I take you around my garden of 1500 m² or 1/3 acre cropped ground, for examples and ideas. The garden is quiet at this time, but we notice how the rhubarb is springing to life already.
No dig bed prep for the year ahead is straightforward. Feed soil life with a surface mulch around 2.5 cm or one inch thick, measured after it settles. And feed the soil you walk on as well, with a little woodchip on pathways.
Average bed width is 1.2 m and path width 40 cm (4ft x 16in), see my recent planning video:
• Garden Design and Size...
My trial results from 2023 show clear benefits of leaving soil alone.
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Even forking depresses yield, by 20% this year; and over 10 years by 9% altogether. This is my Three Strip Trial:
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00:00 Introduction
00:22 2024 courses at Homeacres
01:12 Most beds are now harvested, but some veg still survive just, eg chard
01:25 Mulching beds with compost
02:01 Slug damage to spinach leaves
02:28 Mulching with wood chip, different grades
02:57 The small polytunnel, mulched back May before tomatoes - compost on paths with, no woodchip
03:34 Virus damage to kale, I reckon
04:05 Purple sprouting broccoli, Claret F1 variety, netted against pigeons
04:42 Rhubarb, variety Timperley Early - root taken from my mother's garden
05:09 Woodchip, four years old and sieved
05:42 Red mustard plants with frost damage, and how to clear
06:03 Salad rocket, covered with fleece
06:12 Comparison between green and red-leaved plants in winter
06:29 Leeks with Allium leaf miner, and how to protect them
08:01 Mustard against wireworm, and rye for grain for bread
08:36 Harvested veg stored in the shed, and levels of frost resistance
10:08 The big pond, with black plastic around to kill buttercup (sorry!)
11:05 Beds empty in winter are not bare soil, they are mulched with compost, and woodchip on paths
11:30 Mustard in a bed, killed by frost, with garlic coming through
11:56 Brussels sprouts Brigitte F1
12:38 Corn salad/lamb’s lettuce
13:09 Asparagus, with mustard which will fade soon
13:24 Broad beans, killed by frost - a companion plant for garlic- were sown 22nd September
13:50 The three-strip trial - comparison of harvest totals
15:17 Winter carrots sown on 5th July, fairly late - being left in the ground, and sowing later against root fly
16:02 Winter purslane - good in mild weather and harvested 20th December
16:12 My dig/no dig trial beds and comparison harvest totals
17:37 Adam composting - thin layer of green waste and then 4 month old homemade
18:10 Large polytunnel - mulched in May with 4cm/1.5 in compost - now has two month planted winter salads, Grenoble Red, two types of endive, different mustards, salad rocket, land cress
19:55 A milder leaf - Claytonia/winter purslane - and chervil
20:26 Upcoming videos - and one with Olivier en francais
• Rencontre avec Charles...
Filmed and edited 18th December by Nicola Smith at Homeacres market garden, Somerset, UK, zone 8 climate - temperate oceanic
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