Growing your own - is it worth it?

[MrGongGong]

I always thought that the "no dig" was more to do with "no compaction" rather than not digging at all
Depending on how deep your soil is there can be no point at all in pulling a load of clay up from 2 spits deep and putting it on the top whilst burying the fertile soil underneath a layer of impreginable subsoil.

At our old allotment site we used to see folks come and take over an old plot and spend several days doing the whole double digging thing then have such a bad back as a conseqeunce that they wouldn't come back for another 6 weeks by which time all the stuff they had churned up would have nicely seeded and the plot would be a mass of thistles.

[ardcarp]

I don't think 'no dig' was proposed just to prevent digging up clay subsoil. I think anyone with that problem wanting to grow vegetables would use a lot of compost initially and avoid digging up the clay. 'Double-digging' has, I think, rather gone out of fashion anyway! I'm happy to be described as a 'no-double-dig' person.

[gurnemanz]

I don't think 'no dig' was proposed just to prevent digging up clay subsoil. I think anyone with that problem wanting to grow vegetables would use a lot of compost initially and avoid digging up the clay. 'Double-digging' has, I think, rather gone out of fashion anyway! I'm happy to be described as a 'no-double-dig' person.

In 1978 (still there!) we moved into a newly built house where the garden soil had I assume not been cultivated before, or at least not very recently. The topsoil, such as it was, was a very thin layer and you got into soild clay with one dig of the fork. To obtain a decent growing layer there was no option but to dig up clay and hope it slowly became incorporated. Over the years with digging, adding compost, winter frost, growing stuff and letting the roots do their work I gradually obtained a good, thick enough top layer. I still sometimes dig up solid clumps of clay (and bits of builder's rubble) but for the most part I am now able to keep digging to a minimum.

[gradus]

I always thought that the "no dig" was more to do with "no compaction" rather than not digging at all
Depending on how deep your soil is there can be no point at all in pulling a load of clay up from 2 spits deep and putting it on the top whilst burying the fertile soil underneath a layer of impreginable subsoil.

At our old allotment site we used to see folks come and take over an old plot and spend several days doing the whole double digging thing then have such a bad back as a conseqeunce that they wouldn't come back for another 6 weeks by which time all the stuff they had churned up would have nicely seeded and the plot would be a mass of thistles.

I thought no treading on the beds was the rule but apparently it's the reverse according to Charles Dowding who is the high priest of the no-dig sect.
Whilst I don't question his approach given the evidence of his videos, I am surprised that the GQT experts seldom if ever advocate his methods and I've never heard his name mentioned, I wonder why?

[MrGongGong]

I thought no treading on the beds was the rule but apparently it's the reverse according to Charles Dowding who is the high priest of the no-dig sect.
Whilst I don't question his approach given the evidence of his videos, I am surprised that the GQT experts seldom if ever advocate his methods and I've never heard his name mentioned, I wonder why?

???

I thought one of the reasons to fork over the soil was to stop it getting compacted.
Walking on it is a no-no in our book.... isn't that why lots of folks stand on planks to spread the weight ?

Where we live is very heavy clay so even after heaps of compost and manure etc walking on it makes it into the texture of baked terracotta

[gradus]

???

I thought one of the reasons to fork over the soil was to stop it getting compacted.
Walking on it is a no-no in our book.... isn't that why lots of folks stand on planks to spread the weight ?

Where we live is very heavy clay so even after heaps of compost and manure etc walking on it makes it into the texture of baked terracotta

Our soil is light to med so not the same problem but I'd always understood that with clay one should dig and leave to weather over Winter, as the farmers do. Our local olympic standard allotment field is clay central - not I hasten to add the anarchist collective where mine is located - and is a byword for fabulous crops. They all dig and incorporate mushroom and home-made compost, so the Dowding message has yet to reach some parts of Suffolk.

[gurnemanz]

the plot would be a mass of thistles.

When we moved into our current house over 40 years ago it had been vacant for a couple of years. Previous owners had bought it new and then soon moved abroad. We never met them and the garden and patio were totally overgrown and I remember there was one monster thistle well over 6 foot tall.

[Dave2002]

Getting the timing right ...

Over many years we have put bulbs in the ground over winter to flower in the spring. In some gardens we put the bulbs into the lawn, and this just about worked. The bulbs came out - daffodils, narcissi, tulips - with snowdrops and crocuses earlier of course, and then the grass mowing season would start. We could mow round the bulb planted areas for a while, but eventually there would be little point in protecting the leaves of those plants as they faded away.

Now we are in the frozen north the relative timing of events is different. Bulbs take a lot longer to come out, and the grass starts to flourish a bit later too. However I think the relative timing is now such that there is a considerable overlap between the bulbs and the grass.

As we have adopted technology in the form of a robot mower (really great for most things ....) it is a bit of a nuisance where the bulbs are concerned. It is possible to put boundary wiring into the bulb planted areas, though would add to the cost of the wire, or alternatively to put up physical obstacles round those.

If the wiring approach is adopted, then this gives rise to a few problems/solutions. One way is to have switchable boundary wire -which changes the shape of the mown area. This isn't something which many robot mower manufacturers discuss or recommend, but it is clearly possible, and not really too hard to implement. Another is to abandon the idea of having bulbs in the lawn at all, and simply lay the boundary wire round the borders/beds which would then be needed for the bulbs. However, it can be quite attactive to have the bulb plants growing out of the lawn early in the year.

