Charles Dowding No Dig Tour 19th May
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- čas přidán 7. 07. 2024
- A walk around my 3000sqm no dig market garden in late spring. All beds receive a mulch of compost once a year and I use no feeds or fertilisers.
I show you some succession plantings, which continue until October, with a range of seasonal vegetables. No dig makes it quick to re-plant and keep beds full throughout the year.
I use no slug pellets, and occasionally see slug and snail damage. Usually where I have allowed too much habitat nearby, as you see. Edges are a pest and weed issue issue.
A different problem happened in the poly tunnel, where I had overwatered small cucumber plants. I replant in the video, and explain how it's best to underwater cucumber and melon plants when they are small.
Spring has been a little warmer than usual. Even before summer, broad beans and beetroot are coming ready, plus I show you how we harvest wild rocket, and how to judge the readiness of early cabbage.
Then we look at slow growth of potatoes, caused by nutrient loss resulting from a thick layer of woodchip on the soil.
I give you hints for timing your garlic and potato harvests, and ideas for interplanting. We finish at the dig - no dig trial beds where some differences are intriguingly strong. Harvests so far are 8.39kg from the dig bed, and 10.56kg from the no dig bed, same compost used.
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00:00 Introduction
00:18 A look at the Small Garden, and a prime habitat for slugs - I show you some damage to cabbage plants
00:31 A look at some lettuce, and more slug damage, and I give some tips on how to keep them at bay
02:49 Some info on Homeacres course vacancies
02:56 I talk about succession plantings/croppings - French beans after purple sprouting broccoli
03:21 A look inside the polytunnel, and some overwatered cucumbers!
03:45 I show you how to transplant a cordon cucumber with string under the rootball
04:43 I show you the tomatoes, and I talk about side-shooting
05:52 Many flowers!
05:46 Another example of succession - climbing beans after broccoli
06:07 A look at the apple trees, and mulch used
06:35 I explain my method for mulching with cardboard after planting lupins
07:09 Using wood chip as mulch, and also topsoil
07:38 I show you broad bean plants, and give some ideas of readiness for harvest
08:09 A look at beetroot, and I explain how we deal with bindweed
09:07 I demonstrate how to harvest wild rocket
10:49 I show you cabbage plants of different varieties and explain how to tell when they are ready
12:01 A look at a bed of potatoes being used for a trial of wood chip
12:42 I show you asparagus plantings from two different suppliers, and demonstrate transplanting one I have sowed
15:04 I show you some flowers, then a bed of calabrese, and explain removing lower leaves to help prevent against slug damage
16:06 Another bed of potatoes, second earlies, and more pest damage - slugs and wood lice
17:13 More about slugs and their habitat, and I show you more damage
18:22 I show you covers against insects over a newly transplanted cabbage bed
19:20 A look at the pond…
20:31…and the bees
21:28 I show you two types of cropping peas
21:58 I show you garlic plants, and some rust on the leaves, and explain readiness for harvest
23:12 A look at another bed of potatoes, and I show you how you know when they are ready, and what to do if you see them near the surface
24:12 A look at spinach, soon to finish
24:25 I show you an example of interplanting, and explain the benefits of this method
25:20 Lastly, a look at my dig/no dig trial beds, and some more examples of interplanting
See this video for more on pest prevention: • Pest prevention - redu...
More details on my dig/no dig trial beds on this page of my website: charlesdowding.co.uk/category...
Filmed at Homeacres 19th May 2022 by Nicola Smith, Somerset UK with maritime temperate climate, zone 8 but with cool summers.
Page edits Anna Maskell. Thumbnail photo 18th May 2022 by Charles Dowding.
My jade bracelet is made by Julia joodaboo.com
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/ @charlesdowding1nodig - Jak na to + styl
There’s something about Charles’ speech cadence combined with his kindness that’s so enjoyable to observe and learn from. His gardening and teaching is all art in motion. Thank you Charles
Well thankyou Ivan.
I wasn’t going to do a veggie garden this year as I’m recovering from spinal fusion surgery I recently had but, alas, I was yearning for my garden! To remedy the situation I’m having a local college student help me do the heavy lifting. Todays task was topping off the rows with mushroom compost. As I explained the method to the madness with no dig, I realized I enjoyed passing on this knowledge to a younger generation. My summer just went from grim, boring, staring at an empty garden to sunny, educational and sharing in the joy of gardening with someone else. Thanks for all you do in passing on your wealth of knowledge Charles and know that it is paid forward.
How lovely Jackie and that sounds energising! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the tour mate! I'm in year 2 of no dig and I need to stop comparing my growth rate to yours. I'm a bit behind but I need quite a few more years to catch up to your soil quality! I am brewing a compost tea right now to try and boost things along 🤞
You can do it I'm sure.
Also it's more than fertility. I call energy farming and it's in the last chapter of my Skills book. It's esoteric stuff and common sense. I wondering whether to be brave and make a video about it.
@@CharlesDowding1nodig Please do 🙏
@@CharlesDowding1nodig I'd love to see that! Side note: I had a complete infestation of aphids in year one...this year NONE 😃 Garden is full of predator insects and birds 🥰
Nice1..☺🇦🇺
@@CharlesDowding1nodig Please be brave Charles! I would so love to hear your views about this!
A tour of homeacres on a Saturday morning is just what the doctor ordered!!! Huzzah
Your farm is beautiful. There is such a charm to it from the structures you have, how they’re placed, and the different heights of all the plantings. All the healthy growth without pesticides is absolutely amazing. Also no random tools and clutter anywhere is a big plus too. 😍😍
Thanks so much :)
Charles, your looking good sir! I think your looking brilliant in the rose colored shirt, bracelet and the goatee! Must be charming a young lady nearby! Best of health to you!
Thanks Sally, just the plants 😀
Thanks for the tour.
Absolutely lovely.
Love all your work, thank you 😊
I just love your tours, thank you for sharing! It’s very inspiring.
i love to go back to your old tour video's and select one of a few weeks ahead of current time, great to see whats still possible to sow
That is a great tip!
👏👏👏maravillosa huerta...gracias Charles por compartir 💚💚💚
Beautiful NoDig garden. Thank you Charles for sharing your work.
Beautiful garden 👍❤️ God bless you and your family 💕🙏🤗
Thanks so much 💚
Always a pleasure to see a new video, especially a nice long tour video! Thank you!
Absolutely love your tours!! Thank you! 😎
So glad!
Loved the tour!!! Hello from Michigan ❤️
Thank you for another tour.😀😀😀🇦🇺
Saludos señor dowding ♥️
enjoyable video charles
Love your tours Charles…Thank you very much!
You are very welcome
I love these garden tours. Your comments give me confidence and more advice each time.
Excellent!!
Thank you for sharing, love to learn step by step from you and all people with soo important lessons and all the information makes the different. Bless you 🌱
Great thanks!
świetny materiał pouczający ale świetnie tez Pan wygląda w tych kolorach. Brawo
Dziękuję bardzo Dorota
Большое спасибо за прекрасное видео, сэр Чарльз!👍 Рада, что вы нашли отличное решение по укреплению дна вашего пруда! Грядки без перекапывания заметно отличаются от перекопаных, особенно по росту лука😃. Будем ждать новых прогулок по вашему замечательному участку! 💚💚💚
Приятно услышать Olga!
My favourite videos are these tours!
Thanks and more to come!
Thank you so much for the tour Charles and nice camera work from? Really enjoyed the Farm Garden. And big thanks for all the tips.
Glad you enjoyed it
18:30 'These cabbage went in crazy small, but I thought sod it lets get them in' 🤣
‼️
I saw a video where the host took a scrubby (that you would use for dishes), and cut out the middle so it would set on the ground under plants that were susceptible to slug damage. It's like a sharp rug that they would avoid walking on.
Sometimes that works Jamie, but imagine how many you need and the time involved!
One extraordinary garden of one great teacher! Thank you so much for sharing Charles! God Bless!
You are very welcome
Toss them slugs to the chicken run Charles 😁😆
The garden is growing beautifully 👏🏻🥬
Thankyou Karl
Wow, I'm not sure how I missed this one Charles but it was good to see the progress.
Thank you for the walkthrough Charles! I love this time of year in NY. The early plants that went in about a month ago are starting to take hold. Your garden looks very nice!
Thanks and sounds great Ken!
Agreed it’s helpful to learn along with the tour :D Cheers
Thank you for this! Thank you for sharing!
You are welcome
Good evening Charles,
Very relaxing video for lunchtime.
You’re garden is wonderful and your guidance is important for all gardeners in the world!
Thank you for sharing knowhow and joy
Have a good weekend
Many thanks Carl
Ive been enjoying your videos so much and my garden is mostly based on your experience and methods so many thanks
Great to hear Stephen!
It's amazing that no-dig seems to bring broad bean harvests in late May regularly once the plot is established. Can't emphasise enough what great broad bean crops no-dig gardening brings. We will definitely be freezing some this year as eating them all will simply be impossible!
I agree for 2019, 20 and this year, but not 2021. I think it's weather related also, seed quality too
@@CharlesDowding1nodig I tend to save my own seeds for broad beans: I do do a second sowing in February in case over-wintering doesn't work, so hopefully we will be harvesting beans throughout June and into early July.
Thank you for these garden tours! I love long videos from Sir Charles Thanks for all the extra time and effort and for the rehearsal with Mr Slug himself lol!
😂
Enjoy seeing your phenomenal progress. Unusually cold spring here making outdoor planting a challenge. Blessings from Oregon.
Sorry to hear that and thanks Susan
Our family loves watching your channel, and our children even more, although it is difficult for them to understand it due to the language barrier, it would be very helpful if it had subtitles.
Thanks for sharing. We pay for Spanish subtitles, click on gear icon then Subtitles, and hello to your children 💚
I have just finished you audiobook Charles, great listen as always!
Thanks for feedback, great!
CD what a great tour! I always learn from and get so inspired by your videos! ❤ Linda in Vancouver 🇨🇦
So glad Linda
@@CharlesDowding1nodig did you check out Hollis and Nancy's Homestead channel on CZcams? ❤
Fantastic tour, your gardens are always so beautiful and I always learn something new to put into use in my own gardens. Thank you for sharing and have a great week. 🌼Shary🌸
You are so welcome Shary
Absolutely wonderful Charles thank you so much for sharing and thank you so much for everything! Sixth year now no dig, year 2 at the new gardens and absolutely love it! 😁🌱💚🙏✨🍄🐝
Rock on Scott!
@@CharlesDowding1nodig 😁🌱🍄🐝
Hi Just to give a tip concerning the broad beans. If you harvest them yet while their case is tender , it is possible to cook the whole case to eat. Not as flavorsome as the kernels, but it can provide fiber to your diet, as well as the nutrients that are following into the kennels
Thanks for the tip!
It's always great to see that blue dot, Charles Dowding is back. These tours help so much, always look forward to the advice along the way. Thanks again.
💚
Garden is looking well. Hope your pond settles up and holds water.
Hi Charles love your videos I was so pleased to see your pond very interesting I wondered how it was going glad it’s fine lv Irene 😘 xx
Thanks Irene 👍
Another great video Charles. Articulated very well 👌 I can’t wait to see the garden in the flesh soon.
Ah that's nice, thanks
This is so helpful. Thank you. I am following the advice in Skills for Growing and having an exciting spring watching my veg beds grow. Trying to find the space for seedlings I have raised is getting challenging but now I know where to put the celeriac!
😀 great
its my second year and second veg garden. i did no diggin this time. your videos are so helpful. i enjoy listening :) thank u for sharing
Great and thanks
Thank you Charles for this incredible update as always, no dig just makes so much sense, this year i've started to really concentrate of flowers as well, especially if they are pollinator friendly and this morning ive started to notice an increase albeit small in the variety of just a few different pollinators about the plot. So exciting. Have a great week!!!
Lovely to hear Neil, thanks
Neil - I'm like you with flowers/pollinators the past three years. I've discovered that chives, lupins and phacelia are all incredible attractors of bees in spring-time - obviously the phacelia gets harvested (I use it to cover my squash beds in spring before planting out late May), but the chives and wild lupin come back each year. The three I mention are seriously easy to grow from seed (phacelia you just rake it into the top soil and away it goes) too.
Well, as per usual, there goes a despair of the growth- and yield-lag of our own garden, in comparison with this beauty of beauties. But it still is such a soothing consolation to just follow your means and ways of really caring for each aspect of growing. Letting those little seedlings fulfil their potential in almost a harmony - the best evergreen there is. Sending you a very fresh bunch of a exclamatio vulgaris, wraping my many thanks for being able to visually partake in this project from a very far!!!!!!!
So sorry, I don't want to dishearten you! May your plants put on a spurt :)
Thanks, Charles - Homeacres looks great! Hope the bentonite does the pond - we use it in architecture (waterproofing when putting deep basements below water table) so should work -
Thanks Kathleen and that is interesting. It is still leaking, but more slowly!
Hola Charles, para mi es un deleite ver tu hermoso jardín y agradesco toda tu enseñanza, aquí en mi país estamos a fines de otoño con muchas heladas y muy seco, gracias por tu lindo video 🤗🇨🇱🌷
Es un placer, y ¡oh, eso suena frío! ¡Creo que el clima se está enfriando y no calentando!
Thanks, always love a tour!
Oh my, Lupins. One of my most difficult weeds here in Norway beside Creeping Buttercup and Northern Dock in my potatoes which are not No Dig. (yet).
My wife's Great grandfather introduced Lupins to Iceland and now there are veritable fields of it.
Oh wow! I am amazed! Thanks.
Lupins are good food for cattle.
Thank you for the tour of your lovely gardens. I'm trying potatoes for the first time this year, just 20 plants. I'll dedicate one of my tall Birdies raised beds to the potatoes. I have 5 varieties so this should be fun!
Nice start and thanks!
Thank you for the great tour, brother Charles ! Nice to see all the flowers, but how about some more? Many more :) Besides those that you mentioned and the other ones that were visible during the tour.
Especially, flowers that are appropriate for companion planting and very attractive to bees and other pollinators: starflowers (Borago), nasturtiums (Tropaeolum majus), pot marigolds (calendula)
Hola maestro Charles Dowding hay muchos que seguimos su técnica 👉 no picar la tierra con excelentes resultados Gracias por eso 👏👏 es maravilloso todo su cultivo parece pintado de tan hermoso huerto , también tengo problemas con babosas y caracoles 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️ no logro sacarlos 🌱 🤦🏻♀️, me encantó este video , abrazo grande desde 🇦🇷 Argentina
Estoy muy feliz de escuchar esto, gracias. Y siento que las babosas te hayan causado problemas, ¡no sé qué decir!
@@CharlesDowding1nodig muchas gracias por sus palabras pronto le buscaré una solución , abrazo
Phew, you can really see the mild climate in effect in this video! I planted out broad beans on 1st of March. Haven't had much frost actually, but kind of cool nights + very dry. They are only just now flowering, for us its more of a late june harvest rather than late May :)
Inspirational video as always. I can't wait to get more space for a bigger garden!
Yes we are fortunate, but these beans were direct sown mid November. Your winters may be too cold for that
สวยมากคะ
Thank you ! :)
I've had a few problems with pests this year, mice getting into the greenhouse and eating seeds, slugs and now black fly on my broad beans. Its only my first year so am learning alot along the way. Thank you for all the information you share with us 👍
See my video Pest Prevention and good luck czcams.com/video/Nbf7D80j5os/video.html
I can't seem to focus on the plants this time. Your little white bracelet is so beautiful 😁😁
Dream garden as always, Charles. Thanks for sharing the updates.
How nice, it's jade and see more goodies on Julia's website (she's a friend) joodaboo.com
@@CharlesDowding1nodig Thank you for the link. I'll surely look it up 😊 Have a wonderful day.
