Organic Gardening The Natural No-dig Way

Charles Dowding has been practicing no-dig organic growing for over thirty years. In this new, full-color edition of Organic Gardeninghe shares the wealth of his experience, explaining his approach to soil and plants and revealing the range of techniques that have enabled him to grow healthy and vibrant plants for decades. His success is based on some key principles: No-dig enhances soil structure and encourages healthy growth, especially when soil life is encouraged and multiplied through the addition of good compost and manure. Organic matter is best spread on the surface - just leave it on top and let the worms take it in, aerating the soil as they do so. When starting with weedy soil there is a period of three to twelve months, depending on weed types, when the emphasis is on cleaning and improving the soil. Using a no-dig method you can easily control weeds with just a little hand weeding or hoeing every ten days or so, when weeds are small. Based on this approach and his experience with a system of permanent, slightly raised beds, Organic Gardening: The Natural No-Dig Wayshows you how to grow a delicious variety of fruit and vegetables: what to choose; when to sow, plant and harvest; and how best to avoid pests and diseases without the need to dig.

Charles Dowding has written many books on vegetable growing and contributes regularly to many magazines, including Permaculture, Gardeners’ World, Gardens Illustrated & Grow It!. He gives regular talks, advising gardeners on best practice and runs courses on organic, no-dig gardening. He is a regular guest on radio and TV. A veteran organic grower, he has practised no-dig gardening for years, providing produce for local and London markets, running a small farm in France, then producing salad on surface-composted, undisturbed clay soil, which grew bountiful crops and few weeds. He has run experiments to compare differences in growth between vegetables on dug and undug soil, discovering different patterns of growth in most seasons, with slightly lower yields and more weeds and slugs on the dug beds.

Photo: Stephanie Hafferty

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Foreword by Patrick Holden, CBE, Founder of the Sustainable Food Trust & ex-director of The Soil Association
Introduction

Part 1: Letting Nature Nurture your Garden
1 The art of not digging
2 The basics
3 Deciding what to grow
4 What’s in season?
5 Living with pests
6 Sowing seeds, raising plants
7 Making compost
8 The moon

Part 2: Healthy Harvests
9 Summer salads
10 Winter salads
11 Alliums
12 Choice of roots
13 Savouring summer
14 Brassicas
15 Tomatoes, greenhouse vegetables and unusual vegetables
16 Perennial vegetables
17 Herbs and edible flowers
18 Tree fruit and nuts
19 Soft fruit (berries)

Postscript
Appendix: Dig/no-dig experiment at Lower Farm
Resources
Bibliography
Main index
Index of recipes

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Organic Gardening The Natural No-dig Way

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials