous 👌 Thanks so much Lucy 😊
Thanks, molehill, its because of the tiny streams, where they all converge lits of the new trees fall down, its so beautiful there and timeless, and in spring wild garlic blankets the whole wood ☺️