If only more days in the Homeacres clime looked like that I might be tempted to move to your area, but, alas, I'm not fooled -- I already know your skies are gray more days of the year than my preachers' tresses.
Charles -- I'd love to see your take on some sort of animals. Veg takes more time; animals are much less hassle, but require space. Now that you got a bit more of that, I'd love to see your take on some kind of small, profitable critter (hens and sheep come to mind). I know this might come off a bit like asking a woodworker to try a round of welding/metalworking, but I'm honest in it. As always, very grateful for your contribution here 🙏
P.s. what I mean is, others are out there teaching healthy meat-growing, but on a scale like yours, and with your decades-long commitment to healthy veg-growing, plus the fact that you'd be new to it (I'm assuming), I really thing you of all people are in a unique situation to make a formidable and positive influence. Just my 2-pence. I'll stop now ---- bless you.
Cheers Ted, I appreciate this.
I have done it on a small farm in France in the 1990s where we kept every kind of farm animal. Ultimately my heart was not in it, I am much happier looking after and eating plants, than animals. Plus, I don't find that plants need more time than animals, for a given and healthy amount of food.
Wow so much food! Thanks for talking about pest damage - it can be very dispiriting. Last week it rained hard so i went out to the patch at dusk with a head torch and a bucket and 'harvested' 21 slugs! My husband calls me the slug wrangler.
Thanks Sarah and well done! I'm sure your husband is happy to eat the food which you enable!
Grate combination spicy mustash and you👍cant waith for the video
😀
Merci Charles, pour cette visite de votre domaine tellement beau et choyé, c'est toujours passionnant. Je suis attentivement vos expérimentations ex. plantations dans le broyat, plantation dans le sol travaillé et à côté, un sol non travaillé etc... Ici, sécheresse et très grosses chaleurs, avec limitation des arrosages et nous ne sommes qu'au 20 mai. Bon jardinage.
On n'a pas la sécheresse et très grosses chaleurs, et j'espère que no dig vous aide 💚
May 22, 2022
Froze again last night.
I expect a heat wave when it does warm up!
Really enjoyed this latest video Charles....
Garden on!!!
Fingers crossed Connie.
Hermoso video, muchas gracias por los subtitulos, porque de
esa manera podemos aprender mucho más, gracias y saludos cordiales desde chile!!
Gracias!
Wow that little building in England has big air conditioners! Hah- I mistook your rain barrels for air-con. Best wishes for the growing season
Thanks 👍
Thank you for the video. I acquired an allotment in September and it is looking beautiful. However, your comment amount managing failures and dealing with pests in previous videos is a lesson I am learning the hard way! Lost all my gooseberries to Mr Blackbird!
Like you I love to see my plants but I am having to protect everything!!
Ah damn!! Yes it is easy to feed birds...! Well done otherwise :)
Lovely video Charles. Here in Colorado in the US it's gone from the last month or more being eighties and nineties to snow, yeah. Yes it is after the freeze date. I have layers of fleece on and hoping my garden is going to do OK. Hagd.
Oh dear Lisa, that is a huge challenge and I wish you well over the next night or two, not to mention the days!
@@CharlesDowding1nodig tyvm!
Thankyou for the tour. I'm interested in hearing about the rye and seeing how the pond works out. I do a lot of growing in lasagne beds, the slugs generally eat the lasagne instead to the plants.
Nice
in the future, you can use wild rocket stalks to make a delicious soup!
Thanks Guus
I just discovered slugs in my garden here in Fl. which was quite a shock, seeing that my poor excuse for soil, getting better, thanks to your advice and as much compost as I can make etc. refuses to hold water, I didn't even know we had slugs here.
Best of luck!
Here is southern Tasmanian, I’ve just finished converting another patch of grass in our backyard to a raised no dig bed - roughly 10m x 1.2m. A layer of bicycle box cardboard - nice and big and thick! - followed by very old decomposed wood chip and alpaca poo, topped with about 10cm of, sadly, very poor quality brought in veggie bed soil. But I bought 7 cubic metres and I need to use it up. 🤷🏼♀️ I’m hoping the decomposed wood chip - which was full of worms and mycelium - along with the alpaca poo and a good dousing with diluted worm wee will inoculate and improve the poor soil.
Anyway, it’s and experiment and I’ll probably just fill it with not very hungry alliums - mostly onions - this first season. It’s late autumn here so about to go allium crazy.
Thanks for all your wonderful, informative videos.
Nice to see this Melissa, great job.
Your decomposed wood chip sounds excellent. I would use some on top as well as underneath, in fact more on top.
You just hit on another thing i am getting ready to try, Thank you!! I have found that some brands of Oil Dry are made from that clay, thinking of using it to help hold water in my soil and Iv'e read that it seems to be beneficial to plants also, more so than cat litter, which is another form of granulated clay Iv'e been adding for the same reason.
Yes Clive, it could definitely help your soil to hold moisture
Wow, your garden is exploding with food already!!!
It sure is!
Прекрасный краствый сад. Большое удовольствие смотреть...
Thanks so much!
I'm also finding alot of woodlouse and slug damage this year compared to last year thankfully Mr Lissie (hedgehog) named by my 6 year old son has appeared again and work's hard side by side with me in the garden
How wonderful!
Ah..Saturday morning chill in the garden :) here in Sweden we’re getting a week or so of rain with a touch of heat. The green canopies are pushing through
Sounds great!
Lovely video, Charles!
(the cabbage looks like Berns - the leaves of Eersteling and Filderkraut are more pointed)
Thanks, it's Nagels Fruhweiss
@@CharlesDowding1nodig - ah, brilliant! Would be interested to know how happy you are with it. Haven‘t tried that particular one before.
Hi Charles. Love your videos, I find them comforting and exciting at the same time.
The alium by a brocollibed with those hanging flowers is nectaroscordum Siculum, I think. Loosely translated from Dutch as a Bulgarian Onion. Probably someone has already posted this, (but more then 200 comments is a lot to read.)
Greetings from the Netherlands!
Glad you like the videos Iilke.
You are right that two people posted that already and you all agree with each other!
I often drop sacrificial leaves about as a trap for slugs, find this works quite well - lettuce, rhubarb kale and cabbage any large leaves the the hens get them
I can vouch for what you say around 18:12 about narrow vs wider beds. In the past I used 2.5 ft wide beds, following the "market gardening" approach. At my new place I opted for the 4 foot beds, and I really enjoy them much more. Im not putting down the former approach at all, in fact I learned quite a bit from it about healthy growing. But the wider beds are certainly more efficient. Can add that to the less edge less slug reasoning.
Fascinating to hear of your comparison, thanks for sharing Ted
The Sir David Attenborough of gardening!
I have really enjoyed watching your videos and reading your books over the past 4 years. I am really enjoying growing this year especially because my nearly 3 year old has actually been helping me in the garden. This season is off to a great start for me and i hope it is the same for everyone else!
we alwqays put the cucumbers on a little mound of soil so that it would have drainage.
Dzięki pozdrawiam 👍💚♥️
Pests are avoidable though. The method is easy, but applying it for all your veggies is hard. If you look at this fascinating web conference : "Why insects do not (and cannot) attack healthy plants | Dr. Thomas Dykstra" on John Kempf's channel, you'll understand that insects only come if your plant is weak. And that weakness usually comes from issues in your soil, which means issues in your gardening methods. Plant health is easy : it's mostly diversity. If you got diverse plant families in the garden, they connect through mycorrhizae (unless you use mineral fertilizers like ammonia, urine, nitrates, rock dust etc... in that case they can't form a rhizosphere anymore) and exchange nutrients. Some plants are good at phosphorus, some at nitrogen. And they exchange it through fungi, the conductors of this little orchestra. But when we do a veggie patch, we often do big blocks of the same thing. We also rarely have diverse hedges or flower beds right next to them, or even trees. And we also grow under a greenhouse, which often is made out of a UV filtering material. And plants need those UVs to be healthy. You can easily measure if your plant are healthy with the leaf Brix. Not the fruit or root brix, the leaf Brix, so you can compare plant to plant. If you got less than 12, Thomas Dykstra proved you'll likely have insects attacking your plants. It's great coz it's quite neat : all plants seem healthy above 12 and won't get attacked. If it's really bad, around 6, you'll have sucking insects like aphids attacking. This is why you often see aphids on fava beans at the end of their production : they're about to die, so aphids attack. Sometimes it's because it's fragile hybrids, like those weird roses you can buy, that'll always get attacked it seems, because they've been selected for flowers rather than health. And often aphids attack because of nitrogen excess, through fertilizing (I suspect it's the same with slugs but Thomas doesn't mention them). So any time you got an insect coming, you should ask yourself "what did I do wrong ? Not enough diversity here ? Too much manure ? Not enough light ? Too densely planted ? Not enough water ? Too much ? Is my soil too poor ? Too compacted ?" and then it becomes so much simpler... Coz instead of fighting the symptom (the insect attacking), you're fighting the cause (not providing the right growing conditions for your plant).
