How to No Dig Garden with Morag Gamble and Charles Dowding!

Tour of Charles Dowding's NO DIG GARDEN at Homeacres, ENGLAND.

MORAG'S NO-DIG GARDENING FILM

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BOOKS
There are so many valuable insights and advice shared here as Morag walks and talks with both Charles and Steph .They co-authored the award-winning book, 'No-dig Organic Home and Garden: Grow, Cook, Use & Store your Harvest.

Steph Hafferty is a kitchen gardener who uses permaculture, no-dig and organic methods. She is a plant-based cook, award winning author, food and gardening writer, small scale homesteader and mum of three. Her more recent book is The Creative Kitchen

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[MoragGambleOurPermacultureLife]

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[NMQhq]

Morag's video helped me take 1800' of bare compacted clay in March to a fully working garden, now in July. Onions, carrots, radishes, strawberries, cabbages, lettuces, summer & winter squash, basil & many other herbs, collards, watermelons, Korean melons, bush beans, Somali pole beans, potatoes, okra, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, perennial and annual flowers for the pollinators, and almost 40 tomatoes! Harvesting began in May.
My garden plot is in Louisville's refugee community garden, and all the other plots around me drain into mine. The no-dig method, which I found so quick and easy to do even through the rock-hard soil, lifted the top of the bed up at least 4-5" but often more, and the numerous thunderstorms we've had have left the garden with two inches of water. But the beds float happily up, unconcerned...except that they love the combination of water and food. The cabbages in particular were ecstatic.
I have all my awful weeds back from two years ago. I'd had the plots for five or six years and really made no headway. As Steph said, the key was to make it manageable. Last spring I poured 20 gallons of vinegar and a bit of dishsoap all over the garden weeds and covered it with black visqueen. (I was a bit concerned that worms & microorganisms might take a hit, but they seem fine now.) I worked out of boxes full of compost. It worked well.

[jethrojackson]

This is Christmas all over again...Charles and Morag together! Marvellous!

[priayief]

When I first heard of the "no dig" approach many years ago, my first reaction was that it was too good to be true (like so much gardening advice you typically see on YouTube).

I decided to do my own field trial using two raised beds - one I dug up each fall and the other no dig. I planted identical plants in each of these beds. Taking place over two seasons, the first year I sowed tomatoes and peppers, the second year I planted things like radish, lettuce, beets, carrots and beans.

While I didn't notice a huge difference between the beds, the no dig bed seemed to produce healthier, more vigorous plants and, curiously, seemed to require less water.

For me, this was a significant improvement if only for the fact that it saved me a lot of effort by not digging up my beds at the end of every season. I'm convinced. Now, all my beds are no dig.

Cheers and thanks for posting.

[katherandefy]

I could literally look at Charles’ garden all day long.

[lukasfischer]

Brilliant! Charles is such a gentle human.

I felt so good watching this. Three inspired, knowledgeable, and humble gardeners connecting and sharing their experiences. Love it.

[PanJasnovidec]

Thanks very much, Morag, Steph and Charles. Another very informative video. Interesting to hear Charles say (at 42'20) that making his own potting compost hadn't worked very well, and the professionals know what they're doing. I'm not an expert, but had good success last spring multi-sowing beetroot seeds in modules into my own compost, made of about 40% (aminopyralid-free) horse manure, 40% top growth of (mostly) nettles, but also some dock, 10% comfrey, 10% assorted kitchen and garden waste composted over 6 to 8 months. A traditional gardener told me the seedlings would "burn" because the nitrogen level would be too high. They all thrived. I have no control comparison with any bought-in potting compost, but was really happy with my germination rates and harvest.

[susisjardin]

Having resided in Australia and the UK, now New Zealand, it’s been such a pleasure to watch and listen to you both, Morag and Charles, and such a bonus with Steph’s talented presence! Thank you to the three of you - keep up the great work teaching us lesser mortals☺️ May you be blessed as you bless your subscribers!

[maryrobison]

So humble...he's just so knowledgeable and has a good memory as well and lovely climate for gardening. Those he teaches are very lucky. 😍

[iamchinny]

For everyone worrying about the growth on Charles neck, he did comment on a video last summer that it is a benign growth aka he is not sick thank goodness. Also, lovely to see you here Morag in my neck of the woods so to speak. I heard you mention Martin Crawford! His work seems really exciting and there's not a lot of recent video content featuring his garden on youtube. Also, I will absolutely trade the ability to grow apples in the garden for oranges. I guess that's why they say, the grass is always greener. Thank you for this video, and fantastically educational content. I look forward to your next one.

[jenniferhuefner]

Morag and Charles in the same video!!!! This is wonderful! My two favorite garden teachers!

[MarcellaSmithVegan]

As a Charles Dowding fan, this is a Nice interview, its good to see Charles Dowding having a good interviewer, he seems pleased to talk to you too

[scottyg]

Charles is so modest man, he's such a mass of information but never gives the impression that he knows it all.
For that hard pan under your corn just plant sunflowers in with them as sunflowers have deal tap roots and they will push them down deep and break up the pan. Also they bring up the nutrients from down deep for the plants near the surface. Plants working together.

[shelly]

Two of my favorite permaculture gardeners to follow from around the world. I think it's so neat she traveld to England. I love rutabagas in my red meat stews in place of potatoes and also roasted with other root vegetables. Turnips and cauliflower tend to be my favorites for mash. We live in North Central Washington state, the dryer side of the Cascade mountains. We moved off grid onto property at 3700 foot elevation in deep woods, which is about a 45 minute drive from our last property. There it was hot, dry, arid, sandy loom soil, longer growing season. Here it's cold, foggy, clay soil, a lot more snow and a lot of rock with a shorter growing season. This will be our second spring up here. It's February 23 and we will have snow and ice untill late April early May. I'll have to get creative if I want to attempt tomatoes and peppers again. Last year the packrats destroyed our vegetable garden. My Roma tomatoes we loaded and then the weather changed and started to freeze. Our last frost in our area is around June 1st-10th and our first frost is September 23-30th. That is in town which is at a lower elevation and always 8-10 degrees warmer then we are ontop the mountain.

[lynnrushton]

Great video!

Charles is my Garden hero! I’ve learnt so much from him since I discovered his channel 🌱🌱🌱👌

[mckmn]

It's good when nice people get together. Nice things happen :)
What an absolutely beautiful place. Well done Charles and helpers.

[aysen]

My most favorite two teachers, great to see you together. Two wonderful people, making huge differnce in the world.

[Mahia]

I've been wanting to watch this for a while now. Today, I found the time. So glad to witness this. Outstanding viewing. Thank you so much.

[christianfumueller]

Morag and Charles! Together in a video! How nice is THAT?! Thank you so much for sharing this, it was great fun to watch it! Keep up the good work 🌳♥️