My No-Dig experiment

[Pancho]

Prompted by my musings and moans on another thread, I've decided to test this no-dig lark. I have no real expectations of success and, according to the literature, should have started in the Autumn, anyway.

But given that I have an unattended, overgrown bed going to waste - which, for control purposes, happens to be adjacent to my operational conventional beds - there's nothing to lose, really.

So this weekend, I:

1. Mowed a years worth of weed growth off. Inc brambles. Just ran mower over the top.

2. Laid down two bike boxes over the top (covers about half of the bed in total).

3. Covered bed (bike boxed and uncovered areas) in about 5 to 10 centimetres of leaf mould/rotted lawn cuttings.

If nothing else, this looks cosmetically better than an overgrown bed.

Next task will be to consolidated the leaf mould, add more leaf mould and add a layer of soil and compost.

[Ian H]

Have you tried hardcore and cement?

Seriously - deep rooted stuff such as brambles are best dug out to begin with. It is permissable to 'ease' the soil, by sticking in a fork and pulling gently to break the crust.

[Tail End Charlie]

No dig works if you get rid of the perennial weeds first. I did this last year on part of my plot. After digging over covered it with cardboard and then covered that with manure. Come the autumn the cardbaord had totally disappeared.

[Pancho]

Re: brambles and perennial weeds - whichever website it was that I am using as the Truth reckoned I could ignore such sensible stages as digging out brambles etc. So, in the name of science, I am testing the fundamentalist version of this cult: mow, apply mulch, wait, plant, harvest, repeat.

Am discovering that you need to source an awful lot of mulch. I don't have a problem laying my hands on it (there is a near infinite supply of leaf mould for me to draw on) but the shovelling and barrowing may kill me. It's how I spent my day today.

[Tail End Charlie]

"infinite supply of leaf mould" - you lucky b****r

[Si]

"infinite supply of leaf mould" - you lucky b****r

Yep, it's not like it grows on trees! 

[Ian H]

Fundamentalism works best when diluted to taste with common-sense.

[Pancho]

The tag "no-dig" is a lie.

I've spent a lot of hours recently digging my no-dig patch. Or rather, digging leaf mould from under the trees to spread on the patch. I'm supposed to get it to about six inches deep. That's an awful lot of wheelbarrow loads.

[Si]

the experiment sounds a little like my paths.

I took two approaches:

1. week kill and dig out the weeds, cover with thick card board or complete news papers, cover with leaf mound mulch or bark chipping mulch.

2. hack down the weeds,  cover with thick card board or complete news papers, cover with leaf mound mulch or bark chipping mulch.

1. worked very well in stopping the weeds returning - over a year later and the only weeds I have are those that have blown in and rooted into the top surface - perennials all gone.

2. was less successful - for the most part it remained clear, but the perennials (couch mainly) forced it's ways up the sides, and on redigging the whole lot there was a bit of a network of roots below.  In your case I'd guess that this would be les of a problem as you are doing beds rather than paths so more of the area is further from the edge, if you follow my drift.