For the life of me I can't seem to get cabbage to grow in my gardens in Salt Lake City, Utah. every year I change my tactic and it still fails. This year I planted 9 in a 4x4ft plot and 7 died within a few weeks. The last two are now getting attacked hard by something. I've got a shade cloth over the last two right now but they still seem to struggle. It's planted in a 50/50 mix of homemade compost that has been amazing for my other plants and top soil.
I would try something radical such as Redmond sea salt which I'm experimenting with here. It sounds like something missing, not a big thing but like a 'key' which will unlock the fertility for your cabbage
Thank you for another great tour. Nice to see the new area coming along. In the tomato video you mentioned, please also include how to save seed for tomatoes. Getting a good understanding of the fermentation process would be fantastic. I have seeds of a heirloom variety Burmese sour (mentioned in this years Gardners World) from Adam Alexander (theseeddetective) and would like to continue the work and share the seeds. Will post you some to try if I am successful 🙂
Great suggestion and we have this in mind. It's easy and I'm sure you will succeed, thanks for the offer
Thoroughly enjoyed the video. Very poor pollination on my first broad beans, practically no crop, though I did see bees working them, from the front. I hope to see your garlic crop in a few weeks, mine have had rust even being inside. Some years ago I lost my whole outside garlic crop, to rust. have just lost 3 plants from small bed of potatoes, some kind of fungal rot.
Sorry to hear that and the rust is getting bad now on outside garlic. Beans' poor pollination can be from low temperatures
the main thing i learned from this video...I need a bigger yard...cheers
😂 good luck
Very interesting tour - learnt a lot! PS - The colour of your shirt - that's your colour.
Thank you Alison and that is lovely feedback, I need to get more red clothes!
I'd love to send you my first year no dig garden tour from The Lone Star State aka Texas. It was off to a slow start but things are coming alive. You're very inspiring sir. :)
Sounds great but my time is too limited :)
If you harvest broad beans small, you actually can have a lot to eat - because you can eat them pod and all at that stage. I like to use both types of harvest for variety - small as green beans, and large as beans beans.
Your gardens look lovely, Charles! Always enjoy your informative and honest videos. Every season brings some new challenges as well as pleasant surprises. These dynamics make gardening so fascinating and rewarding! I really appreciate you showing how you deal with the various challenges in your garden. It's both helpful and encouraging. I wanted to ask if you have any experience and advice to deal with ants in the garden. Every spring I notice lots of small black ants which make their nests throughout my garden. I would have no qualms with them if it wasn't for the issues they are causing. The biggest being their appetite for my brassica plants. They will eat the tender stems of various young brassica plants which girdles them and stunts their growth or kills them. I have tried DE and ant traps with limited success. I think that because I don't disturb my soil through cultivation, it creates an inviting environment for them, especially where the ground is mulched with non-decomposed organic matter like wood chips. If you have any advice, it would be much appreciated! Thanks and best wishes for the rest of the growing season!
Hi Jon and thanks.
Difficult! If they are that bad maybe you should use less woodchip.
I have used a solution of garlic and chilli in water when they got really bad once, but I think that it's not good for other beneficial soil organisms!