Talkback: Digging and not digging
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As much as I love the idea of "No Digging" I still get the feeling that the saying "No such thing as a free lunch" comes into play here. I've never met a gardener yet who can produce enough compost from their own garden to mulch all the beds to a satisfactory depth. That means buying mulch/compost which seems a bit counter productive if growing your own is supposed to be a cost saver. For the very elderly or infirmed I do see that it has its advantages but to me nothing beats a good dig. And who knows, I might even find the odd gold bar while I'm hard at it.
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I have been told by a few plotters that a good way to keep cabbage white butterflies off brassicas is to spray with a lettuce tea leave the lettuce in water for two to three weeks & spray the tea on the brassicas. Has anyone had success with this method? I think I might have a go this year
So for the first winter I set to digging out the weeds from old carpet, lengths of metal pipe/tubing that had rusted at surface level and were hibernating under ground waiting for an unsuspecting finger or two and miles of those evil white roots that you know will sprout into yet another man-eater as soon as you turn your back.
Then I boxed out the first half of the plot. The weather had other ideas. It rained and rained and suddenly the plot looked like the Somme, complete with duck boards. We had a shed donated from the other end of the site, much fun being stopped by the new owners as we humped the shed away, oops!
So come rain or, well, rain actually we struggled with the mud and so we were ready. All the raised beds were sieved and stones etc cast aside.
By gingo we were ready for the spring sow.
The growth and yield was staggering. So I started on the second half, despite the fact that the sun was now making up for time, phew it was hot. The bottom end of our site was blessed with a mature asparagus bed, lucky huh! But the rest of the plot was full of spuds.
So shirt off I dug out the beds to a depth of 500mm lined them with mulched leaves and sieved everything back in. Back breaking and the cause of much derision by other plot holders, but we couldn't keep up with the produce, welcomed by family, friends, colleagues and the like.
So last year was light in produce all across the site but after the addition of 3cu metres of the stables' best fallout (sic) in November '07 not a weed in site, yippeeee! And with the advice of Bob Flowerdew and the old fellas (every plot has them) we will only hoe the little green aliens in except for the nasty ones.
2008 the year of the No-dig. Happy growin'!
I was told last spring that the best way to deter them is to soak about 30 large rhubarb leaves in water and stale wee (2:1) and leave it to brew for 6 weeks. Then you spray the resulting tea (neat) over both the plants and the soil surrounding them. You can repeat spray after every 8 weeks and there's no nasty chemicals involved. Finally, you hold your nose and pour the sludge on the compost heap. It stinks to high heaven so brew in a bin or bucket with a lid!!
My brassicas got eaten by slugs so it didn't deter them but I saw no cabbage whites anywhere nearby (might've been the smell
If your soil is very soft, then its probably got air pockets in it, which will need tramping out. As plant roots wont grow so well if there is too muck space around its roots. However, I hope you have dug out the perennial weeds (and every bit of root) before you rotavated it, otherwise one weed root will multiply into hundreds.