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Charles Dowding is a person who is kind of completely satisfied to trample over his borders. Horticultural consensus is that such wanton disregard for soil will squash the oxygen out of it, suffocating crops. Not on this case, says Dowding, as he walks over a pristine vegetable patch. His “no dig” technique, he claims, has made it sturdy sufficient to resist the stress of his boots.
No dig means simply that, laying a compost mulch yearly on high of your soil then leaving nature to get on with it. No toiling away with a spade, no infinite weeding, raking, hoeing and fiddling about with pesticides and fertilisers. In return, Dowding says he will get extra free time, a more healthy again, more cash within the financial institution, and 10 per cent extra produce than from cultivated land.
Dowding explains all of this in his new ebook No Dig. This can be his thirteenth ebook and, he hopes, the second when the broader public lastly sits up and listens.
Since establishing his first market backyard in Somerset 40 years in the past, Dowding, 63, has been a passionate advocate of the no-dig technique. His work stems from a priority for the atmosphere and a perception that we should always eat a more healthy food plan.
Soil is a vital component of that. In response to the James Hutton Institute, a world scientific analysis organisation based mostly in Scotland, there are extra dwelling issues in a single teaspoon of soil than there are individuals on the planet.
By digging up the soil, say scientists, we’re destroying this treasured micro organism and releasing saved carbon. Beneath our toes exists a posh ecosystem described by American microbiologist Elaine Ingham because the “soil meals net”. On this net, plant roots work together with organisms together with bugs, worms, fungi and micro organism. These organisms feed on natural matter corresponding to compost and assist course of it into vitamins that may be taken up by crops.
As mycorrhizal fungi ship the vitamins and water to the roots, in return crops launch exudates on which the fungi feeds. The exudates include carbon and assist give soil water-retention capability, construction and fertility.
Whereas it’s tough to estimate what number of growers practise no dig, Dowding’s no-dig social media channels have soared in recognition. His YouTube channel has greater than 550,000 subscribers and has had greater than 50mn views. He has greater than 365,000 followers on Instagram.
An extra fillip has been the adoption of no dig by the kitchen backyard on the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
No-dig gardening isn’t Dowding’s invention. A farmer’s son, he turned a vegetarian and an advocate of natural farming whereas studying geography on the College of Cambridge within the late Seventies. His curiosity led him to American Ruth Stout’s “no work” gardening books of the Fifties and to growers corresponding to FC King and Arthur Visitor, who practised no-dig gardening within the Nineteen Forties.
However, no dig goes again additional, says Dr Jill Kowal, honorary analysis affiliate on the comparative fungal biology workforce at Kew. “Native American communities have been utilizing no dig for hundreds of years so it’s not novel,” she says. “It’s simply an consciousness of the below-ground biodiversity that we’re placing in jeopardy.”
Kowal thinks concern about local weather change and meals safety is forcing us all to rethink how we deal with the environment. Digging damages soil’s ecosystem, destroys its construction and releases dangerous carbon dioxide again into the environment, says Kowal. “With digging you’re exposing all of the soil microbes and mycorrhizal fungi to the air temperatures that as we speak will kill them in a second.”
Moreover, there is no such thing as a want so as to add fertilisers to a soil that already supplies its personal meals for crops and that can hurt organisms, says Dowding. “Individuals discuss saving wildlife and the atmosphere however then thrash the soil,” he says.
He dismisses detractors’ arguments that digging is sweet as a result of we’re exposing soil-living ailments corresponding to membership root, a fungal an infection, and slugs to pure predators. “You’re additionally exposing and chopping up earthworms and all the good things. Don’t individuals consider that? I had growers go to who had a great deal of membership root. Then they tried no dig and the membership root has nearly vanished.”
This, he says, is as a result of a well-fed soil is extra in a position to battle off ailments, in the identical means that extra strong crops can fight pests above floor stage. Wholesome soil retains predators and pests in pure stability, so soil pests can be eaten by predators. Slugs can be consumed by beetles, for instance.
Weed management is one other bonus. No dig makes use of layers of cardboard to suppress weeds initially. Robust perennials will drive themselves by it at first however the layers of mulch depriving them of sunshine weakens them and they’re simpler to drag up, says Dowding. He advocates an preliminary 15cm layer of mulch on poor or weedy soil, adopted by an annual top-up of 3cm. Present plots with few weeds want solely use an preliminary 5cm mulch. It sounds lots however you want no extra compost on no-dig beds than you’ll work into cultivated ones, he says.
The proof of Dowding’s phrases lie in his backyard. In his ebook, he describes his work with Jane Thatcher, a soil scientist, to analyse the distinction in natural carbon between his no-dig and cultivated beds. To this point, she has found extra carbon within the no-dig soil at a statistically “extremely vital” fee.
For the previous 10 years he has been operating a cultivated mattress alongside a no-dig one at Homeacres, his current website in Alhampton, Somerset. Each beds develop similar crops in the identical quantity of compost however the no dig yields 10 per cent extra crops general. Dowding says he can consider no circumstances below which no dig will fail. Even poor soil will be improved by laying mulch then letting the micro-organisms do their work. “It’s a technique that correlates with nature,” he says.
Kowal places it extra bluntly: “It’s an absolute no-brainer to me that we should always all be practising no dig.”
“No Dig: Nurture Your Soil to Develop Higher Veg With Much less Effort” by Charles Dowding, printed by DK, September 1, £30
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