The other approach, of putting up temporary obstacles, is the one I've currently adopted, with the help of some sleepers (not building a railway station), but it's not ideal. I also have bricks, which I don't really recommend at all. I figured I could use the sleepers for other things during the rest of the year - similarly with the bricks.

However, the remnants of the plants are taking a long while to die down. A brute force approach would be to simply cut them anyway, and let the mover run riot - but I think that's not good for the bulbs in the long run.

I pass these thoughts on, in case anyone else wants to try. I still highly recommend robot mowers though. They do take less time than having to go out to mow the lawn, and round here lawn mowing seems to be a regular pastime. Our mower makes fairly little noise, whereas the signal for the neighbourhood mowing to start seems to be a sunny day, and the presence of people trying to enjoy a quiet morning or afternoon out in the fresh air. Not exactly peaceful, but then, and particularly right now, people don't have any sport to watch, so seem to have taken up lawn mowing as a pastime with even more enthusiasm than usual.

[oddoneout]

The robot mower certainly adds an extra dimension to lawn bulb management, but it has to be said that many people have found the hard way that the concept isn't as straight forward as the pretty pictures and glossy mags would have you believe. Even those who can tolerate the mess as the leaves die down find that when the lawn finally gets cut it looks tatty for quite a while, especially if there isn't adequate rain to get it growing again quickly. Setting up some kind of clearly defined meadow area works better as grasses and early flowers can grow up to hide the dying foliage. The cutting regime will be based on the meadow make-up rather than trying to get the patch back to lawn, with a strimmer being used in many cases. For the purposes of the robot I assume that the signal boundary would be set up to treat such a meadow area in the same way as a border?
I had to get my little battery mower out a couple of days ago as the grasses in the apology for a lawn had started to throw up a forest of flowering stalks although the actual leafy bit hadn't grown. So the grass has been topped, the jungly grass bits strimmed and the edges cut. In view of the current weather situation it could be a while before any of that needs to be done again.

[Dave2002]

Setting up some kind of clearly defined meadow area works better as grasses and early flowers can grow up to hide the dying foliage. The cutting regime will be based on the meadow make-up rather than trying to get the patch back to lawn, with a strimmer being used in many cases.

Our neighbours have already started to mind our own business by asking if we are creating a building site or a set aside.

If we were to deliberately do a meadow style area, that might be better in more far flung parts of the garden. Areas close to neighbours' boundaries might not be welcome, but there is a strip close to the road which might be good for such a wilder patch for next year. That's under some very big oak trees though, some water conditions might not be ideal. Sometimes the water runs down, and thoroughly soaks the lawn area, but water is then quite rapidly taken up by the trees, so the soil then becomes dry and hard.

For the purposes of the robot I assume that the signal boundary would be set up to treat such a meadow area in the same way as a border?

Yes - that could be done. Area switching might still be helpful, though. That would be particularly useful if I adopted the meadow area approach close to the road, unless of course we decided to leave that permanently as "meadow".

I had to get my little battery mower out a couple of days ago as the grasses in the apology for a lawn had started to throw up a forest of flowering stalks although the actual leafy bit hadn't grown. So the grass has been topped, the jungly grass bits strimmed and the edges cut. In view of the current weather situation it could be a while before any of that needs to be done again.

We have two other mowers, besides the robot. One is a small electric one, and with an extension cable, it can reach as far as the particular areas with the bulb planting. Currently I have protected those areas with the sleepers/bricks, but I can tidy them up if needed with the small electric mower.

I could also use the petrol mower, but it is an absolute pain to get started each year. Now that we have the electric robot, it is probably going to be even worse, as it won't get much attention at all. That is a fairly cheap Mountfield model, which I would have difficulty recommending to others. When it works it's quite good, but for maintenance it's dreadful.

[Dave2002]

I am really wondering how long it takes for the leaves of some bulb plants to die down. I've now got most of the front lawn looking tidier, but my barriers to stop the robot mower going over the leaves of bulb plants are still in place in a few areas. I did reduce these significantly recently, and things do look better, but there are still a few leaves of plants in areas where I'd like to let the mower roam. I'll probably give up and let the mower do its thing in a week or so anyway.

What is a reasonable time to allow? 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 6 or 10 weeks? Seems to go on forever.

[gradus]

Allow 6 weeks for bulb leaves to die down has been the standard advice and hasn't changed as far as I know.

[teamsaint]

Just managed to get some chard growing from some rather elderly heritage seeds, they must be at least 5 years old.

[gradus]

Our garden is losing a 30 year old walnut only having about 10% leaf cover and an adjacent Rowan seemingly dead, might be honey fungus which we've lost other plants to and other trees looking a bit off too. A pity that there is no treatment for honey fungus available. Armillatox used to claim that it killed the fungus but the product was long-since banned and I think the company no longer manufactures it.

[cloughie]

Just managed to get some chard growing from some rather elderly heritage seeds, they must be at least 5 years old.

Chard seeds seem to be hardy - ours from probably 10 years ago are growing nicely, unlike the rocket of similar age!