Page 12 - Simply Vegetables Winter 2022/23

No dig better than no gardening
Last spring, I was unable to do my normal digging, sowing and planting due to having my leg in a plaster cast. As you need both hands for two crutches, any kind of outdoor activity looked to
be out of the question. I was advised to take leave from the garden this year. As the days were getting longer, I wanted to see if there was anything else I could do, so I researched no-dig gardening. If it is so easy why isn’t everyone doing it? The best method of research is usually to see how it works in practice. When
I progressed to one crutch, I returned
to the outside world – the garden and the shed. I had seen on the internet that potatoes could be grown successfully under grass cuttings, another suggested method was planting underneath
black polythene. All gardeners are experimenters, so I tried combining both, with 6 inches (15cm) of lawn cuttings covered by black polythene to attract heat and keep in moisture. (More about this later).
I also had a go at starting seeds off indoors and transferring them into two existing small, raised beds, conveniently located right outside my back door. With limited mobility its best to not to try any heavy work outdoors so I decided to concentrate on starting off seeds indoors. I filled toilet rolls with a mix of soil compost and sand, in these I sowed Parsnip seed, which takes a long to germinate and I figured I’d be out of the cast by the time they’d be ready to plant out. I sowed Kale and White Lisbon Onion seeds in coffee cups of the type that come with takeaway
coffees in petrol stations. I sowed the seeds watered them and put the plastic lid on. The lid stops the soil drying out. I left them indoors on the windowsill. The Kale seeds germinated successfully, the Onion seed less so.
I tackled cultivating the raised bed by placing a plank resting across them and turned the soil over while sitting on the plank using a spade. The second bed I
just gave a shallow cultivation using a
hand trowel. I planted out the germinated Parsnips in their toilet rolls directly into
one of the raised beds. A number of these seedlings disappeared due to slugs and birds. The photo taken on 16th August shows the surviving Parsnips growing nicely. The second photo is from13th October. At this stage the toilet roll has mostly disintegrated. The third photo shows
the harvest. I had a mixed return from these parsnips some producing straight slender stems 16 inches (40cm) long while others displayed very stunted growth. In the bed where I planted out the sprouted Parsnip
in toilet rolls, I also sowed a small amount of Carrot seed and Parsnip seed and the Onions.
In the second raised bed, on 14th May
I planted 8 British Queen and 2 Golden Wonder seed potatoes. At the earthing
up stage, I brought in compost which I moulded up around the stems. By 16th August the potatoes were in flower. A bit of wire could keep them safe from sheep but the next threat came from the air as crows began to pick out the potatoes. I stopped this by putting up a string and hanging CDs on it. One disadvantage of a raised bed is that it dries out faster than level ground, however because this was literally right outside my back door, I could easily get the copious amount of water potatoes need out to the bed easily. If it were far away from a water source, it would be very difficult and expensive to put in a network of beds for a large crop and water them. 16th September – Harvest, time Golden Wonders at front, Queens at the back. I got a great return of potatoes from this bed. Especially pleased with the Golden Wonders as I have been disappointed with this variety in the past. I would try this method again, maybe for a few potatoes I would hope to exhibit at a show. I think one of the reasons this raised bed was so productive was because the dry weather reduced the risk of blight.
Raised beds do require some light cultivation, so strictly speaking it’s not a completely no-dig method. Going back to a completely dig free method, the potatoes under polythene, here is how I got along:
I made a few short ‘drills’ of grass cuttings
Grass cuttings covered by plastic
Parsnip 16th August
12 Simply Vegetables
MICHAEL GORDON FNVS